Death Be Not Proud (John Donne)

The speaker initiates a direct, litigious confrontation with the personified figure of Death, challenging its perceived omnipotence through a series of logical paradoxes. By deploying the conventions of the metaphysical conceit, the persona argues that Death is merely a 'slave' to earthly powers and a temporary transition rather than a finality. The sonnet systematically dismantles the fear of dying by equating it to sleep and exposing its dependence on 'fate, chance, kings, and desperate men'. Ultimately, the text asserts the Christian doctrine of resurrection, culminating in the destruction of Death itself. This subversion of the traditional power dynamic transforms the terrifying spectre of mortality into a powerless agent of eternal life.