Death, Be Not Proud

Personification is the first literary term that comes to mind regarding John Donne's Death, Be Not Proud. "Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so"(Donne, 971).  This poems emphasizes the reasons one should not necessarily be afraid of death.  It almost seems as though Donne is mocking death by saying that he comes about in so many various ways and it relies on the doing of other men or the passage of time.  Donne then characterizes death as just a type of sleep that one experiences.  The only difference, he says, is that when we awake from that different type of sleep, there is no more death to be around.  One could easily be confused as to who is a "slave to fate, chance, kings,..."(Donne, 971).  Thou usually refers to a person, but because Donne is referring to death as a person, that "thou" is directed towards death. In a way, he is almost giving a pep talk to those who may actually fear death.  He says that everyone dies, even the best men.  However, on a positive note, he says that death will die when we awaken from our final sleep.  Donne almost has a sense of victory with the syntax and diction that he uses in the last sentence.