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摘要：British poets are interested in the death theme and use many death images in their poems, which are deeply influenced by their religious belief. The paper tries to analysis the death images in the poems of the poets like William Shakespeare and John Donne from religious perspective, and tries to find different and common points in their poems.
关键词：religious elements; death image; British poem
中图分类号：I106.2文献标识码：A文章编号：1009-0118（2013）02-0344-02
1.The Death Image in British Poems
All human beings find Death is scary somehow. Especially in China people avoid talking about it because Death has a strong influence on us and is not understood by us. However, British poets are very interested in the death theme and in using the death image in their poems. Why? That might originate in their curiosity on what is human being and what is the riddle of death. In their country, most people believe in Christianity, which influences deeply the death image in British poems. The paper is trying to analysis the death images in British poetry from religious perspective.
Many people thinks that death is objective. “The death is definitely not the opposite side of living, but forever exist as a part of living.” (Cunshang chunshu)“Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.” (Bible, Ecclesiastes1:4; 11)The death can not be avoided.
“Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works…Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” (Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:7; 10 )The Old Testament says that there is no work in the gravy any more, and death is everyones ending of everything. Then in New Testament it says that “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Those who believe in him may perish in flesh, but live forever in spirit.
When we observe British poems from the perspective of the death theme, we could find that all the representative poets in English great changing periods, from William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton to T.S.Eliot, have concerned on reality of death and depicted the death picture ( Zhang Shimin, 2004), but their understandings of death differ, and are handed down from generation to generation, partly from the religious line. 2.Death image in William Shakespeares poem
William Shakespeare (baptized 1564-1616)was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. Some scholars claim that members of Shakespeares family were Catholics, at a time when Catholic practice was against the law. Shakespeares mother, Mary Arden, certainly came from a pious Catholic family. Scholars find evidence both for and against Shakespeares Catholicism in his plays, but the truth may be impossible to prove either way.
William Shakespeare wrote in The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606)Act Five Scene Five, in which “sound and fury” has been used by William Faulkner (1897-1962)as the title of his novel:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Macbeth has murdered the former king and got the throne. After hearing that his wife has died from mental disorder, Macbeth makes this monologue and takes stock of his own indifference to the death. Dusty death——our return to dust——seems to him merely “the last syllable of recorded time”. William Shakespeares images on death relates closely to his religious belief. “And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life: and man became a living soul, named Adam.” (Genesis2:7)After people disobeyed Gods command, he said to Adam：“With the hard work of your hands you will get your bread till you go back to the earth from which you were taken: for dust you are and to the dust you will go back.”（Genesis3:19）
In this image William Shakespeare expresses that everyone is dust, made from dust and certainly guilty to go back to dust even if he is a king. Villainous Macbeth got all the glories, but feels lifes boring, fear, despair and unavoidable ending. Death——our return to dust——seems to him the last act of a very “poor play”, of “a tale told by an idiot” full of bombast and melodrama (“sound and fury”), but without meaning (“signifying nothing”). “Life is a poor player”. “All is to no purpose, said the Preacher, all the ways of man are to no purpose. What is a man profited by all his work which he does under the sun?” (Ecclesiaxtes1:2-3), according to the Bible. Life is just a play, false and purposeless. As a playwright, William Shakespeare feels the falseness of play. As for the hero Macbeth in the play, murdering King Duncan and seizing his throne in retrospect seem like scenes of a script he was never suited to play. Since he commits the sin, death has come to him. “And the Lord God gave the man orders, saying, You may freely take of the fruit of every tree of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not take; for on the day when you take of it, death will certainly come to you.” (Genesis2:16-17)In western countries, “death” refers to the end of fleshly life, as well as end of spiritual life. So William Shakespeare believes that after one has committed sins, he has died in spirit.
He wrote that:
All the worlds a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;…
He used “their exits of stage” as image on death. The idea that “all the worlds a stage” is occasionally very depressing to Shakespeares heroes. “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow” conveys the mechanical beat of time as it carries this poor player—— the king Macbeth from scene to scene. “The last syllable of recorded time”——death——what Macbeth earlier called “the crack of doom”——casts time as a sequence of words. We could see that he knows clearly “the reward of sin is death” (Romans 6:23 )in the doomsday.
3.Death Image in John Donnes Poem
John Donne (1572-1631)was the most famous metaphysical poet in Britain of 1600s. In his life, he writes religious poems, satire, love poetry, elegy and sermons. He was born in a Roman Catholic family, and studied theology and classic literature in Oxford. In 1615 he became a royal Anglican priest although he did not want to take Anglican orders. As he wrote to attack Catholicism and to protect royalty John Donne was appreciated by King JamesⅠ.He did so because King JamesⅠpersistently ordered it. In 1621, he was appointed the Dean of St Pauls Cathedral in London.
The theme on “death” in his poems expresses his attitude toward and understanding to death and closely related to his religious belief (Sun Shuang, 2010). The themes in John Donnes poems include love, religion and death etc., among which the theme on “death” has been seldom inquired within the nation.
