Death Be Not Proud by John Donne

[kellyrfineman]

After yesterday's poem, "Full Fathom Five" by William Shakespeare, I seriously considered posting about The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. I even spent hours reading and pondering yesterday, but it's a ridiculous notion - I could spend a week on that poem, and more than one post on any one section of it. My next thought was to post "I started Early -

Comments

Tanita says :)

[anonymous]

I have some serious love for this one, too.

Re: Tanita says :)

[kellyrfineman]

It's such a wonderful, modern-feeling poem, particularly when read without stopping at the ends of each line (barring punctuation).

[jeannineatkins]

I love this poem, too. I'm coming back to it later, though, when I have time to cry a bit.

[kellyrfineman]

Oh no! I didn't mean to make anyone cry, least of all you!

[ext_178050]

I love Donne, too. Actually, along with Dr. Seuss, he's probably one of the reasons I write so much poetry.

[kellyrfineman]

That right there is one interesting combo!

[melted_rachel]

A tiny John Donne book is the only book of poems I own - I adore them.

The meditation is so awesome - I recently decided the theme I want to work to in the novel I'm editing is "No man is an island" so this is a perfect find!

[kellyrfineman]

Hooray!

I hope you'll read the full meditation - it makes the "bell" reference so much more accessible.

[thunderchikin]

Shall we discuss the last line and its famous semi-colon?

[kellyrfineman]

I had to look that up. I hadn't realized there was an issue about that semi-colon, which is in all the copies (four) of the poem in my possession in various anthologies, online at Poetry.org and at Bartleby.com, which uses the Elizabethan spellings but has that same semi-colon. I see that the issue was the core of a play entitled "W;t", though.