| THE glories of our blood and state | |
| Are shadows, not substantial things; | |
| There is no armour against fate; | |
| Death lays his icy hand on kings: | |
| Sceptre and crown | 5 |
| Must tumble down, | |
| And in the dust be equal made | |
| With the poor crooked scythe and spade. | |
| Some men with swords may reap the field, | |
| And plant fresh laurels where they kill; | 10 |
| But their strong nerves at last must yield— | |
| They tame but one another still: | |
| Early or late | |
| They stoop to fate, | |
| And must give up their murmuring breath | 15 |
| When they, pale captives, creep to death. | |
| The garlands wither on your brow: | |
| Then boast no more your mighty deeds; | |
| Upon Death's purple altar now | |
| See where the victor-victim bleeds. | 20 |
| Your heads must come | |
| To the cold tomb: | |
| Only the actions of the just | |
| Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust. |
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Death the Leveller (J. Shirley, 1596-1666)
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i agree more with John Donne's "Death be not proud" than with this one...but they are both very interesting poems. i enjoyed doing the comparison
ReplyDeletei like the way, the same thing (death) can be interpreted so differently by different poets based on their beliefs. John Donne was known for his religious poems so we can say he based his poetry on his beliefs to some extent. "Death be not proud" can be seen as a Biblical allusion as the entire poem sums up 1 Corinthians 15:55; which talks about the defeat of death.
ReplyDeletehowever, in J. Shirley's "Death the leveller", we see a totally different representation of death. in this poem, death is seen as all- powerful and as such, we as humans, are subordinate to death. however, this should not be the case. i also agree more with John Donne's "Death be not proud" like Hannah...but the beauty of poetry is though you may agree more with one poem than another, you cannot downplay the significance of the other poem. they are both equally captivating; and i guess our beliefs are what draws us to either one of them in the end.
In comparism with the two poems"Death the leveller" by J.Shirley,death is made powerful and gives no important recognition to anybody as stated in the poem"there is no armour against fate"also,in this poem death is a king and a monarch is regarded as a slave.However,with the poem "Death be not proud" by John Donne,death is made powerless and as such has no control over kings.Death is mocked in several ways and is considered weak as stated in the poem thou think'st thou overthrow,die not,poore death.
ReplyDeleteWith John Donne's "Death be not proud", the writer uses some words whose meaning does not permit it to be used in the context but he used them anyway. some of the words are as follows:
ReplyDelete1. overthrow, which means to take the position of someone by force.
2. slave, which can also mean a servant.The 9th line says, that 'thou art slave to fate' (death), but in real terms, death is not a slave to anything because it is only God who can control death.
3. swell'st, which means, for something to increase in size. Death is a spirit and can not be increased or decreased.
The theme for "death be not proud" is death is not as mighty and dreadful as people make it seem.
The theme for "Death, the leveller" is death is no repector of persons.
In contrast, both poems, (death, be not proud and death the leveller)all talk about death. In the poem 'death be not proud', it is a biblical allusion and death is labelled powerless and has no control over anyone, neither can it determine the fate of anyone. It has no victory, sting or authority as people see it, but it is rather seen as a slave,poppy and charms are also said to have better strokes than death. The last two lines talks about death being no more, as can be read in Revelations 22:5, there will be no more death and 'death shalt die'. But 'death the leveller' is the exact opposite of death be not proud. Here, death is seen as superior over every one and all things, not even the arms of strong men can save them, they have to surrender to death. Death takes anyone at will and no one has a say.
I totally agree with John Donne, because his poem is purely on biblical grounds, but it is very interesting to have opposite opinions about a particular term. Both writers are very creative.
Godfred is my name. Maria what do you mean by death can increased or decreased. kindly explain
ReplyDeleteGod in his own wisdom knows that life indeed will vary from person to person, generation to generation, but no matter how you lived it,you are destined to die. Death is inevitable and is no respecter of person-whether rich or poor, white or black and in the clay be equally made. The glories and achievement of earthly things are just temporal.Also, the personae persistently used words to depict the mightiness of death. For instance,line 3,6,15,21 are all showing the might of death.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing which could be done to pre-empt fate, death.The use of language style and diction makes the poem easy to aprehend.
