Donnes Holy Sonnet XIV - Batter my heart, three persond God Essays

Donnes Holy Sonnet XIV - Batter my heart, three persond GodBatter my heart, three persond God for, youAs moreover but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mendThat I may rise, and stand, oerthrow me, and bendYour force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.I, like an usurpt towne, tanother due,Labor to admit you, but Oh, to no end,Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend, and is captivd, and proves weake or untrue,Yet dearelyI love you, and would be lovd faine,But am betrothd unto your enemy,Divorce me, untie, or breake that knot againeTake me to you, imprison me, for IExcept you enthr totally me, never shall be free,Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. --John DonneThe analogous language of romantic passion (I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine Song Sol. 2.16, New International Version) and intellectual puzzle (Whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it Matt. 10.39, NIV) has always seemed natural to those seeking to understand and speak of spiritual myste ries. Even so, John Donnes regard of the Divine Rape in the Holy Sonnet XIV, by which the victim becomes, or remains, chaste is at first startling we are not disposed to such spiritual intensity.1 Previous explications have attempted to downplay this figure for example, Thomas J. Steele, SJ The Explicator 29 (1971) 74, maintains that the sexual meaning is a secondary meaning and in all probability not meant to be explicitly affirmed. Moreover, George Knox The Explicator 15 (1956) 2 writes that the poem does not require our imagining literally the relation between man and God in heterosexual price and that the traditions of Christian mysticism allow such symbolism of ... ... as he tears down, possesses as he frees, is as honorable as passionate--that is, in him all paradoxes find their supra-rational resolution, resolution not only presented in the imagery of the closing couplet, but reflected in the sudden tranquillity of the completely regular iambic pentameter. olibanum Donn e links content to form throughout the Holy Sonnet XIV. His aesthetic presentation of the relationships implicit in the ancient theological conceit of the righteous souls wedlock to God3 is therefore doubly moving. NOTES 1. John Donne, Holy Sonnet XIV, John Donne The Complete English Poems, ed. A. J. Smith (New York Penguin, 1984) 314-315. 2. William Karrigan, The Fearful Accommodations of John Donne, John Donne and the Seventeenth-Century Metaphysical Poets, ed. Harold blossom forth (New York Chelsea House, 1986) 44. 3. Karrigan, 40.