Ben Jonson & Thomas Nashe Essay

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Similar to the poem about his son, Jonson depicted the sorrow brought about this time, with the death of a daughter. While in On my first son, Jonson talked in a personal level about his son, he meanwhile spoke for all women, young and old, in the poem On my first daughter. Jonson's greater affinity for his son is apparent in the first poem, as he spoke about the death of his daughter in a venerable, and to some extent, in a somewhat detached manner as a father. The lack of personal reflection in On my first daughter can be attributed to the fact that being a man, he has more affinity to his son than his daughter. Also, Jonson's daughter barely lived for a year, which could possibly explain Jonson's vague feeling of detachment evoked in the poem ("At six months' end, she parted hence…"). The reverence Jonson gave his daughter also translates to the reverence he gave to all women, whatever roles they may have in the society: "Here lies, to each her parents' ruth / Mary, the daughter of their youth…Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears / In comfort of her mother's tears…" The author further venerated his daughter by mentioning that she died pure ("Hath placed amongst her virgin-train…"), in the same way that he invoked his son's purity when he died and 'escaped' the suffering that he would encounter in later in life.

A different approach to discussing and reflecting death is shown in the poem, A Litany in Time of Plague by Nashe.

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In it, Nashe used the voice of a dying man as his mirror through which the author's thoughts on death and dyingwere reflected. Within the theme of death, there are subthemes that translate to the dying man's reflections about his life and the inevitability of death. These reflections about life are also his 'parting words' to humanity (in general), imparting his wisdom and realizations about some truths in life, as he experienced it in his lifetime. These sub-themes include: non-subsistence to material wealth ("trust not in wealth"), not giving too much importance to one's earthly or physical being ("Gold cannot buy you wealth"; "Physic himself must fade"), and strength will eventually prove weak against death and the plague ("Strength stoops unto the grave… Swords may not fight with fate").

The inevitability of death is discussed in the context of the dying man's realization that what happens in one's lifetime becomes trivial as a person approaches death. This is further reinforced in the situation of the poem's voice, who is dying from the plague. The plague trivializes life and even death, for this is a disease that ravaged and caused death to thousands, possibly millions, of people. Health, wealth, and even courage and strength did not prepare the people from the death that the plague brought with it. In the end, just like Jonson in On my first son and On my first daughter, Nashe's speaker in Litany accepted his fate, resonated throughout the poem through repetitions of the following lines: "I am sick, I must die / Lord, have mercy on.....

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