Prosopopoeia, as a literary device is not uncommon in both English

and American literature, since authors have been using it throughout

literary history in order to introduce a manufactured and contrived

presentation of characters or personified things, that is, feigned sub

specie personae. This paper examines the importance of prosopopoeia

as a literary device in revealing certain personal prophetic visions when

in anticipation of one’s own imminent death with examples from Sylvia

Plath and David Bowie’s poetics. Through the impersonation of the

absent speaker or a personification, the language of the prosopopoeia

has a purpose of transfiguration by revealing the staggering horrors of

inner struggles, thus becoming the enabling device through which one

speaks about one’s forthcoming, expected death. More specifically, this

paper focuses on the adoption of such voices of the imagined Biblical

figures in Sylvia Plath’s poem “Lady Lazarus” and in David Bowie’s song

“Lazarus” which express a prophetic vision of the personal self, as well

as the predictive resurrection and life after death through one’s own

immortal artistic legacy and output.