Divine Meditation 10: Death, be not proud: Rhyme

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The rhyme scheme for “Death, be not proud” is ABBA ABBA CDDC EE. This scheme incorporates elements of both the English and Italian sonnet, though formally it most closely resembles an English sonnet. A typical English sonnet is organized into three quatrains and a final couplet, which rhyme as follows: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Though similarly broken into quatrains and a couplet, Donne’s sonnet diverges from the English sonnet in two key ways. First, the rhyme pattern in the quatrains is inverted (e.g. ABBA) rather than alternating (e.g., ABAB). Second, the rhymes from the first quatrain are retained in the second quatrain; only in the third quatrain do new rhymes appear. These two divergences from the English sonnet rhyme scheme give the poem the initial appearance of an Italian sonnet. A typical Italian sonnet is organized into an octave and a sestet, which rhyme as follows: ABBAABBA CDECDE. Though Donne’s poem shares the initial octave rhyme structure (i.e., ABBAABBA), the final six lines don’t truly resemble a sestet. Instead of being integrated through their rhymes, the final six lines are clearly segmented into a quatrain and a couplet.

For more analysis about how the rhyme scheme influences the poem’s overall organization, check out this guide’s essay on “Structure.” As for the quality of the rhymes themselves, there aren’t many surprises in the poem. Donne’s rhymes are all exact, and they all exemplify so-called masculine rhyme, which means they all fall on the final stressed syllable of each line. Perhaps the most significant rhymes occur when Donne pairs a monosyllabic word with a polysyllabic word. This type of pairing happens twice in the poem. The first example occurs in the opening quatrain, where Donne rhymes “so” and “overthrow” (lines 2 and 3). This pairing is suggestive insofar as the length of the word “overthrow” subtly echoes the speaker’s rhetorical overthrow of Death. The second example of such a pairing occurs in the poem’s concluding couplet, where the speaker forms a rhyme with the words “eternally” and “die” (lines 13 and 14). (Note that in Donne’s time these two words do, in fact, form an exact rhyme!) As with the speaker’s use of “overthrow,” their use of “eternally” rhetorically displaces Death. The ongoing nature of eternity will ultimately prevail. By contrast, Death will simply and matter-of-factly “die.”