Death

W. B. Yeats begins his poem with a negative description. Instead of the first line setting up the beginnings of an image or setting, the reader is given only a kind of reverse description: neither “dread nor hope attend” (Line 1). Though the line does provide its readers with a verb, without the subject of the clause it is unclear to whom or what dread and hope do not “attend” (Line 1). Though the line is short and quickly supplies a subject and image by the conclusion of the following line, it accomplishes a few important effects by positioning itself in terms of lack. First, following the poem’s stark and blunt title, “Death,” the negation of the first line immediately creates a mood of death and its emptiness. Second, this description by means of negation (especially given the gravitas already naturally infusing its one-word title) lends the poem a tone of religious importance. The method of describing a big metaphysical idea by means of saying what it is not is a traditional one within Christian theology known as negative theology (or apophatic theology).