Friday, December 26, 2014

What is a detailed analysis of the poem ''This Is My Play’s Last Scene'' by John Donne in terms of language/structure/ tone/imagery/symbols/themes?

In the opening metaphor of this sonnet, Donne imagines life as a play; as he is now approaching his "last scene," the play—the speaker's life—must soon come to an end. This is a euphemistic way to look at life and death, as too are the other metaphors Donne employs: life is variously a "pilgrimage" whose final "mile" is now nearing; a "race" which will soon be over; a "span" and a "minute" both reaching their endpoints. The large number of different metaphors all pointing to the same conclusion seem to emphasize the idea that, however we choose to look at life, it will inevitably end in the same way—with our death.
Death is depicted as "gluttonous," a human attribute suggesting that it will consume all of us. It is not clear whether it is this "face" which the speaker's "ever-waking part," his soul, fears most, or whether Donne is here referring to the devil, but the speaker vividly describes a moment between sleep and the ascension of the soul in which he expects fear to overcome him, shaking "every joint." Only when it becomes clear that his soul—personified with the "her" pronoun—is about to "take[s] flight" can he rest assured that he is escaping the devil. Note the juxtaposition of this imagery, of the soul flying upwards, with the idea of sins falling "down" to where they are "bred," in hell. There is a clear-cut duality to Donne's imagined afterlife: the soul leaves the body, and then must go either up, or down. The speaker anticipates that as his body is purged of its soul, so will he be "purg'd of evil," and ascend to heaven, leaving the realm of sin behind.


In the first few lines of the poem, which is a sonnet, Donne uses a series of metaphors to describe his death. He first compares it to "my play's last scene" and then to "my pilgrimage's last mile," the "last pace" of his "race," his "span's last inch," and "my minute's last point." He repeats the word "my" and emphasizes that death approaches for him. Some of the metaphors he uses are religious, such as "pilgrimage," while others, such as a "span" (which is the distance between two points, such as the ends of a bridge), come from the physical world. He later refers to "sleeping a space," which is also a metaphor for death. The repetition of different metaphors for death emphasizes its inevitability.
He then writes, using personification, that "ever-gluttonous death" (making death into a voracious kind of animal) will "unjoint," or take apart, his body and soul. While his body will remain on earth, his soul will fly to heaven. In this part of the poem, Donne expresses his metaphysical belief that the body is separate from the soul. While his body remains earthbound, his sins will fall into the ground, where they belong, and his body will soar to heaven, free of sin. At the end of the poem, which concludes with a couplet, Donne writes, "For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil." The last line includes a series of images that are very powerful, as Donne writes that he will leave the world, his body, and the Devil (a symbol for sin) behind when he ascends to heaven.

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