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Borough of Manhattan Community College

How does our idea of death define us?

A discussion of various poems

Questions, Writing Assignment, and Sample Paper by Andrew Gottlieb

The writing assignment is on page 23

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Write about the following question:

How does our idea of death define us?

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“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust thou return.”

(Genesis 3:19. Pentateuch And Haftorahs, second edition, edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz, C.H.)

Do you think the author of these lines in the Bible believed in an immortal soul?

From Macbeth(Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

William Shakespeare

She should have died hereafter;There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and furySignifying nothing.

What is Macbeth’s view of life and death? Do you think he believes life is meaningful? Does he believe in an immortal soul? Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Dust in the Windby Kerry Livgren (from the Group: Kansas)

I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment’s gone.All my dreams pass before my eyes in curiosity.

Dust in the wind.All they are is dust in the wind.

Same old song.Just a drop of water in an endless sea.All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see.

Dust in the wind.All we are is dust in the wind.

Don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.It slips away and all your money won’t another minute buy.

Dust in the wind.All we are is dust in the wind.Dust in the wind.Everything is dust in the wind.

What is Kerry Livgren’s view of life and death. Does he believe in an immortal soul?Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Lee Frost

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

What is Robert Lee Frost’s view of life and death. Does he believe in an immortal soul?Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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A Psalm of Lifeby Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end or way;But to act, that each tomorrowFind us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,And our hearts, though stout and brave,Still, like muffled drums, are beatingFuneral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,In the bivouac of Life,Be not like dumb, driven cattle!Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!Let the dead Past bury its dead!Act, - act in the living Present!Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,Sailing o'er life's solenm main,A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. 

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How is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s view of life and death different from that of the Macbeth, Livgren and Frost? Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10)

by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called theeMighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrowDie not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,And soonest our best men with thee do go,Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as wellAnd better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?One short sleep past, we wake eternally,And death shall be no more; Death shalt die.

How is John Donne’s view of life and death similar to or different from that of the other poets in this handout? Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Sonnet 55By William Shakespeare

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes.

Compare and contrast the view of life and death in Shakespeares’ Sonnet 55 with that of the views of the other poets in this handout. Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Sonnet 30By William Shakespeare

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste. Then can I drown an eye unused to flow For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long-since-cancelled woe, And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

How does the poet in Sonnet 30 find consolation for the pain and sadness incurred by the death of a loved one? Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Sonnet 12By William Shakespeare

When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

How is Sonnet 12 different from the other sonnets in this handout? Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Lawrence Olivier playing Hamlet

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To Be, Or Not To BeSoliloquy Spoken by Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 1

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to! 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,*To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment **With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons,***Be all my sins remember'd.

* fardels: burdens

** Pitch: height In other versions the word pith, meaning vigor, is used.

*** orisons: prayers

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To be, or not to be: that is the question:

What is the significance of this question? How would you apply it to your life?

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?

What is Hamlet asking? What is his dilemma?

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To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to! 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished.

What is Hamlet’s view of death as expressed in these lines?Is it something to be feared or longed for?

To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life;

How is the characterization of death in these lines different from the one in the lines just above?

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For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin?

What is Hamlet thinking of doing and why?

Who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?

Why, according to Hamlet, are we willing to bear our suffering rather than end our lives? How, in the above lines does Hamlet characterize death?

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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.

In Hamlet’s view, what prevents us from taking action?

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Ode To A Nightingale by John Keats

1My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness,--- That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

Why is Keats unhappy?

2 O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, *With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Why do you think fading away means to Keats?

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3Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

Why does Keats want to forget?

4 Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Clustered around by all her starry fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

To whom does Keats want to fly? What is the meaning of this flight?

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5I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

What sense (sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell) is the poet using in this stanza? What senses is he not using? How is this stanza different from the other stanzas in the poem?

6Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain,To thy high requiem become a sod

Why is Keats half in love with easeful Death? Why is it now more than every rich to die?

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7Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

What is the Bird?

8Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music: do I wake or sleep?

What is Keats’s “sole self?”

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What does he mean when he writes that “the fancy cannot cheat so well as she is famed to do?”

Why does he call the Bird a “deceiving elf?”

Why does the poet ask if it was a “vision or a waking dream?”

Watch two videos and write about the following question:

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After reading the poem, discuss the idea that poetry is music and that the song of the Nightingale is akin to great music and play two videos - Beethoven’s Emperor (played by Arturo Rubenstein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO4UmbcBprw, and Luciano Pavarotti singing Puccinini’s Nessun dorma https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=nessen+dorma

What is the connection between great poetry and great music? How is Keats’s Ode to A Nightingale similar in spirit to great music?

