The anonymously written poem A Dialogue between Death and Youth and John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X: Death Be Not Proud are two poems that share the common themes of death and the ascending spirit. They both use the common element of Personified Death and though they are very similar in their endeavors and conclusions, they differ in their initial views of Death’s power, on their style, arguments about death, and their presentation. An obvious observable difference is that A Dialogue between Death and Youth is a dialectical style poem while Death Be Not Proud is an altered form of the Petrarchan sonnet. Each authors’ unique style and authority over language, allows them to present their views on death and the ascending spirit in different ways through these two forms of poetry. A significant difference between these poems is that the author of A Dialogue between Death and Youth has given his personified character Death a sense of authority while conversely Donne refuses to acknowledge that Death has any authoritative power. However, at the conclusion of each poem the speaker/youth acts in a rebellious manner towards Death, illuminating Death’s true powerlessness through their prophecies of Death’s own demise. The allusions of heaven after death, in association of the discussion of death set down in these poems also help remind the readers of their own mortality thus making these memento mori poems. Though these poems use very different styles and forms of poetry and discuss death in very different ways, they both contain a similar conclusion; even though everyone eventually dies, death should not be feared because the spirit may transcend this world and become immortal in heaven.
A Dialogue between Death and Youth and Death Be Not Proud contain common themes even though they are, structurally, very different. A Dialogue between Death and Youth is in the form a dialogue which is a style usually used to debate certain issues, giving arguments both for and against a given position, with the debate here being ‘why must people die when they have so much to live for.' Death Be Not Proud by contrast begins having already acknowledged the inevitability of death and instead attempts to show that death has no power by using the speaker’s faith in God and heaven as evidence that people continue to exist and that death can not be considered eternal. It is only in last few stanzas of A Dialogue between Death and Youth that youth too makes this claim that Donne spent an entire sonnet on. Dialectic poetry allows for the contrary position to voice its opinions and views which can not be done in other poetry, like Death Be Not Proud, where there is a single speaker. This is the greatest contrast between these two poems, concerning their presentation, because Donne has not allowed Death to have a voice in his poem, thus reducing a sense of Death’s power while the author of A Dialogue between Death and Youth has given Death a voice which seems to reinforce Death’s power. Arguably, that power reinforced by the structure of the poem is actually revoked by the author when Youth at the conclusion of the poem denies that Death has any legitimate power.
Both authors have used the personified character of Death and seem to have given each personification a different level of authority. As discussed earlier, the presentation and form of the poems have played a significant role in this. The speaker has denied Death any authority and throughout the entire sonnet examines many arguments why he/she believes this. In the lines “From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be/ Much pleasure” and “And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,” the speaker compares death to sleeping which renders the power of Death insignificant because people wake from being asleep, thus alluding to the afterlife. The speaker then goes on to claim that Death has no authority because Death is actually constrained by circumstances as seen by the lines “Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men/and dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell.” The speaker then asks why Death is so proud of its accomplishments when it is no better than poppy/drug induced or enchanted sleep, is slave to fate and the actions of men, and only exists because of the articles of death; poison, war and disease. Though the speaker in Death Be Not Proud believes that Death has no influence, the lines “though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful,” show that he/she does acknowledge that there are people who believe in the authority of Death. A Dialogue between Death and Youth is a poem where an individual does initially believe in Death’s authority but comes to the conclusion that these beliefs are falsely based.
As earlier mentioned, dialogue has given Death a sense of authority and power in A Dialogue between Death and Youth just by giving Death a voice. Death gives the impression of being authoritative, by giving Youth no choice and by denying Youth’s appeals to mercy. Death seems to further emphasize its power by making comments such as “Nothing there is that can thee now/Out of my hands redeem” and “Dispatch, therefore, and make an end/For needs you must obey.” By contrast no authority is given to Youth, who must relinquish his earthly possessions and pleasures because of Death’s summons. Death denies all of Youth’s pleas for life, counters all Youth’s arguments for continuing to live, and denies the compromise of taking Youth when he is older. Despite all this, the authority of Death is eventually brought to question by the line “Yet I am sure that I shall live,” where Youth in his rebellious last speech claims that he will continue to live for eternity, regardless of Death’s actions, because he believes that his spirit will ascend to heaven. Having the final word and making such a bold statement has immediately transferred to Youth the authority that once was thought to be Death’s.This transferred authority can be seen in both poems through the almost identical concluding statements; “Death, thou shalt die” (Death Be Not Proud) and “When thou [Death] thy death shalt have” (A Dialogue between Death and Youth). These prophecies of Death’s own mortality and death are one of the elements that make these poems so closely related. The statements of Death’s own demise are so compelling because they claim that one of the most powerful of perceivable natural forces known to humanity, death, is actually impotent because the soul never dies but instead transcends this world .
Though this essay has been so far primarily concerned with the elements of Death in Death Be Not Proud and A Dialogue between Death and Youth, it should be acknowledged that these poems are not about the actual authority of Death. Instead, they are about a love and faith in God and the belief in heaven and the after life. In John Donne’s poem this allusion is made on several occasions but in A Dialogue between Death and Youth this allusion is only made at the end of Youth’s speech. In Death Be Not Proud lines that develop this allusion are “then from thee [Death], much more must flow,” “Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery,” and “One short sleep past [death], we wake eternally.” The much more must flow shows that the speaker believes that there is more after death while ‘soul’s delivery’ and ‘wake eternally’ shows that the speaker believes that the individual can transcend this reality and enter heaven. “And death shall be no more” claims that there is no such thing as death since people do not cease to exist. Both authors promote the idea that when people die it should be seen as a transitory phase that should be celebrated instead of being feared. This non-existence of death and transitory phase is common to both poems and is well developed by the imagery of the personified Death’s own death.
