"From Dust to Eternity: Exploring the Theme of Mortality and Immortality in British and American Poetry"

Abstract

This paper delves into the enduring theme of mortality and the yearning for immortality in the poetry of both Britain and America. Through close analysis of John Donne, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman, it interrogates how poets across time and culture illuminate death’s inevitability and the human impulse to transcend it—whether through faith, memory, art, or the soul’s persistence. Adopting a comparative framework, the study traces literary developments from metaphysical and Romantic British verse to the transcendental and modern strains of American poetry. Ultimately, it reveals that while British poets often approach mortality through spiritual introspection and artistic assertion, American counterparts embrace it as a continuity of nature and self, celebrating cosmic unity and the transformative power of poetic legacy.