William Blake and Emily Dickinson

The poems "The Sick Rose," by William Blake and "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," by Emily Dickinson both deal with the theme of death. One deals with the inevitable loss of beauty in the rose; the other deals with the inevitable loss of beauty in living for a human. Yet both poems are able to use tone, language and imagery to convey the fact that, while death may inevitable and unpleasant, there is victory in eternity because one enjoyed beauty while alive. This paper will show how both authors use imagery and other poetical devices to convey their universal and eternal themes in addition to creating lasting images of reality through the creativity of poetry.

In "The Sick Rose," Blake provides a short poem that has a large theme. He uses the image of a rose, and its destructive rose worm enemy, to convey the message that even the most beautiful creations are dying, even as people might be enjoying their beauty (much as in life people might be enjoying the companionship of a friend without knowing they have terminal cancer). For example, irony is employed in the sense that the rose does not even know it is sick until the speaker of the poem tells it so: "O Rose, thou art sick: The invisible worm, That flies in the night, . . . Has found out thy bed" ("Rose"). In addition, irony is also employed by the fact that the "dark secret love" of the worm does destroy the life of the rose. This is ironic because it brings to mind the old clichT that "One man's poison is a

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nd pronoun used for a human being. Immortality does not seem like an unpleasant experience with Death being so kind and civil. In fact, if time flies so fast that centuries pass quickly, then eternity may even be more pleasant and fun than being alive. The fact that death knows no haste is also reassuring in the sense that eternity is calm and passive. Blake may have a shorter poem in length than "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," but it is just as rich in meaning. The whole poem can be read as a veiled reference to life and the fleeting and transitory nature of beauty. For example, the rose is living in a bed of "crimson joy" (which also uses personification because it experiences emotion) and remains unaware of the invisible worm which threatens to destroy its life. In this way, the rose is a symbol for human beings, and the worm is a symbol for death. The fact that the worm is invisible to the beauty and joy of the rose is supposed to mean that often in life people are going along enjoying their happy little world when all of a sudden they find out they have had some illness inside them for a long time. Sometimes this illness (which was invisible until it did enough damage to mar the beauty) was curable; often, it m

Category: Literature - W