Writing Assignment: Write about the following question:

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How does our idea of death define us? Make reference to at least three poems either in this handout or ones of your own choosing to support your point of view.

The paper must be 4 pages and satisfy all of the specifications and the format on the following pages.

Sample Outline:

Part 1 – Introduction:Write about death. Make mention of the fact that death has been the topic of many poems.

Body:Write about varying ideas of death in poetry.

Conclusion:Write about what you have learned from your exploration of mortality.

Specifications

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1. Each essay must be stapled in the upper left-hand corner. Papers that are not stapled will not be accepted.

2. Each page of each essay must have typed page numbers in the upper right-hand corner. Papers without typed page numbers in the upper right hand corner will not be accepted.

3. Each essay must be typed. Essays that are not typed will not be accepted.

4. Font size must be 12.

5. Font style must be Times New Roman.

6. Each paragraph must be indented.

7. There must be no more than one double-space between paragraphs.

8. The name of the student, professor, course, and date must be flush left with a double-space between each. See example on the following page.

9. Each essay must be double-spaced.

10. For citations more than one sentences, use the following specifications. See example on page 9.

a. single-spaceb. font size 10c. left indent at 1 right indent at 5.5.

11. Quotation marks and the appropriate MLA citation for all quotes must be used. The absence of quotation marks where needed is PLAGIARISM. See example of internal punctuation on the following page. WARNING: Omission of quotation marks is grounds for an F for the paper and possibly for the final grade.

12. All sources used in the essay must be cited in a “Works Cited” page and be done according to MLA formats. See example on the page after the following page.

Format

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First Page This is an example of the top of the first page of a paper. Use double-spaces. The title must be a double-space below the date and centered. See MLA Handbook - Seventh Edition. 4.3. Heading And Title. 116.

Internal Punctuation

Long QuotationsThis is an example of how to do a citation longer than one sentence.

ksfsdfsalsfdjkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkks;dflkaks;fldskf;sdlllllllllllllllllwks;dlfk’safdksa;

Works Cited Page

This is an example of the top of the first page of a works-cited list. Entries are in alphabetical order with second lines of each entry indented (hanging indentation).See MLA Handbook - Seventh Edition. 131.

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John Smith

Professor Abraham

English 201

May 7, 2009

Greek Tragedy

“In the very first year of our century Sigmund Freud in his Interpretation of Dreams offered a famous and influential interpretation of Oedipus the King:

Oedipus Rex is what is known as a tragedy of destiny. Its tragic effect is said to lie in the contrast between supreme will of the gods and the vain attempts of mankind to escape the evil that threatens them. The lesson which, it is said, the deeply moved spectator should learn from the tragedy is submission to the divine will and realization of his own impotence. (Trans. James Strachey)

This passage is of course a landmark in the history of modern thought, and it is fascinating to observe that this idea, which, valid or not, has had enormous influence, stems from an attempt to answer a literary problem – why does the play have this overpowering effect on modern audiences?” (Knox, Bernard. Sophocles – The Three Theban Plays. Translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin Books. Copyright by Bernhard Knox, 1982. 132. Print.)

When citing a source in the text do as follows: “Oedipus in the play is a free agent” (Fagles, 149).

When paraphrasing do as follows: Fagles maintains that Oedipus has free will (Fagles, 149).

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The Works Cited page must be on a separate page.

Andrew Gottlieb SAMPLE PAPER for Plato’s Allegory of the

Cave

English 101- (section number)

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Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. Edited by Edward Hubler.

A Signet Classic. Copyright by Edward Hubler, 1963. Print.

Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays – Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oeidipus at Colonus.

Translated By Robert Fagles. Penguin Books. Copyright by Robert Fagles, 1982, 1984. Print.

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Andrew Gottlieb SAMPLE PAPER

Professor Gottlieb

English 201-(section number)

April 5, 2013

Poems of a Darker Shade

Is death an end or a beginning? How we define ourselves depends in part on how we

answer this question. If it is an end and nothing more, we are a finite being devoid of an eternal

soul or spirit. If, however, death is a beginning, we are potentially an immortal, eternal soul or

spirit of potentially infinite extension. The way we see death thus determines how we see

ourselves. The focus of this paper is to explore how certain poets have defined themselves and

their humanity in relation to the question of mortality.

Before examining the poets, let’s consider a well known passage from the Bible.

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust thou return.” (Genesis 3:19. Pentateuch And Haftorahs, second edition, edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz, C.H.)

This passage suggests that man is no more than the matter out of which his body is made.

