The first passage is from Shelley's play, The Cenci . The second is from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure . Here she brings Claudio the news that he cannot expect a reprieve. Sure, it is no sin, Or of the deadly seven, it is the least.
Death is a fearful thing.
The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury and imprisonment Can lay on nature is a paradise To what we fear of death. But there is no need to go on. The point has been sufficiently enforced that, though this vivid concreteness of realization lodged the passage in Shelley's mind, to become at the due moment 'inspiration,' the passage inspired is nothing but wordy emotional generality. It does not grasp and present anything, but merely makes large gestures towards the kind of effect deemed appropriate. Return to class home page .