Death As Eternity

In studying Shakespeare's The Phoenix and Turtle, the present study, focusing in particular on the theme of death, endeavors to provide a new interpretation of the nature of death in the poem, namely, death is a metaphor of the individual's merging into the divine eternity of the cosmos.The introduction offers the arguments on the theme of the poem. Being heavily allegorical, the theme of the poem remains a mystery. For centuries, scholars have been arguing over it and their approaches could be generalized as: historical, symbolic and formalist. Based on their researching, this study applies the archetypal criticism to the analysis of the poem, and points out that the death-eternity theme is a variation of the archetype of archetypes—the death-rebirth theme.The main body of the thesis includes three parts.Applying a mythological and astrological study, Chapter I traces the source and the symbolic meaning of the Phoenix. In ancient Egypt, the birthplace of the myth of the Phoenix, this sacred bird was associated with the journey of the sun and the periodical overflow of the Nile. In the ancient mythology and astrology, the Phoenix resembled time and the cycle of the stars. Shakespeare's poems and plays proved that Shakespeare was familiar with the classical mythology, the ancient Greek philosophy and the astrology of the Middle Ages. If the image of the Phoenix in Shakespeare's poem is understood no more than a lover, the association of the Phoenix with time will be ignored. In this poem, the death of the Phoenix is the crossroads of time and timelessness, symbolising the eternal circular motion of the cosmos.Chapter II explores the significance of the death of the Turtle by placing it in a mythological, religious and ancient Greek philosophical background. The Turtle was the bird of love in classical Greek mythology. To the Hebrews, the Turtle was the offering that God would like to receive. The image of the Turtle had been gradually adopted by Christianity and became...