John Donnes perception on death is that from his birthday one walks to death, but get eternal life from belief. Donnes most famous images on “death” include sleep, rest, walking and departure. Those images could be divided into to categories as those in religious poems and in love poems. In one of the religious poems A Hymn to God the Father, John Donne wrote:
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.
He describes death as “have spun my last thread”. John Donne knows that death is something unstoppable. The poem shows the common theme of inner struggles of the Christian faith common in English Literature. Donnes cognition on human beings original sin roots in Christianity. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. ”(Romes3:23-24)John Donne longs for the redemption, and at the same time fears not being forgiven. Sometimes his poem expresses his dread to death. Yet because the author strongly believe that “at my death thy son shall shine”, and “I fear no more.”
John Donne wrote in No man is an island, which has been inscribed by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)in the title page of his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls:
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were:
any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore,
never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.
The poem expands the affair of death to the whole planet. In the Wenchuan earthquake, many people used this poem to conform the dead and their family. But several years passed, few people think deeply on disasters and death. Yet western poets like John Donne always concern the theme of death.
In fact in Bible there are theories on the part and entirety. “Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” (Mathew13:33)Few people get to know the kingdom of heaven, and they can influence many others. In the same way, “any mans death diminishes me”.
4.Conclusion
British poets concern more about the death theme than Chinese poets. Religious elements might play one of the most important roles in the death images in their poems. Though the analysis of the death images, we could see that William Shakespeare decomposes deeply the unavoidability of death, while John Donne emphasizes that one never fear at his death because of redemption in Jesus Christ. To conclude, there are common points in their attitude to death and death images they used, which have been handed down in British poetry history from generation to generation. Since they have roughly the same religious belief, they have different attitude to death from Chinese poets ( Chen Linxia, 2004). They look at death more optimistically, “For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life.” ( John 3:16)The hope for eternal life and heaven make British poets hold different view to death, and have great influence in the death images in their poems.
参考文献：
［1］陈琳霞.宗教对中西诗歌死亡主题的影响［J］.安庆师范学院学报,2004,(4).
［2］段德智.探寻死亡之谜:西方死亡哲学［M］.北京大学出版社.
［3］圣经.
［4］孙双.邓恩诗歌死亡主题探究［J］.唐山学院学报,2010,(01).
［5］袁霜竹.约翰.邓恩诗中的死亡意象［J］.现代语文,2009,(5).
［6］张士民,毛卓亮.面对文本的批评之路——英国诗歌与死亡美学［J］.学术论坛,2005,(2).
［7］朱燕秋.哀莫大于心不死——浅析苏轼与弥尔顿的悼亡诗［J］.贵州民族学院学报,2009,(4).
关键词：religious elements; death image; British poem
中图分类号：I106.2文献标识码：A文章编号：1009-0118（2013）02-0344-02
1.The Death Image in British Poems
All human beings find Death is scary somehow. Especially in China people avoid talking about it because Death has a strong influence on us and is not understood by us. However, British poets are very interested in the death theme and in using the death image in their poems. Why? That might originate in their curiosity on what is human being and what is the riddle of death. In their country, most people believe in Christianity, which influences deeply the death image in British poems. The paper is trying to analysis the death images in British poetry from religious perspective.
Many people thinks that death is objective. “The death is definitely not the opposite side of living, but forever exist as a part of living.” (Cunshang chunshu)“Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.” (Bible, Ecclesiastes1:4; 11)The death can not be avoided.
“Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works…Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” (Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:7; 10 )The Old Testament says that there is no work in the gravy any more, and death is everyones ending of everything. Then in New Testament it says that “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Those who believe in him may perish in flesh, but live forever in spirit.
When we observe British poems from the perspective of the death theme, we could find that all the representative poets in English great changing periods, from William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton to T.S.Eliot, have concerned on reality of death and depicted the death picture ( Zhang Shimin, 2004), but their understandings of death differ, and are handed down from generation to generation, partly from the religious line. 2.Death image in William Shakespeares poem
William Shakespeare (baptized 1564-1616)was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. Some scholars claim that members of Shakespeares family were Catholics, at a time when Catholic practice was against the law. Shakespeares mother, Mary Arden, certainly came from a pious Catholic family. Scholars find evidence both for and against Shakespeares Catholicism in his plays, but the truth may be impossible to prove either way.
