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Analysis of John Donne's Holy Sonnet
Themes in john donne poetry
Holy sonnet xiv john donne analysis
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Recommended: Analysis of John Donne's Holy Sonnet
Many philosophers, theologians, and poets have grappled with the question of divine judgment throughout history and continue to this struggle today. However, John Donne offers a fascinating and unique perspective on the Christian view of judgment for the afterlife in Sonnets XIII and XIV of his Holy Sonnets. With vivid imagery that makes his ideas, fears, and hopes almost tangible, Donne addresses the power of pity and the need for divine intervention in his own heart, while being consumed with a desire to know what will happen to him when he dies. Donne expresses a wide range of emotions including devastating despair, but never loses his ability to express his thoughts beautifully and coherently. While Sonnets XIII and XIV may deviate sharply …show more content…
In XIII, the scene of Christ’s crucifixion is deliberately described with gruesome detail: “Tears in His eyes quench the amazing light,/Blood fills His frowns, which from His pierced head fell” (lines 6 and 7). The primary purpose of employing this graphic imagery is to develop the central irony of the poem’s message, namely that the visually horrific death of Christ represents a beauty so powerful it “assures a piteous mind” (line 14). Likewise in Sonnet XIV, Donne uses violent language to frame his poem. However, XIV contains a long series of images instead of focusing on one individual scene like Christ’s crucifixion. Again, violence here is ironically beneficial to Donne. Only through the controlling power of God that overwhelms him, can Donne truly become free. Sonnets XIII and XIV both share a common emphasis on violence being used towards noble …show more content…
He wants “the picture of Christ crucified” to be marked in his heart in Sonnet XIII. Similarly in Sonnet XIV, he asks God to “batter my heart.” However the connotation of heart seems to be different in each poem. The heart of Sonnet XIII is morally neutral or even a pious receptacle for the power of Christ’s pity, while the heart of Sonnet XIV is a weak and corrupt representation of human failing. The former acts as weathervane indicating where the soul “dost dwell” and the latter as the main determiner of Donne’s fate. Thus, Sonnet XIII maintains a feeling of passivity, since Donne wants to appreciate the beauty and receive the pity of Christ, while conversely, Sonnet XIV embodies bold action with Donne’s pleas for forceful divine intervention. It may be an oversimplification to say that the heart of XIII is defined by passivity, and the heart of XIV by action, but this dichotomy reflects a fundamental distinction between the two
John Donne's view of love deviated greatly from the Medieval philosophy of courtly love, which had been expressed in poetry handed down from the sonnets of such poetic giants as Sidney and Petrarch. The general verse until then had focused greatly on the unrivalled importance of love in the context of the life of the poet (or his creation's voice). Until then, "love" had consisted mostly of an obsession with one woman, and an exploration of the feelings and situations that this caused in the narrator.
John uses many examples of figurative language in his sonnet. To begin with, when Mr. Donne first commences his poem, he uses the personification “Death, be not proud” (1). The author is giving death the human characteristics of being “not proud.” The rest of the line continues as “though some have called you thee. ” Death should not be prideful even if people think it is. John displays through this first line how he feels about death: he is too prideful for his own good. Furthermore, Donne uses another personification when he states “Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so” (2). Again, he is giving death, a concept not a human, real characteristics. He believes death is not “mighty” or “dreadful” but something else. It gives his opinion that death is not “dreadful” to people in their lives but possibly beneficial. Later, the poet says “Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men” (9). Death is merely being controlled by things like fate which is the only way he can act. He has no way to move on his own without these other forces. Like with war, death is the result not the cause: death cannot physically make people fight. This comparison devalues death in its importance and therefore its necessity. John Donne’s use of metaphors and personifications in his poem to emphasize his belief that death is not as bad as people or death thinks it really is but can actually be advantageous.
In arguing against mourning and emotional confusion, Donne uses a series of bold and unexpected comparisons for the love between himself and his lady. Donne makes his first surprising analogy in the first stanza when he compares the approaching separation of the lovers to death. "he speaker compares his parting from his lover to the parting of the soul from a virtuous man at death. According to the speaker, "virtuous men pass mildly away" (line 1) because the virtue in their lives has assured them of glory and happiness in the afterlife; therefore, they die in peace without fear and emotion. By this he suggests that the separation of the lovers is parrallel to the separation caused by death.
