ENG102
Holy Sonnet 10
Paper1 Rewriting
The poem, “Holy Sonnet10” written by John Donne, presents his bitter emotion
toward thee, Death effectively. Every sentence of this poem strongly expresses Donne’s
hateful feeling; readers could feel that John Donne is shouting at Death. His strong feeling
toward Death is extraordinary well presented through frequent using of same short words,
such as Death, thee, and thou, and commas; this poem is one of the excellent art work of
John Donne. To emphasize his emotion, Death was capitalized without the consideration of
English grammar; the audiences of this poem could lightly recognize the theme.
The theme of this poem is that one does not need to fear Death; Death is for eternal
life. Poor Death has a wrong concept and Death is so proud of himself that he could bring
people to sleep forever; some people think that Death is mighty and powerful. Yet, poor
Death is just a slave and does not know that death brings people another eternal life by
Christ in heaven; Death does not need to be proud of himself, and Death is not mighty.
People die for fate and chance take people’s lives. Desperate men could commit suicide
without any influence of Death. In brief, Death is just a weak, poor man, and a slave to fate,
chance, and desperate men.
The mainly used metaphor in this whole poem is that the author describes Death as
an inferior person, who has a wrong concept of himself; he only thinks of himself as the
mightiest person; he could conquest people by bringing them to death although in
comparison with sleep and rest, and poppy and charms, Death is only a weak human being.
A common way and a unique way of rhymes are repeatedly used in this poem to
impress the readers the authors’ strong voices. On the fourth and fifth lines, the words
used at the end of the sentences, “me” and “be” are rhyme A, and on the 10th and 11th, the
words “dwell” and “well” are rhyme B. The words,” overthrow” on the third line and
“flow” on the sixth line are rhyme C. Rhyme C is located with the pause between the rhyme
A. This structure is also seen between rhyme D, “men” on the ninth line and “then” on the
twelfth line. The pause between rhymes helps to present the author’s hate and angry
feeling toward Death effectively.
When we think of this poem in a psychological way, then we could find an irony: the
author emphasizes from the beginning to the end that Death is not mighty. Human beings
have the perception that when a concept of others is excessively wrong, they are not
concerned about it any more because they are convinced that it is wrong. The fact that the
author wrote this poem to show that Death is not mighty tells us that like others, Donne
also was aware that many people have the concept that Death is so mighty and that no one
could change anything. In sum, although Donne strongly argues that Death is not mighty,
the mentioning about Death in this art shows us that Death is what people most fear. What
is more ironic is that Donne regards Death as a human being. If Death is so weak and
dependent on fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, then he could have described Death
as an animal or an insect which is absolutely weak in comparison with human beings.
To sum up, this art work, “Holy Sonnet 10” of John Donne is effective. I like this
poem because the theme is extraordinary clear for what the author wants reader to know.
While reading this short poem, people could imagine that Donne’s face becomes dark with
rage. Even though it is a very short poem, his ideas and bitter and angry emotion toward
Death are strongly and effectively expressed by often using short words with commas and the
capitalizing of the word, Death. Moreover, the metaphor, his description of Death, as a weak
and poor human being, helps understand his emotion well. By personalizing an abstract
word, Death, the author John Donne, has enough reason to criticize Death as much as he
wants. If the author describes Death as an insect which is more weaker than humans, this
poem could have been funny and absurd which makes people laugh at it. The fact that the
an insect is a weak object is pretty sure in comparison with humans.