John Donne and Emily Dickinson are not necessarily poets whose names invoke immediate and evident associations with each other. Separated with more than two centuries of history and thousands of miles, not to mention their gender, these two may seem to have little in common except for the language they wrote in. However, the difference in gender is precisely what allows comparing and contrasting the poems of these two authors through the lens of feminist criticism. Both Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” and Dickinson’s “Wild Nights” deliberate on the themes of control and power and discuss how these are exercised. Each author approaches the topic from his or her gendered stance indirectly reflects the gendered distribution of power in their respective societies. Overall, both speakers’ stances assert control in their poems, “Death Be Not Proud” emphasizes the masculine agency of patriarchal society while “Wild Nights” seeks to establish accentuated female power.
When comparing the aforementioned poems from the feminist perspective, the theme of control and power immediately catches the eye as the key similarity between the two, expressed through the speaker’s stance. Donne’s poem addresses death to deny it any agency in human affairs by pointing out that it has no actual power over human existence. To drive his point, Donne points out that death is ultimately “slave to fate, chance, kings” – in other words, it is brought by external factors rather than comes of its own volition (9). The poet’s triumphant statement “we sake eternally” takes any presumed control of human existence from death and transfers it to people (13). Similarly, Dickinson’s “Wild Nights” also asserts confident control, which is also quite evident in the speaker’s stance. As early as the first stanza, the speaker claims that the eponymous wild nights “should be” – not merely “can,” or “may,” but “should” – be the luxury she and her love can afford (Dickinson 3). Overall, the speakers’ stances in both poems contribute to assigning power over people’s fate to the people themselves rather than some external actor.
From the feminist perspective, the key feature of the speaker’s stance in “Death Be Not Proud” that sets it apart from “Wild Nights” is the speaker’s persona, which is openly and unequivocally male. When speaking of those death has no power over, the author uses the male grammatical form. First, he refers to “our best men” who embrace death on their own accord, and then he mentions “desperate men” who command it to come when they want it (Donne 7, 9). Admittedly, this wording is not necessarily explicitly sexist, as “men” are most likely the synonym for “humans” in this context. Still, the very use of male rather than gender-neutral word signifies the patriarchal reality of Donne’s society. Moreover, when mentioning the factors governing death, Donne lists “war,” which was traditionally the domain of men, and “kings” but no queens (9). Not only is the poem’s speaker male – the power the poem asserts is also the power of those who wage war and occupy positions of control due to their male sex. Control, as asserted in “Death Be Not Proud,” belongs to men of patriarchal society.
In contrast, the speaker’s stance in “Wild Nights” reveals an attempt to seize control for a woman and make her an independent agent rather than a subject to external forces. As mentioned above, the poem’s female speaker insists that she and her love “should be” able to partake in the luxury of the nights spent together (Dickinson 3). This forceful insistence is the claim of power over one’s destiny: the speaker does not wait or ask to be allowed but proclaims what she wants for herself. Moreover, the poem features an explicit reference to the intertwining of the loving souls and, quite likely, bodies in “Might I but moor – tonight – / In thee!” (Dickinson 11-12). This is a powerful and confident statement of feminine sexuality that is not ashamed of itself and does not fear to be expressed. The poem’s speaker is passionate yet open about her feelings and has no qualms about professing them, which is particularly notable in the society that expects female virtue to manifest in reclusive modesty. The speaker’s stance reveals a bold female claim for control in this profoundly patriarchal environment.
To summarize, both Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” and Dickinson’s “Wild Nights” discuss control and power, but the speakers’ stances in the poems assign the power in question to different genders. Whether by expressing a passionate desire to unite with one’s lover or denying death any agency in human affairs, Dickinson and Donne alike stress the will to seize control over one’s destiny. However, the speaker in “Death Be Not Proud” invests this control into men, which is evident in the word choice and references to male-dominated areas of war and politics. In contrast, the female speaker in “Wild Nights” aims to seize power for herself through the bold statement of necessity and unflinching expression of her feminine sensuality. Thus, both poems are reactions to patriarchal male dominance, but while Donne’s poem implicitly enhances it, Dickinson presents a case for women’s independent agency.
Works Cited
Dickinson, Emily. “Wild Nights.”Poetry Foundation.
Donne, John. “Death Be Not Proud. Poetry Foundation.