Donne and W; T- Reflection Statement

Donne and W;t
Reflection Statememt
For full understanding and therefore effect of the texts to be achieved, one first must comprehend each and then the parallels between them. The major features of these parallels are the struggles each has with love, death and God. This combined with the pedantic and astute use of language results in a loop between them, where each new realisation affects the interpretation of both. Through comparative analysis, the reshaping of Donne’s poetry could be seen, increasing not only my appreciation but also that of the concepts within. This revealed the contextual variation in values, beliefs and ideas, especially the nature of death within, which greatly influenced me into re-evaluate aspects of my own life. In particular is my own experience with death, when my Aunt rejected further chemotherapy with full knowledge it would shorten her life.

Both Donne and Edson write about the inexorable nature of death, exploring the resistance to deaths inevitability. In W;t this is presented immediately by the protagonist breaking the 4th wall, and satirising her own death. “I am waiting till someone asks me this question and I am dead..I’m a little sorry I’ll miss that.” This is also demonstrated through the internal monologue the protagonist has when learning of her illness, focusing on the academia rather than the implications upon her own life. “Insidious. Hmm curious word choice. Cancer..Cancel.” This can be seen in Death be not proud via the defiant tone that challenges death (“Mighty and dreadful”), and the personification of death (“Thou art slave” ) demonstrating the speakers resistance.   These intellectual barriers the protagonist and her medical counterparts have developed have removed emotion to a bare unabating professionalism. This lack of emotion is highlighted by Edson’s lack of incorporation of the ‘love sonnets’ within W;t (Only in one flashback scene). It is also a direct paradox to Donne, a ,man very much founded in...