Holy Sonnet XV deals with the question of reciprocal love that runs throughout Donne’s religious poetry. The Sonnet is an address of the speaker’s mind to the speaker’s soul; it is a meditation on the Trinity and man’s relationship to God. The poem’s form and the multi-layered conflation throughout expound upon the nature of the Trinity. The theme of humility in reciprocal religious love or receiving and understanding God’s glory (as Donne understood it) runs throughout the poem. This allows the speaker’s soul to understand his own need for humility in order to love god fully. Donne uses the Sonnet form cunningly in this poem; the formal divisions of the Sonnet reflect the trinity, with three four-line sections, while the inner workings of the poem expound upon God’s love for mankind and the need for humility. The poem’s rhyme scheme is abba/abba/cddc/ee. This formally divides the poem into three four part sections that move from the spiritual to the physical downward through the Trinity, increasing tangibility with regard to the physical and allowing the speaker to achieve a closer relationship with God through Christ.
Verbs like 'melt ' imply a gentle parting. He does this to add to the sympathy that the poem reflects, thus reassuring his lover that he will come back to her when he leaves. The regular iambic tetrameter and the ABAB rhyme scheme echo 's the emotional strength that Donne feels his love has. Differently, 'Sonnet 73 ' creates a morbid tone due to the constant reference to degeneration. The ABAB rhyme scheme creates the sense of certainty that after time fades so does beauty, and thus this therefore leads to
John Donne an English metaphysical poet and 16th century preacher made his name through his poems on love and his technique of creating opposing imagery through allegory and language (Ribes, 2007). Once Donne renounced his catholic faith and made a commitment to the Church of England in 1615, he wrote a series of religious poems, hymns, and sermons (Hodgson, 1999). The most well-known of his religious poetry is a series of nineteen Holy Sonnets spanning over the early 16th century, the most famous of these is Holy Sonnet XIV also known as ‘Batter My Heart’. Holy Sonnet XIV’s prominence in modern literature is due to the debate surrounding the intended meaning of the poem and the parallel the writer draws between the act of religious enlightenment and the pleasure derived from sexual activity. The Cambridge Companion to John Donne describes the poem as “best known literary text in English that figures spiritual redemption as a purifying sexual act” (Gibbory, 2006). This essay will link in to the description given by The Cambridge Companion and will apply a feminist reading by drawing on the writing of Judith Butler, Helene Cixous, and Sigmund Freud the theorised reading will be achieved by firstly examining the dominant or received reading of the for-mentioned poem.
John Donne uses poetry to explore his own identity, express his feelings, and most of all, he uses it to deal with the personal experiences occurring in his life. Donne's poetry is a confrontation or struggle to find a place in this world, or rather, a role to play in a society from which he often finds himself detached or withdrawn. This essay will discuss Donne's states of mind, his views on love, women, religion, his relationship with God; and finally how the use of poetic form plays a part in his exploration for an identity and salvation.
Sonnet 130 is Shakespeare’s harsh yet realistic tribute to his quite ordinary mistress. Conventional love poetry of his time would employ Petrarchan imagery and entertain notions of courtly love. Francis Petrarch, often noted for his perfection of the sonnet form, developed a number of techniques for describing love’s pleasures and torments as well as the beauty of the beloved. While Shakespeare adheres to this form, he undermines it as well. Through the use of deliberately subversive wordplay and exaggerated similes, ambiguous concepts, and adherence to the sonnet form, Shakespeare creates a parody of the traditional love sonnet. Although, in the end, Shakespeare embraces the overall Petrarchan theme of total and consuming love.
In “Sonnet XVII,” the text begins by expressing the ways in which the narrator does not love, superficially. The narrator is captivated by his object of affection, and her inner beauty is of the upmost significance. The poem shows the narrator’s utter helplessness and vulnerability because it is characterized by raw emotions rather than logic. It then sculpts the image that the love created is so personal that the narrator is alone in his enchantment. Therefore, he is ultimately isolated because no one can fathom the love he is encountering. The narrator unveils his private thoughts, leaving him exposed and susceptible to ridicule and speculation. However, as the sonnet advances toward an end, it displays the true heartfelt description of love and finally shows how two people unite as one in an overwhelming intimacy.
