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Alan Seeger I Have A Nervous With Death Essay

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Alan Seeger’s poem, I Have a Rendezvous with Death is a truly gripping narrative about himself as a soldier who is facing the possibility of his death. I found this story particularly engaging due to the writing style and unique personification of death. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the story is that Seeger intends for this to be a personal account.
In this elegy, Seeger uses repetition, personification and diction. The repetition is evident as he writes “I have a rendezvous with death” (Seeger) several times in the poem. The personification of death as the subject of the story is a unique aspect of the story. Seeger also personifies spring in an ironic manner. The irony is evident when Seeger writes, “When Spring comes back with rustling shade… I have a rendezvous with death.” (Seeger). This allows for an interesting contrast between the life and beauty of spring and the cold and grim nature of death. Another instance of this is “I have a rendezvous with Death; when spring brings back blue days and fair.” (Seeger). Seeger uses diction in an artful manner in order to achieve contradictory meanings and manipulate the connotations of the reader. An example of such a paradox is in the sentence, “I have a rendezvous with …show more content…

For soldiers who took part in the First World War, the possibility of dying was real and even probable. Alan Seeger who lived in England at the time, enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France due to his sense of duty and cultural values. Seeger’s idealism contributes to the tone of the poem, in which the poet does not shrink from his rendezvous with death but actually welcomes it. This is evident when he writes in the last stanza, “And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous.” (Seeger). It can be understood that Seeger wanted to communicate to the people that it was a noble and patriotic act to die for one’s

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