John Donne likely wrote “Death, be not proud” in 1609. Originally known as “Sonnet X,” this poem was among nineteen so-called Holy Sonnets that Donne began writing a decade after his conversion to Anglicanism in the late 1590s. The poem wasn’t published until after Donne’s death—first in the 1633 edition of Songs and Sonnets, and again in the 1635 volume titled Divine Meditations. As this context indicates, “Death, be not proud” is a religious work, the subject of which relates to the Christian notion of eternal life after death. The poem’s anonymous speaker directly addresses a personified version of Death. Through a series of gestures and rhetorical tactics meant to humble Death, the speaker insists that Death ultimately has no power over life. They develop this claim over the course of the sonnet’s three quatrains, in which they negate Death’s power, liken Death to sleep, and argue that Death is a mere slave to those who have the power to control it. The speaker then concludes that Death itself “[shall] die” (line 14). This final claim reflects the speaker’s faith in everlasting life. Yet for all the speaker’s apparent confidence, a trace of doubt arguably lingers beneath the surface.

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