The Manifestation of Death in Poetry Essay example

Death is a reality that can be interpreted in many ways. Some people fear the possibility of no longer living and others welcome the opportunity for a new life in the afterlife. Many poets have been inspired by death, be it by the approaching death of loved ones or a battle for immortality. Just as each poet is inspired differently, each poem casts a different hue of light on the topic of death giving readers a unique way to look at death. In the poem â€Å"Because I Could Not Stop for Death† Emily Dickinson portrays death as a polite gentleman who ushers people into the afterlife. The poem’s opening lines reveal death to be the driver of a carriage who stopped for the narrator of the poem. The narrator and death travel alone passing by†¦show more content†¦Almost as revisiting youth, the carriage passes a school yard where children play, followed by fields and then finally the poem takes a turn and the narrator tells of the sunset. The poem reflects at this point that the carriage is moving at a very slow pace or possibly even stopped, saying that they did not pass the sun, â€Å"rather—he passed us† (Dickinson line 13). As the sun sets in the poem, the procession comes to its end with the carriage coming to a rest at a house. It is in the last two stanzas that the narrator reveals they are at a grave and it has been many years from the time they died. The narrator describes the home the carriage stopped by as â€Å"A Swelling of the Ground† (Dickinson line 18) and further alludes to the fact the roof was just visible within the ground leading the reader to the realization that the house is actually the grave of the narrator. In the last few lines of the poem the narrator confesses that the entire poem is a memory of a past experience that happened a long time ago but feels as if it was recent. The addition of the last two lines, â€Å"I first surmised the Horses’ Heads/Where toward Eternity† (Dickinson lines 23-24), add the first and only glimmer of surprise, leaving the reader with a jarring disconnect from the previous easy going nature of the poem. Like Dickinson, John Donne shows us a death that is a vehicle to the afterlife in his poem â€Å"Death Be Not Proud†. However, the narrator in â€Å"Death Be Not Proud† isShow MoreRelatedEssay on The Death and Transfiguration of Poetry897 Words   |  4 PagesHonors September 30, 2012 The Death and Transfiguration of Poetry One of the greatest poetic minds of the 20th Century once said, â€Å"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. 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