In the context of these lines, man is not an eternal spirit. In the words of the singer-songwriter,

Sara Brightman, “All we are is dust in the wind.” This sentiment is reflected as well in William

Shakespeare’s Macbeth (William Shakespeare. Macbeth. Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28). In this

soliloquy Macbeth characterizes life in its most impermanent sense. It is no more than a “brief

candle” whose flame is short lived, a “walking shadow,” a thing without substance, a “poor

player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” All ends with

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death. Even memories of the deceased fade to nothing. In the end, life is “a tale told by an

idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” Life is meaningless.

Not everyone shares this dismal view of life. The opening lines of Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow’s poem, A Psalm of Life, are an offering of hope.

Tell me not in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!

Referring to Genesis 3:19, Wadsworth proclaims,

Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.

If we are under the impression that the biblical proclamation “for dust thou art, and unto dust

thou return” signifies the absence of eternal life, Longfellow assures us that we are wrong.

His is a brighter interpretation of the lines. It is only our body that decays and disappears.

The soul in the end prevails.

Longfellow furthermore affirms the meaning of life by offering consolation to those who

fear that they will be forgotten. Unlike Macbeth who characterization life as a “poor player that

struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more,” Longfellow affirms the power

of legacy.

Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sand of time;

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We are not mere dust in the wind or grains of sand that disperse and disappear. Our memory

survives us. We have the capacity to “make our lives sublime” and leave “footprints on the sand

of time.”

In some of his Sonnets, Shakespeare extols the power of memory over death. In

Sonnet 55, he writes,

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes.

Here the beloved will live beyond death by the power of the written word. She will live “in

this,” in this poem and dwell in the memory of the lover.

Not only may we live on in the memory of others but also in the limitless realm of

eternity. In his poem, Death be not Proud (Holy Sonnet 10), John Donne declares victory over

death.

Death, be not proud, though some have called theeMighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;

* * *

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,And death shall be no more; Death shalt die.

Death is not death, but a beginning. The end of life as we know it is an end not of life but of the

very idea of death, since upon our demise our soul is fully revealed and realized. All that dies is

death. Who could concoct a better paean to rally the soldier rushing into battle or the dissident to

face his oppressor with courage and resolve than this? If we can conquer death, we can conquer

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just about anything. And so, by deflating the power of death as he has, Donne has offered us

a most potent picture of ourselves.

There are times when the contemplation of death may leave us in doubt. This feeling has

never been expressed better than in Hamlet’s To Be or Not to Be soliloquy in Act 3, Scene 1.

Hamlet characterizes death as “The undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns”

and wonders “what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil.” So, even

though one may have an immortal soul, he may still be worse off dead than alive. Death may

well be an eternal nightmare. Hell rather than heaven may the permanent resting place of the

soul.

For the young British Romantic poet, John Keats, the prospect of death is a source of consolation.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy!

In Ode to a Nightingale, death is characterized as an escape, a place away from the pain and

sorrow of life. The song of the bird is a promise, however fleeting, of a blissful immortality.

What conclusion, if any, can we make concerning mortality and how our vision of it

shapes our sense of self? Clearly, there is no one single way to look at death. Each of us must

find our own way to comprehend what we can never truly know. I have often wondered if death

is a realm of dreams and have fancied that the dreams we have while alive are what we can

expect to experience in our next life. Perhaps, life is a dress rehearsal for another phase of

existence. Sigmund Freud referred to the part of us that dreams as the unconscious, a part of self

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that is akin to a deep well from which we can draw joy as well as despair. Much as we may try,

we can never gain a thorough understanding of our inner being. We are in this respect strangers

to ourselves. If death then is a realm of dreams, then Hamlet’s characterization of it as an

undiscovered country is most apt. In the end, no one can give us a definitive understanding of

the big unknown. The role of poets has never been to provide unequivocal answers but to give

voice to our feelings. Death is a region upon which we can only speculate. In this regard, we

can only guess who and what we truly are. Our true identity in the end remains a mystery. It is

only our preference for consolation or the resolution to face life without it that, in the end,

determines the picture of reality we choose to adopt.

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Works Cited

Genesis 3:19. Pentateuch And Haftorahs, second edition, edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz, C.H.

Major British Poets of the Romantic Period. Edited By William Heath. Macmillan Co., Inc.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Old World Series. Portland Maine. Thomas B. Mosher.

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Your name

Course number and section

Name of your professor

Date of completion

Title

Part 1 – Introduction:Write about death. Make mention of the fact that death has been the topic of many poems.

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Body:Write about varying ideas of death in poetry.

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Conclusion:Write about what you have learned from your exploration of mortality.

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Works Cited

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