Punctuation, Sound, et al.
I do love this celebrated poem of Donne's. Sure, the speaker is defiant and bold before a formidable foe, but the power in “Death, Be Not Proud” is not derived from a courageous face-off with death; it is in the steady tone of the speaker.
Donne gives his speaker an immovable surety; a towering gentleness. There is no fear present. I hear benevolence and sympathy from the repetition of the "O" and "E" sounds. I hear the voice of an experienced executive having an exit interview with a veteran employee who is no longer a value to the firm. This is the music, the penetrating power of the piece, for me
In the scenario presented in “Wit,” the professor's point is sound. The version Vivian brings in--And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!--puts em-PHAS-is on all the wrong syl-LAB-les. This version makes death sound like a melodramatic player in a vaudevillian skit. Such an approach lets the reader off the hook, doesn't trust their ability to see and feel the emotional depths.
The version the Professor champions, on the other hand--And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die--removes the distracting punctuation (unnecessary traffic signals trying to micromanage emotional clarity) and lets the reality of Death's powerlessness sink into our consciousness, naturally and matter-of-factly. Art moves us more deeply when the invitation to enter into it is authentic and the boundaries between life and art are imperceptible.
Keats, in "To Autumn," accomplishes such an invitation to enter into a shared world with beautiful and immersive concrete sound images. We hear small gnats humming among the river willows, lifting and sinking with the wind, bleating lambs, singing hedge-crickets, whistling red-breasted robins, and "gathering swallows twitter in the skies."
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