English poet, John Donne, seemed to be a man of two minds. In his younger years, he composed works of literature that were decidedly on the blush-inducing side, earning him the moniker “Bawdy Jack Donne,” but later in life, in 1615, to be precise, he was ordained a priest in the Church of England at which point scholars agree that his poems took on deeper and notably darker tones. His poem, “Death, Be Not Proud” is likely the most popular example as it shows the poet’s open challenge to the event we all must face.
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
There is, of course, much to say about this giant in the literary arts, but my interest rests on a concern that transcends politics and religious affiliation. Donne, unlike others, did not flee from the very notion of death. He did not indulge in escapism, nor did he brush it away as something that cannot be avoided and, therefore, something useless to discuss. On the contrary, he took it on without flinching and, as a result, offered insights that are certainly useful to his readers.
There is, of course, the famous last line of this sonnet: “And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die” with its notable comma. As an undergraduate, I remember feeling that I had discovered a bit of genius in Donne’s craft as, when the line is spoken aloud, the speaker must pause, perhaps release a bit of air, before saying, “thou shalt die.” Donne, in the poem itself, is compelling readers to, as it were, practice their last breath before proclaiming that death has been swallowed up in victory earned by Christ alone. It is a brilliant encapsulation of the Good News in the slightest of marks – aside from the period, the smallest of punctuation marks. Perhaps the symbolism, here, can be extended. A full stop means a full stop, but a comma suggests a continuation. It is fun to speculate. But even if the so-called conclusions become critically untenable, the comma alone retains so much significance.
In effect, Donne takes the fangs out of the universal boogieman. We might even argue that he puts death in its place. The mystery of death is great, he seems to suggest, but the reality is that it is but a very small break, a tiny, unimpressive bridge from this world to the next. It is the mouse with a long shadow. It is the lapdog with the ferocious bark. This is not to dismiss legitimate fears of the unknown; it is, rather, to issue a challenge to Christian believers, in particular – those who proclaim that Christ defeated death on the cross – to, in effect, believe it. Accept it. Live it out in confidence.
The world is awash in death. You may have even heard that we are living in a culture of death. The voices are loud, overpowering, even. Were those voices to have their way, our existence would be discolored by death. It would be our sad and terrifying focus. It would occupy our thoughts day and night. But Donne has an alternative – a reminder, really – that speaks volumes about cultural forces that may have been occupying his day just as much as it speaks volumes about cultural forces occupying ours. He flicks the lights on with a comma. To modern eyes, it might also be a switch. But in both cases, the effect is practically immediate, the immeasurable relief, pleasantly sudden. The thing that taunted having a name no more.