Though throughout most of A Dialogue between Death and Youth the main concern is dieing and not eternal life of the soul, the end the poem tries to redeem a more religious connotation. Allusions to religion in A Dialogue between Death and Youth can be found in lines like “Shall straight consumed to be to dust/As I had never been” which reminds the reader of the religious rite after death that contains the words “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” As seen by Death’s lines “He knoweth not yet how soon, God wot/with thee and me to walk!," the author also reminds the reader that it is God who decides who dies and when. For Death Be Not Proud, the religious connection is easily perceived since it is a sonnet from a collection of Holy Sonnets written by John Donne. The usual subject of the typical sonnet is love, with the theme of holy sonnets being the love for and worship of God. Since A Dialogue between Death and Youth and Death Be Not Proud share commonalities in their conclusions and themes it should be thought that A Dialogue between Death and Youth was written to increase the worship of God just as John Donne’s Holy sonnets were. The devotion of these two poems is therefore not to Death but to God and heaven, which here is achieved by indirect means rather than a direct appeal such as a prayer.
A difference between these two poems is that, though they are both devoted to God, their discussions of death are very different. Death Be Not Proud has been shown to be not only about the powerlessness of Death but also the fallacy of fearing Death. A Dialogue between Death and Youth on the other hand attempts to answer questions that plague many people who contemplate death. When Youth lists reasons for why Death should not take him yet he says “O death, behold: I am but young/ and of a pleasant age” which is essentially asking why do young people die when they have so much to live for and so much left yet to experience? Youth also states “Behold, my limbs be lively now, My mind and courage strong,” and “My beauty like the rose so red/My hair like glist’ring gold,” begging the question why must healthy and beautiful people die as well? Death’s response is that beauty and youth fade quickly and it does not matter in what state an individual is in, “The Lady fair, the lazar foul,” because everyone must die eventually. With the line, “The child, the man, the father old/Do I reward alike” Death also claims that age does not matter and that many have died before Youth and many will die long after. In this way the author of A Dialogue between Death and Youth was able to discuss the issues concerning death that contrasts Donne’s discussion of death impotence.
In Death Be Not Proud the speaker presents no arguments why he/she shouldn’t die and has accepted death as an inevitability. It isn’t until the end of the poem that Youth in A Dialogue between Death and Youth also realizes the inevitability of death that the speaker acknowledges throughout all of Death Be Not Proud. At the conclusion of each poem the inevitability of death is accepted and both the speaker in Death Be Not Proud and Youth in A Dialogue between Death and Youth have come to grips with their own mortality. This issue of mortality categorizes these two poems as memento mori poems, demonstrating yet another similarity that they share. It is their common themes of death, views on the ascending spirit, and the discussion of mortality that forces readers to contemplate their own mortality and the inevitability of their own deaths. In A Dialogue between Death and Youth the memento mori becomes more apparent by Death’s lines “For he that doth us now behold-/Perusing this our talk-/He knowth not yet how, God wot,/With thee and me to walk!” with ‘he’ referring to the reader. As one notices that talk is rhymed twice with walk, first when Death first informs Youth that he is to die and secondly when Death is referring to the reader, one can see how this passage becomes a clever literary device. It is rare for poets to use the exact same words to rhyme unless they intend for it to have a greater meaning, therefore it is likely that the author of A Dialogue between Death and Youth has ingeniously used this rhyme twice to illustrate the point that at sometime the reader will someday be in Youth’s position. In Death Be Not Proud the reader’s mortality is revealed in the line “And soonest our best men with thee [death] do go,” reminding the reader that everyone dies, and the line “we wake eternally,” which an inclusion of the reader not only in dieing but also in the ascending of the spirit.
Despite these specific examples, the themes of death, transcendence, and mortality is what makes these two poems memento mori poems. By discussing death and what happens after death, one can not help but be forced to consider his/her own mortality. When confronted with one’s own mortality, one must also consider the afterlife and if he/she believes in heaven they must also consider how to live out the rest of his/her lives properly. This is perhaps one of the most important underlying themes in A Dialogue between Death and Youth and Death Be Not Proud because they are memento mori, reminders of death.
Though Death Be Not Proud and A Dialogue between Death and Youth are structured very differently, and present their themes in distinct ways, they are both very closely related to each other. They may at first treat the personification of Death differently, but they do in the end give Death similar authority, being little to none, and place emphasis instead on the ascending spirit and God. The aspects of death discussed by each poet may also differ but they are both drawn to identical conclusions presenting similar themes. The ascension of the spirit seems essential, making death comparatively insignificant even though both poems go through the motions of evaluating death. These poems may be categorized as memento mori poems because of these views of death and allusions of the afterlife that confront the reader with their own mortality. The poems do more than present a topic or evaluate something or even promote opinions, they also present a dilemma for the reader. The reader must realize that he/she is mortal and that he/she must choose how to live out the rest of his/her life, keeping always in mind, God, heaven and judgment. These issues may not be so pressing for the modern reader, however after reading A Dialogue between Death and Youth and Death Be Not Proud, the reader should have gained insight into views of death and transcendence in the sixteenth and earlier seventeenth century England.