Thursday, March 17, 2016

In these two poems, Blake's ''London" & Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for death, how do the two poets address death?

Blake is dealing with the universal issues of poverty and bondsmanship in his poem. He reveals vignettes of the desparate and bleak society which London had become in his lifetime. He deals with the death of the soul as well as the body: lamenting the moral and spiritual decline caught up in the cycle of greed and poverty which exemplified the city at that time. His clever use of the metaphor of syphilis, the  “youthful Harlot’s curse” perfectly embodies the physical and moral corruption of the society and its infectious, all-pervasive influence.


Death in Dickinson's poem is far more gentle, chivalrous and peaceful. The metaphor here is of a kind gentleman - a profound contras to Blake's use of metaphor. Death here is kindly, though persistent. The implication is that the narrator meets a timely death, unlike the woeful figures in 'London'.

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