Saying More Than It Says: Paradox, Irony, Sarcasm, Litotes and Euphemism

Two poems, almost three hundred years apart, both about death. In the first, a priest taunts Death to its face as if it were a bully in the market. In the second, a soldier in a pub tries to explain why he killed a man, and cannot. Neither poet says exactly what he means. That gap between the words and the meaning is where this lesson's devices live.

Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10)
John Donne (written about 1610, published 1633)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

The Man He Killed
Thomas Hardy (written 1902)

"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like—just as I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps—
No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."

1Paradox: Donne's argument

Donne's sonnet is a debate in which only one side speaks. He tells Death not to be proud, then proves it with three arguments, and ends with a paradox that would be nonsense if it were not true for a Christian believer: "Death, thou shalt die."

Three paradoxes hold the poem together. Those Death "overthrows" "Die not". Death, the end of life, is only a "short sleep" before we "wake eternally". And Death itself will die, because after the resurrection there will be no more dying ("death shall be no more", an echo of the Bible's Book of Revelation). Each paradox shocks us into thinking, and each is resolved by Donne's faith in eternal life.

2Sarcasm and euphemism: shrinking Death

Donne speaks to Death as to a boastful person who needs taking down. "Poor Death" is sarcastic pity; "why swell'st thou then?" mocks Death for puffing itself up. Death is called a "slave" who keeps low company ("poison, war, and sickness"). The poem also uses the oldest euphemism for dying, sleep: "rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be". But Donne goes further than a euphemism usually does. He uses it as evidence: if sleep, the mere picture of death, is pleasant, then death itself must be "much more" so.

3Irony and understatement: Hardy's soldier

Hardy's speaker is an ordinary man, out of work, who joined the army because he had sold his tools. The poem is full of situational irony: the man he killed was just like him, someone he would have bought a drink for in a pub. Its form is ironic too: the jaunty ballad rhythm and the rhymes ("inn"/"nipperkin") suit a drinking song, not a killing.

The speaker's own words reveal more than he intends. In stanza 3 the dashes and repetition ("because— / Because he was my foe, / Just so: my foe of course he was; / That's clear enough") show him trying to convince himself, and failing. The final stanza is an understatement: to call war "quaint and curious" (strange, odd) is so mild, after "I shot him dead", that the reader feels the horror the speaker cannot put into words. The irony belongs to Hardy, not to his speaker, who does not see it.

4Litotes: affirming by denying

In "Ulysses" (1842), Alfred Tennyson's old hero says that before death "Some work of noble note, may yet be done, / Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods." "Not unbecoming" means "worthy of", but the double negative sounds modest and controlled, as an old king would speak. Litotes is common in everyday English: "She is no stranger to hard work"; "The exam was not easy"; "That was no small achievement".