Poetry Incarnate

With a bit more time, I really want to flesh out the ideas of this essay because they've got quite a bit of support that I could work in.  However, the time constraints have let me off the hook for now:)

Here's what we've got:

One of the most effective ways to learn is to take a concept about which you know nothing and compare it to something you understand well.  In Margaret Edson’s play, W;t, the protagonist, Dr. Vivian Bearing, is a hardened scholar who has devoted her life to studying the poetry of John Donne. Her world is upended after learning that she has cancer, and Vivian agrees to be studied and scrutinized in order to better understand the disease—just as she once picked apart Donne’s Holy Sonnets.  Throughout the story, Vivian recites lines from one poem in particular: Holy Sonnet X.  Edson ingeniously portrays Vivian herself as a form of metaphysical conceit—a physical representation for the meaning of the poem.

The sonnet begins with the lines, “Death be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not soe….” Vivian begins the play as one who is “mighty and dreadful.”  She is very intelligent, with degrees and awards to prove it.  Her doctor and former student, Jason Posner, describes the intensity of her lectures and her ferocity as a teacher.  Vivian’s name could be easily substituted in place of “Death” because she is a prime example of the proud being brought down. 

Later on in the poem and play, we see Vivian compared again to death as she herself is “…subject to…desperate men.”  Her doctors are determined to study and understand the cancer that eats away at her body in a way that is ironically similar to how she scrutinized Donne’s poetry for meaning.  Vivian is also kept in the hospital for close observation, bringing reality to the lines, “And dost with poyson, warre, and sickness dwell.”  The chemotherapy is a poison that wars against her body’s natural defenses and keeps her in a state of perpetual sickness.  Donne then compares death to a drug when he says, “And poppie, or charmes can make us sleep as well.”  Vivian is put under a morphine drip at the end of her life, which leaves her unconscious and simulates death.  All of these descriptors of Death, though written by Donne, are realized by Vivian.

The final example of metaphysical conceit between the sonnet and Vivian is the last line of the poem: “And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.”  The play emphasizes the use of the comma after the word “death.”  A comma means that there is a continuation, not an ending.  There is still more to come, more to be discovered, more to understand.  Vivian dies before the doctors can finish their studies on her.  She leaves them with a questioning comma instead of a finalized period or semicolon.  This also symbolizes how Vivian continues to live after the experience.  Her existence is not terminated by the end of her life.

Understanding the concepts of living and dying through poetry in ways like these help Dr. Vivian Bearing come to terms with her fate.  Through living out Holy Sonnet X, Vivian comes to realize that she has been just as proud as Death in Donne’s sonnet and has the same frailties and weaknesses associated with it.  Her life was a living death.  However, as she comes to understand what it means to be alive and all the aspects of living well, her own actual death provides an escape and she is able to finally be free.  She understands the comma—that it is merely a pause, not an ending.