Shakespeare

“Fear no more the heat o' the sun Nor the furious winter's rages.” (pg. 9)

This poetic verse is an excerpt from one of William Shakespeare’s many poems. This particular poem focuses on death and how realistic worries become insignificant when one dies. The poem includes such lines as “thy worldly task hast done,” “all must…come to dust,” and “Quiet consummation have; And renownéd be thy grave” which all emphasize the message of death and its consequences. Woolf strategically places these lines within the story to establish irony. It just so happens that Clarissa had been contemplating death momentarily before viewing the first couplet of this funeral like poem. The message observed in this poem can also be connected to Septimus Warren Smith who frequently thinks of suicide following his involvement in the war. This poem also indirectly relates to the author, Virginia Woolf, who committed suicide several years following the publishing of this novel.

"[minstrels] Fear no more the heat o' the sun -- William Shakespeare." Department of Computer Science. Web. 28 Sept. 2009. http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/477.html