A Comparative Study of Death in Donne’s and Yeats’s Poetry

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to offer a comparative interpretation of Donne’s and Yeats’s view of death in their poetry. Donne’s attitude toward death is characterized by two aspects: the positive attitude that desires death eagerly and the negative attitude that refuses death persistently. Though these two attitudes are paradoxical and in conflict, they are integrated into a transcendental attitude. Yeats expresses a disregard for life as any perpetual end in itself, a reaction against a sentimental and trite fear of death. Yeats has his beliefs in reincarnation and the survival of soul after death. Donne and Yeats refuse to think of death as the end of life. However, their approach to death is different. Donne’s way of surmounting death is faith in Christian doctrine, while Yeats asserts eternity and timelessness through art.