It is very interesting to note how John Shirley present another perspective of death to the audience. He does so by saying that death makes all equal. He further states that at death no one is mightier than the other.I think what he says about death is really true because at death no one is superior to the other. If this is so,then it means that death is indeed a leveler.I am interested in the way he uses some of the literary devices like metaphor, personification and among others to achieve his purpose.i think is a nice poem because we all shall die one day and become equal in spite of our status whiles on this planet
ReplyDelete@ chez005, i wrote that death cannot be increased or decreased because it is a spirit.
ReplyDeleteIn 'Death be not Proud' by John Donne........... the poet who is a religious man believes that death is not the end of life. He believes that on judgement day all the dead will rise and death will have no option than to die.....He personifies death as though it were human. John scolds that by instructing Death that it shouldnt be proud. The way John Donne talks about death is way different from J. Shirleys..in Death the leveller we are made to believe that daeth is no respecter of persons
ReplyDelete“Death the leveller” written by J.Shirley is about the fact that nobody is above death and that everyone will die. It doesn’t matter your status in life, if the time comes for you to die, you will surely die whereas” Death be not proud” written by John Donne talks about the fact that death should not be proud because it has no power over man. The two poems are interesting and I enjoyed it because the two poets talk about death as a subject matter in two different contrasting ways.
ReplyDeleteaccording to the poet, j. shirley, death is no respecter of persons. even prominent people such as kings who gives orders and their subjects obey because of their status will all die.
ReplyDeletethere is no weapon against death. this can be linked to king odewale in "the gods are not to blame" who tried to fight against his fate eventually got blind.
from the poem, both the old and the young will die likewise the rich and the poor in the society. every individual succumbs to death's authority.
the writer goes on to compare the deeds of the righteous and the wicked. even though both will die, the deeds of the wicked are buried together with them. on the hand, the deeds of the righteous still linger in the memories of many generations after them though dead.
biblically, humans cannot stop death but GOD does. he is able to raise the death by his mighty power.an example is christ
Death is made powerful and gives no important recognition to anybody as stated in the poem Death the Leveller written by J. Shirley, (1596-1666) "there is no Armour against fate"also,in this poem death is made a king and a monarch is regarded as a slave.death is no respecter of persons. the well to do people such as kings who gives orders and their subjects obey because of their status will all die.
ReplyDeletei agree with J. Shirley on how he uses the word 'death' in both poems giving different meaning to how one should see 'death'
Death the Leveller by James Shirley and Death be not proud by John Donne are both poems that talk about death. They both personify death. However they are quite different. Whilst the former sees death as all powerful and the latter does not. It can be said that John Donne wrote like this because of his faith. John Donne was a staunch Christian who believed in the resurrection.
ReplyDeleteJohn Donne in a unique way makes his speaker confront Death as though death is standing right in front of the speaker. Shirley on the other hand just writes about death.
James Shirley’s Death the leveller is a eulogy. In showing Death’s power and thus praising him, Shirley gives Death a purple altar signifying royalty. John does the opposite by making Death a slave to fate, kings, chance and desperate men.
Again, in portraying Death as all powerful, Shirley makes death and fate similar. This is seen when fate is followed by a semicolon and the statement “Death lays his icy hands on kings”. This is seen again when he states that all must eventually bow down to fate and die. However, in Death be not proud, although fate is not personified it is seen as mightier than death. Donne actually states that death is a slave to fate and other things like “chance, kings, and desperate men” who all have the power to determine when one should die.
More so in Death the leveller, Death’s weapon is his hands which are icy and have power over kings but in Death be not proud, death’s weapon is seen as a stroke which is weaker than the blow of charms.
So basically the two poets write about death differently because they perceive it differently.