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Death. Perhaps no other theme elicits such deep and varied emotions from individuals across the globe. It's no wonder, then, that poets through the ages—no matter the time or place—have sought to address death through poetry. Read the following poems by A.E. Housman and Dylan Thomas and begin to consider the theme of death in poetry.

Conduct in-depth analysis of the poems' form and meaning using the corresponding student analysis worksheet, available in PDF form below

Compare and contrast the poems by completing the Venn diagrams using the following guiding questions.

How do the speakers differ? How are they similar?
How would you describe the tone of each poem? How does the tone of each poem differ? Is the tone the same at certain parts of the poem?
How is the use of sound devices similar in each poem? How is it different?
What are the similarities and differences of the poems� rhyme schemes?
What effect does Thomas' use of the villanelle form have on the tone of "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" in contrast to "To an Athlete Dying Young"?
What are the similarities and differences between each poem's presentation of death?
How else would you compare and contrast these poems?

Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson
Holy Sonnets: Death Be Not Proud by John Donne
If We Must Die by Claude McKay
The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell
Night Funeral in Harlem by Langston Hughes
Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 by Mart�n Espada
Dirge by Edna St. Vincent Millay
"Elegy for Jane" by Theodore Roethke
Nothing But Death by Pablo Neruda, trans. by Robert Bly
Stop all the clocks by W.H. Auden
O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
I Have a Rendezvous with Death by Alan Seeger

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Death in Poetry

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