Humor

Because literature, especially poetry, has traditionally dealt with serious subject matter in a serious manner, critics rarely consider light verse "great" poetry. Collins's poem uses humor, however, to make a serious point: human experience is malleable, and the unknown far outweighs the known. By caricaturing those who hold various beliefs about the afterlife, Collins shows just how silly trying to fathom the unknown can be. For example, by depicting the feminist "god" as a kind of middle-aged librarian, he satirizes those who hold that God is a woman, and by depicting those who believe in reincarnation as trying to squeeze into "the skin of a monkey like a tight suit," he lampoons the beliefs of a billion Hindus. Collins, however, is an equal opportunity offender in this poem, satirizing the beliefs of most major religions and even those who do not believe in organized religion.

Religion

Historically, organized...