poem analysis

1. Felix okecki, Malena Millán, Clara Allende and Fran
Costamagna.

2. Poem
I am the one whose thought
Is as the deed; I have no brother, and
No father; years
Have never seen my power begin. A chain
Doth bind all things to me. In my hand, man,–
Infinite thinker,–vanishes as doth
The worm that he creates, as doth the moth
That it creates, as doth the limb minute
That stirs upon that moth. My being is
Inborn with all things, and
With all things doth expand.
But fear me not; I am
The hoary dust, the shut ear, the profound,
The deep of night,
When Nature’s universal heart doth cease
To beat; communicating nothing; dark
And tongueless, negative of all things. Yet
Fear me not, man; I am the blood that flows
Within thee,–I am change; and it is I
Creates a joy within thee, when thou feel’st
Manhood and new untried superior powers
Rising before thee: I it is can make
Old things give place
To thy free race.
All things are born for me.
His father and his mother,–yet man hates
Me foolishly.
An easy spirit and a free lives on,
But he who fears the ice doth stumble.Walk
Straight onward peacefully,–I am a friend
Will pass thee graciously: but grudge and weep
And cark,–I’ll be a cold chain around thy neck
Into the grave, each day a link drawn in,
Until thy face shall be upon the turf,
And the hair from thy crown
Be blown like thistle-down.
William Bell Scott (1811-1890)

3. INFO ABOUT THE WRITER AND CONTEXT
William Bell Scott (12 September 1811 – 22 November 1890) He was a Scottish
artist, poet and art teacher, he was especially close to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He
was one of the first British artists to extensively depict the processes of the
Industrial Revolution.
Death explains his virtues and why we shouldn’t live our lives in fear of him. His
point is basically that death is an inescapable part of life, high and low, and that if
we spend our lives trying to avoid or stave off death our efforts will mean that we
avoid actually living our lives and ultimately death will catch up with all of us
anyway.

5. Language Techniques
Mini-Glossary
hoary – a greyish white
cark – an informal way of saying die, which seems to stem from the fact it sounds like the call of death’s winged friend, the crow;
thistle-down – a weedy plant where the seeds can be blown off.
The Semantic field is death. The whole poem is about death and how
The poet personifies death as a powerful and eternal figure.
‘no brother, and no father’ meaning that death is unique and has no creator. It is so powerful that even time has no power over it.
The writer describes the man as an ‘infinite thinker’ which suggests that we try to escape from death by thinking about other
alternatives which could alter our faith. He seems to be mocking us.

6. Literary Devices
¨Deep of the night– With night already being dark on its own ,this phrase give us the image of death hiding behind
the even darker shadows of night.
¨Man….vanishes as doth the worm that he creates– creates image of decaying body being fed on by worms yet
even these worms will also experience death.
He compares man to insects because not only they both die but also they are lowly beings.
Scott uses a lot of metaphors to explain what he is (death)
“I am the hoary dust, the shut ear, the profound, the deep of night,”

7. Intertextuality
We compared “Death” to the poem “Care-charmer Sleep“ which also
deals with the theme of death. The voice expresses how he wants to
escape from the suffering of day time, he wants to sleep. He is looking
for an everlasting sleep which is death. It is related to our poem
because it expresses how death is eternal and also we could relate it
because “Death” explains how dying frees us from life.

8. Essay question
How does the writer portray death as inescapable throughout the poem?