In John Donne’s sonnet “Death, Be Not Proud” death is closely examined and Donne writes about his views on death and his belief that people should not live in fear of death, but embrace it. “Death, Be Not Proud” is a Shakespearean sonnet that consists of three quatrains and one concluding couplet, of which I individually analyzed each quatrain and the couplet to elucidate Donne’s arguments with death. Donne converses with death, and argues that death is not the universal destroyer of life. He elaborates on the conflict with death in each quatrain through the use of imagery, figurative language, and structure. These elements not only increase the power of Donne’s message, but also symbolize the meaning of hope of eternal life as the ultimate escape to death.
In sonnet 1, the speaker is talking to God. He tells God that his death is near. He feels that with all of the sins he has committed he is leaning towards hell instead of heaven. Satan has tempted him too much and he doesn't know if he can even go an hour without giving in to Satan's evil ways. The speaker asks God to give him wings so that he may ascend into heaven and prevent Satan from taking him to hell. There is a sense of manipulation in the speaker in the beginning of the sonnet. "Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?'; In other words, "You're making your own creation look bad if you don't help me to become holy again.'; This starts out the sonnet with a bitter tone, a favorable way for Donne to begin. But in the end, the speaker is pleading God to give him wings, ending the sonnet with a sense of desperation. The worried tone of the last few lines is a rather common one in the Holy Sonnets. It exhibits the r...
Although Donne employs iambic meter, where a stressed syllable follows an unstressed syllable, the first line opens with a bang by starting with a heavily stressed first syllable. The use of sonnet form immediately stands out as an another curious aspect of the poem. Poets traditionally wrote sonnets to express one's love for a woman, but in this poem Donne addresses God as his lover. Sonnets also usually changed subject or tone in the ninth line, and here Donne uses this tactic to surprise the reader. In lines seven and eight, Donne describes how he has wondered from God, but in the ninth line he reveals that "Yet dearly I love you" (9). From this point on, John speaks in a more personal tone to God and makes specific requests and pleas. The many poetic devices make the poem flow well and effectively complement its deep
He argues that “God as well as humanity is saved upon the cross from a state in which each would be dead to the other” in hope of proving to himself and those that surround him that death may also have a positive connotation ("Lines Which Circles Do Contain"). Through this newfound awareness, Donne contemplates the direction sin has taken in his life, but he concludes “Sinne had eternally benighted all,” justifying that if Jesus would not have faced death on the cross, sin would have taken over all eternity (Donne, “Good Friday, 1613 Riding Westward” line 14). He finds a sense of contentment in the assurance that death is only one part of the circle of human life, and that this circle has continuous meaning and he will one day reach birth again through becoming born again as he approaches heaven. Donne learns it is through sickness that leads man to approach God by connecting him with his “frailty and mortality,” the dismay he has discovered in his own life (Miller 4). As Donne begins to endure the irrefutable effect Jesus has had on his life through suffering, he prays, “By these thorns give me his other crown” so he may identify with what Jesus went through in an effort to grow closer to him and share in his glory (Donne, “Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness line 27).
Granted that Donne's personification of God reduces the deity from an almighty force to a human archetype, divinity is not undermined. The metaphoric figures of inventor, ruler, and lover, each retain specific skills and purpose, but can not compare to the Christian suggestion of God's role and strength. However, the presentation of striking, violent imagery charges the poem with a sense of power and complete domination, and allows the image of God to transcend his designated human forms. Through the projection of life's frailty, powerlessness in captivity, and sexual
In the poem, Donne structures each stanza individually as a different personification of love. In the first stanza, Donne compares love to a plague when he says, “Yet not that love so soon decays…that I have had the plague…” (3/6) It is the latter line that Donne implements his use of imagery and conceit. Love is not often compared with “the plague” and this is a very strong interpretation. However while these two images seem different, they do interconnect through the pain and anguish that love can foster. This first comparison of Donne’s is very ef...