Who doesn’t love sleeping in or the occasional lazy afternoon nap?Īnd soonest our best men with thee do go, Much pleasure then from thee much more must flow, The Speaker diminishes Death’s work from something permanent and undesirable to something temporary and enjoyable.įrom rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, It’s mocking, as we see with the Speaker’s use of “poor Death.” The Speaker tells Death that those it kills do not die and the Speaker further states that Death cannot kill him. The source of the Speaker’s authority derives from a believe that Death cannot execute its core function.
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The Speaker goes into specifics about Death’s limited powers.įor those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrowĭie not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. The first two lines conclude with the Speaker authoritatively telling Death that he is neither mighty nor dreadful. Poets may apostrophize a beloved, the Muses, God or gods, love, time, or any other entity that can’t respond in reality. Often the addressee is a personified abstract quality or inanimate object. In dramatic works and poetry written in or translated into English, such a figure of speech is often introduced by the vocative exclamation, “O”. in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes absent from the scene. The term used to describe a Speaker who addresses someone who cannot respond is called “ Apostrophe.”Īpostrophe ( Greek ἀποστροφή, apostrophé, “turning away” the final e being sounded) is an exclamatory figure of speech. It occurs when a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g.
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Death never replies in the poem, though, so we might better think of this as something of a dressing-down of Death by the Speaker.
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Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ĭeath is immediately personified as the poem is set up as a conversation between the Speaker and Death. The first two lines set the tone for the rest of the poem:ĭeath, be not proud, though some have called thee The rhyme scheme is ABBA, ABBA, CDDC, AE. In this poem by John Donne, the Speaker confronts Death personified and essentially tells Death off.