Explication of Death, be not proud

What is death? This question has many answers but the one most suiting for this poem is death as the irreversible cessation of organismic functioning and human death is the irreversible loss of personhood.

There are two major themes in this poem: Fear of death, and having courage in the face of death. Throughout the poem the speaker does what ever he can to make death seem less intimidating and scary. He says that it is just a short sleep and that we will never truly die. According to the speaker, after we die, or go to sleep, we will be awaken for all eternity, which plays into the idea of heaven and hell, and once you have reached one of the places after death you are to be woken again. By using these ideas it gives the speaker a little less sense of fear and a little more confidence when talking to Death.

In order to deal with his fear of death the speaker creates a “death” character to him to speak to. Donne boldly addresses death and speaks to him in dismissive terms. In the opening four lines, however, Donne offers no evidence to support his initial assertion that Death should not be proud; evidence isn’t really given until line 5, and even in lines 5–8 we get very little supporting evidence. Not until the sestet do we get a list of reasons: Death is the slave of "Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men"; Death dwells with unsavory people ("Poison, War, and Sickness"). The speaker continuously grows more confident throughout the poem, which takes real guts when standing up to death.

Being scared of death and at the same time being able to face it and stand up to takes immense strength, which is what the speaker displays in this poem. Looking back on how I defined human death “irreversible loss of personhood,” we can see just how extreme death really is and how brave one would have to be to be able to face the thing that is going to take away one’s personhood and life.