Joseph Blanco White’s “Night and Death”

                                                         Night and Death

Joseph Blanco White

Joseph Blanco White’s “Night and Death” is a sonnet dedicated to Coleridge. The title of the poem indicates a connection between night and death as both are perceived negatively by humans. Through the poem, the poet tries to give different perspective to them.  

          The poet begins the poem with an exclamation by calling the night as a mysterious one. By the word ‘first parent’ he means Adam and he says that Adam hears the word night from the divine.  He feels terrified by knowing that the night will soon replace the lovely sky of brightness. When the sun sets, its light passes beautifully as if passing through a curtain and the evening star Hesperus comes with other bright stars. The emergence of the evening star is a beautiful vision and it made the humans to feel excited. The sight which made him to feel afraid initially excited him later. It has widened man’s view about the creation of the world.

          The poet questions that who could have thought that such a beautiful night is hidden under the brightness of the sun. He continues that because of the sun light people could know about fly, leaf and insects but did not know about the uncountable stars. The poet again raises a question that why people try to avoid death in angry manner. He concludes the poem by asking if light can hide the beauty of night and stars, why life cannot hide about death. The poet compares Night and Death. Initially Adam was afraid of night but later he enjoyed the beauty of night with bright stars. Similarly people are afraid of death and they do not want to talk about it. Like night, death also might be a wonderful one. The ‘Octave’ of the poem brings the darker side of night and humans dislike about it. The ‘Sestet’ solves the problem by stating that even the darkness has its beauty with stars which is hidden by the sun. Similarly life also might be hiding the beauty of death.  He concludes the poem with positive note that no need to worry about death.