Comparing Philosophies in West-Running Brook and Meditation 17 Essay

Philosophies in West-Running house and Meditation 17 No matter the elaborate skulduggery afforded its disclosure or evasion, the subject of death relentlessly permeates the minds of men. Death and its cyclical, classic nature connects all worlds to one another. Robert Frost in West-Running indorse and John Donne in Meditation 17 provoke a popular reexamination of the relationship between life and death. While both authors metaphorically represent this relationship, the former assumes a pessimistic approach by negating all correlation between the two, whereas the latter, voicing mans dependence on G-d, optimistically surmises the crossover a restoration of our natural haven. Frost utilizes West-Running Brook as a catalyst towards an insightful philosophy comparing human existence to a west-running brook. The westward direction of the brook informs the reader of the metrical compositions focus on death due to the inherent archetypal associations between death and the sunset , which occurs in the west. Running and a stylistically choppy sentence structure convey the poets belief in the speedy and ephemeral pace of life. Repetition of the phrase runs away (it runs away, it seriously woefully runs away) serves as a constant reminder of this transient looking at of life while adding an element of despair and loneliness. The Frostian consciousness commonly resides in the time-space continuum, and finds it extremely difficult to move behind or beyondwhile remaining drenched in skepticism(Hart 442). What all this comes to is a breakup which in its cultural context is a poetry of isolationism(Traschen 63). Frosts isolation accosts the reader who cannot help but to sympathize and possibly realise with his situation. Frost... ...d Brave Scorn John Donne. Duke University Press, 1982. 178. Kemp, John C. Robert Frost and newborn England The Poet as Regionalist. Princeton University Press, 1979. 273. Lewalski, Barbara. Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth Ce ntury Religious Lyric. Princeton University Press, 1979. 253-282. Murry, John. Donnes Devotions. The times Literary Supplement.11 Mar. 1926. No. 1260. Ogilvie, John. From Woods to Stars A Pattern of Imagery in Robert Frosts Poetry. South Atlantic Quarterly. Winter, 1959. 64-76. Sherwood, Terry. Fulfilling the Circle A resume of John Donnes Thought. University of Toronto Press, 1984. 231. Traschen, Isadore. Robert Frost Some Divisions in a unit of measurement Man. The Yale Review. Vol. LV, No. 1. Autumn, 1965. 57-70. Untermeyer, Louis. Still Robert Frost. Saturday Review of Literature. 22 Dec. 1928. 71-74.