Death inspired Poetry
How does the poet present death in the poems of your choice?
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Do not stand by my grave and weep is about death and how she is still with her
husband but not in human form but in all of the things around him E.G Wind
trees and dirt. Both poems present as not a sad thin ‘I am not there I did not
die’
‘Do not weep…’ Has a sad but happy tone because she is telling her husband
not to grieve over her dying ‘Do not stand by my grave and weep’ similarly in
‘do not go gentle…’ the poet is talking about not going into the gentle night, I
think this poem has a serious tone to it. Both of the poems use different tones to
present death as not a sad but not a happy thing either.
There is a rhyming scheme in both of the poems, in the weep poem there is a
very simple one, which is used to make the tone, ‘AA, BB, CC, DD, EE…’ an
example would be ‘weep’ and ‘sleep’ In ‘that good night…’ The rhyming
scheme is quite a lot different ‘A,B,A,A,B,A,B,A,A,B,AA,B’ both of the
poems rhyming schemes make the poem (when you read It) sound quite serious
even though it has a sad but happy tone. This make’s death seem not so bad.
In both of the poems there is very strong imagery like in ‘my grave and
weep...’ there is tones of imagery ‘I am diamond glints in the snow…’ There is
also imagery in ‘gentle into that good nigh…’ in the 4th paragraph ‘blind eyes
could burn like meteors and be gay…’ The imagery in this poem makes death
seem something not to mourn over but not something to forget about.
In ‘stand by my grave…’ the strong use of metaphors ‘I am the gentle autumn
Rain…’ she is still with her husband just not in human form similarly in
‘gentle...’ It has a very strong use of imperatives such as ‘do not go gentle into
that good night ‘and ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light’ all of these
techniques are used to make death seem sad but not at the same time.
In both of the poems they are presenting death in a certain way by using a
range of different techniques to create really good imagery. It makes death
something not to be sad about but then something to be happy about ‘do not
stand…’ is saying even though she is dead (sad)she is still with him (happy).
The both use different techniques to do this like metaphors and similes.