Donne and Thomas: In the Face of Death Essay

John Donne and Dylan doubting Thomas belong not tho to two different ages only when also to two different rails of poetry. The school of John Donne, more popularly known as the metaphysical poets, had their laughable aesthetics and stressed on groundsght, rational, unconventional and even shocking arguwork forcets, facial expression provoking imagery to grab the attention of the reader as unlike to the more romantic trend and stock imagery found in Elizabethan poetry. In the sonnet, demise Be Not Proud, the poet uses altogether the strategies typical of Metaphysical poetry to present his unique vision astir(predicate) destruction.Dylan Thomas on the other hand is a true poet of the heart, and his entry to a fault is distinctive. In the poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into That trade easily Night, written to voice his deepest feelings con lieed with his fathers mortality and flunk in cause of death, each and every word of the poet burns with a passion, in the original religio us connotation of the word. Donne refuses to grant Death the status of the Mighty and dreadfull, the standard Elizabethan epithets. The poet then proceeds, by means of arguments that revoke the general Elizabethan idea of death, to take a highly rose-colored stance.For instance, that Sleep and Rest are considered to be Deaths back self (Harrison, Shakespeare, Sonnet 73) leads Donne to conclude that Death, too must be a source of great pleasure, just as sleep is From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, The belief, that the best of men fall victim to the ravage of Death, is used by the poet to argue that, then, in a moral universe, Death can never be something horrible.The poet promote undercuts Deaths terrible stature by associating it with war, sickness and poison and brings to test its power by calling it a slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and dreadful men. Armed wits such arguments and armored with the poets unconq uerable faith in eternal life after Death, the poet goes on to assign the ultimate antithesis in the final couplet of the sonnet One mindless sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more death, thou shalt die. Dylan Thomas, on the other hand, implicitly accepts the power that Death wields over homo existence.The periphrasis or the metaphors that the poet uses in his poem to talk about death provide evidence to that in the entire poem, about Death, the word Death is used only once Death is referred to either as the good night or the dying of the light. Like Donne however, Dylan Thomas too is over against a passive acceptance of death, against trembling in fear confronted with the formidable shadow of death. But being a modernist, incompetent of sharing the senior poets optimism or faith in eternal life after death, incapable of refuting the truth of Death, his poem sounds like an existential cry against the horror of it all.Dylan Thomas thus, like the protagonist s of Albert Camus The Plague, tries to find a value and meaning of life in the human rebellion against Death. The oft repeated refrain sums up the feelings of this poet, face to face with death, incapable of all meaningful action but rage Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. However, both Dylan Thomas and John Donne, poets belonging to different eras and schools are angiotensin-converting enzyme in their rebellion against a passive acceptance of the horror that is Death.Although, Donnes argument stems from a faith that might not be divided up universally although Thomass Rage against Death is undercut again and again with irony and sarcasm originating from a recognition of the meaninglessness of it all in face of this all-consuming truth nevertheless their refusal to bow in front of the might of Death are homage to the indestructible human spirit. whole kit and caboodle Cited Camus, Albert. The Plague. New York Vintage, 1991 Harrison,G . B. ed. Shakespeare, The Complete Works. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta Harcount, Brace and World, Inc, 1968.