William Shakespeare wrote in The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606)Act Five Scene Five, in which “sound and fury” has been used by William Faulkner (1897-1962)as the title of his novel:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Macbeth has murdered the former king and got the throne. After hearing that his wife has died from mental disorder, Macbeth makes this monologue and takes stock of his own indifference to the death. Dusty death——our return to dust——seems to him merely “the last syllable of recorded time”. William Shakespeares images on death relates closely to his religious belief. “And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life: and man became a living soul, named Adam.” (Genesis2:7)After people disobeyed Gods command, he said to Adam：“With the hard work of your hands you will get your bread till you go back to the earth from which you were taken: for dust you are and to the dust you will go back.”（Genesis3:19）
In this image William Shakespeare expresses that everyone is dust, made from dust and certainly guilty to go back to dust even if he is a king. Villainous Macbeth got all the glories, but feels lifes boring, fear, despair and unavoidable ending. Death——our return to dust——seems to him the last act of a very “poor play”, of “a tale told by an idiot” full of bombast and melodrama (“sound and fury”), but without meaning (“signifying nothing”). “Life is a poor player”. “All is to no purpose, said the Preacher, all the ways of man are to no purpose. What is a man profited by all his work which he does under the sun?” (Ecclesiaxtes1:2-3), according to the Bible. Life is just a play, false and purposeless. As a playwright, William Shakespeare feels the falseness of play. As for the hero Macbeth in the play, murdering King Duncan and seizing his throne in retrospect seem like scenes of a script he was never suited to play. Since he commits the sin, death has come to him. “And the Lord God gave the man orders, saying, You may freely take of the fruit of every tree of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not take; for on the day when you take of it, death will certainly come to you.” (Genesis2:16-17)In western countries, “death” refers to the end of fleshly life, as well as end of spiritual life. So William Shakespeare believes that after one has committed sins, he has died in spirit.
He wrote that:
All the worlds a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;…
He used “their exits of stage” as image on death. The idea that “all the worlds a stage” is occasionally very depressing to Shakespeares heroes. “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow” conveys the mechanical beat of time as it carries this poor player—— the king Macbeth from scene to scene. “The last syllable of recorded time”——death——what Macbeth earlier called “the crack of doom”——casts time as a sequence of words. We could see that he knows clearly “the reward of sin is death” (Romans 6:23 )in the doomsday.
3.Death Image in John Donnes Poem
John Donne (1572-1631)was the most famous metaphysical poet in Britain of 1600s. In his life, he writes religious poems, satire, love poetry, elegy and sermons. He was born in a Roman Catholic family, and studied theology and classic literature in Oxford. In 1615 he became a royal Anglican priest although he did not want to take Anglican orders. As he wrote to attack Catholicism and to protect royalty John Donne was appreciated by King JamesⅠ.He did so because King JamesⅠpersistently ordered it. In 1621, he was appointed the Dean of St Pauls Cathedral in London.
The theme on “death” in his poems expresses his attitude toward and understanding to death and closely related to his religious belief (Sun Shuang, 2010). The themes in John Donnes poems include love, religion and death etc., among which the theme on “death” has been seldom inquired within the nation.
John Donnes perception on death is that from his birthday one walks to death, but get eternal life from belief. Donnes most famous images on “death” include sleep, rest, walking and departure. Those images could be divided into to categories as those in religious poems and in love poems. In one of the religious poems A Hymn to God the Father, John Donne wrote:
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.
He describes death as “have spun my last thread”. John Donne knows that death is something unstoppable. The poem shows the common theme of inner struggles of the Christian faith common in English Literature. Donnes cognition on human beings original sin roots in Christianity. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. ”(Romes3:23-24)John Donne longs for the redemption, and at the same time fears not being forgiven. Sometimes his poem expresses his dread to death. Yet because the author strongly believe that “at my death thy son shall shine”, and “I fear no more.”
John Donne wrote in No man is an island, which has been inscribed by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)in the title page of his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls:
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were:
any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore,
never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.
The poem expands the affair of death to the whole planet. In the Wenchuan earthquake, many people used this poem to conform the dead and their family. But several years passed, few people think deeply on disasters and death. Yet western poets like John Donne always concern the theme of death.
In fact in Bible there are theories on the part and entirety. “Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” (Mathew13:33)Few people get to know the kingdom of heaven, and they can influence many others. In the same way, “any mans death diminishes me”.
4.Conclusion
British poets concern more about the death theme than Chinese poets. Religious elements might play one of the most important roles in the death images in their poems. Though the analysis of the death images, we could see that William Shakespeare decomposes deeply the unavoidability of death, while John Donne emphasizes that one never fear at his death because of redemption in Jesus Christ. To conclude, there are common points in their attitude to death and death images they used, which have been handed down in British poetry history from generation to generation. Since they have roughly the same religious belief, they have different attitude to death from Chinese poets ( Chen Linxia, 2004). They look at death more optimistically, “For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life.” ( John 3:16)The hope for eternal life and heaven make British poets hold different view to death, and have great influence in the death images in their poems.
参考文献：
［1］陈琳霞.宗教对中西诗歌死亡主题的影响［J］.安庆师范学院学报,2004,(4).
［2］段德智.探寻死亡之谜:西方死亡哲学［M］.北京大学出版社.
［3］圣经.
［4］孙双.邓恩诗歌死亡主题探究［J］.唐山学院学报,2010,(01).
［5］袁霜竹.约翰.邓恩诗中的死亡意象［J］.现代语文,2009,(5).
［6］张士民,毛卓亮.面对文本的批评之路——英国诗歌与死亡美学［J］.学术论坛,2005,(2).
［7］朱燕秋.哀莫大于心不死——浅析苏轼与弥尔顿的悼亡诗［J］.贵州民族学院学报,2009,(4).