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Consider
the following poem:
Death Be Not Proud
Death be not proud, though
some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for,
thou art not so,
For those, whom thou think'st,
thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor net
canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which
but thy pictures be
Much pleasure, then from tee,
much more must flow,
And soonest out best men with
thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's
delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance,
kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war,
and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make
us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke;
why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake
eternally,
And death shall be no more;
death, thou shalt die.
- John Donne
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What is the poem supposed to say?
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Where does the poem break down?
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How might it work against the
author's intentions?
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Identify specific places where
the text falls apart.
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FORMULA FOR DECONSTRUCTION:
Name:
Text:
When I deconstruct this
text, here's what happens. I think the main idea the author/poet
was trying to construct was:
This construct really doesn't
work. The idea falls apart. The language and construction of
the text aren't able to convey what the author meant to convey. There
are places in the text where it just doesn't work. For example:
So, in the end, even though
the author meant the work to say
it really said |
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