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Overview
“Death, be not proud” is a religious sonnet written by the English poet and cleric John Donne
. The poem numbers among nineteen Holy Sonnets (also known as Divine Meditations) that Donne began writing in 1609, about a decade after he converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism. Given the context of the writing, many critics see in the Holy Sonnets a reflection of Donne’s own struggle with his faith. In the case of “Death, be not proud,” it’s also possible that Donne was writing as he fought a life-threatening illness. But regardless of the specific circumstances of its composition, this religious sonnet ventures the surprising claim that Death mustn’t be too proud, since it too “[shall] die.”Read a summary & analysis, an analysis of the speaker, and explanations of important quotes from “Death, be not proud.”
