John Donne Paraphrase of Donne\'s

John Donne

Paraphrase

Paraphrase of Donne's Holy Sonnets #14

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you

Donne cannot humble himself so he needs God to do it

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; 2. Donne has trouble letting God in.

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend 3 and 4 God must subdue him

Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new, 5I, like an usurped town, to another due, 5. Donne uses a metaphor of a town. It has been seiged by the enemy.

Labor to admit you, but O, to no end; 6-8 he longs for God, yet his faulty reason will not let him in 7 Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, 8 but is captived, and provves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, 9-11 He loves God, but his marriage to sin taints the relationship.

But am betrothed into your enemy, 11. Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;

12.Take me to you, imprison me, for I, 12-14 He is asking god to free him.

13.Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, 14.Nor chaste, except you ravish me.

Analysis of Holy Sonnet XIV

Based on Donne's biography, he had a considerable time compromising his secular concerns with his religious affectations, their dichotomous nature often pulling him in two different directions. Considering the physical and mental strain from the death of his wife Anne, the unfortunate premature death of his son and the constant threat of persecution of his religious beliefs prompted his appeal to the Anglican sentiment of belief. According to Honig, "Two years later his wife died while giving birth to their twelfth child; this blow and his temperamental indispositions turned him toward the writing of devotional poetry almost exclusively."(38-39) His conviction eventually pulled him away from what he considered his secular prison as evidenced in Holy Sonnet Fourteen.

Donne's word choice in Holy Sonnet Fourteen carries a pleading and even desperate connotation as he voices as if in frantic prayer. Consider the word choices like "batter," "break," "blow," "burn," "betroth," "divorce," "untie," "imprison," "enthrall" and "ravish." Looking at the first line / batter my heart/, batter in this context could suffice as a replacement for humility. He wishes to remain humble, but to receive humility the speaker believes he has to be subdued by being broken, burned, divorced, untied, imprisoned and ravished. For example consider what is meant by "new" in the line, / Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new./. New, in biblical terms, connotes a reformation, a cleansing of the soul, but the speaker insists that the only way to receive this blessing is to be thrashed, punished like a child. To unlearn the secular way of life, the new knowledge inserts itself by subduing him.

Word choices, such as 'batter,' 'ravish' and 'enthrall' are heavily, explosive, exclamatory verbs, so exclamatory that the semantics of the poem conveys a sadistic/masochistic relationship. The given word choices of the poem places the speaker at the receiving end, as if some other phantom coaxes the speaker towards these sentiments. On the other hand, consider the word 'betroth' in this line. / but I am betrothed unto your enemy / the enemy, in this case if to posit it symbolically as secularism, clings to the past habits of the poet. The poet is unable to break these secular habits, unless God issues a trial by fire cleansing.

Divorce," I think, carries the strongest implication of Donne's "separation" from the secular world. If we were to consider associating Donne's personal biography to this poem, John Donne experienced several divorces in his lifetime including the death of his wife, Anne, the death of his son and daughter, Francis and Mary, and his skepticism towards the catholic faith. Having endured a beating in his personal life, the poem possibly mirrors a doppelganger version of his personal life. On the one hand, secular life had turned disappointing, so the poem extricates those familiar feelings of secular habit.

On the first few readings, the images create an impression of a prisoner who is already imprisoned. So why would he wished to be imprisoned? It would seem logical that he would wish to be freed. Consider the line, / Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again, / and then 'Take me to you, imprison me, / . With 'divorce' in the previous line and 'imprison' in the former, the two cancel out each other. However, imprison could mean protection, divorce could connote the separation from the secular. Yet, 'imprison' and 'divorce' are interesting word choices that both convey uncomfortable circumstances. The speaker's role never deviates from the role of the masochist, whether he subjects himself to tortuous rapture by God, or is merely self-inflicted in his personal secular life. Change is inevitably painful. In the case of Holy Sonnet Fourteen, the speaker is wedged firmly by the edicts of humankind as if stuck to tar paper, and God must break those infallible chains of reason to elicit this newfound faith.

Donne feels he needs to be broken from sin, because he cannot will it himself. Associating the words "ravish" and "imprison" with God gives the poem overall a negative connotation. The bounded man comes clearly to mind, a man bounded by not only his physical body, but also bounded by the chains of secular society he is so desperately attempting to unlearn and dissociate from.

The voice in Holy Sonnet Fourteen articulates haste and panic in exclamation as if he has exhausted all of his virtues, experienced all marks of secular knowledge. The sonnet immediately begins with / Batter my heart, / . Afterwards, the poem continues to wage command after command, demanding, provoking and inciting God. Subsequently, the poet imposes horrific labels onto God by demanding such ridiculous requests. The poet's frantic commands indicate strong assumptions of God, suppositions carried over from the secular world. The poet imposes a secular mask onto God. Redemption through harsh punishment seems to be the only quick route out of his personal turmoil.

Donne's metaphor of the usurped town, usually the center of mercantile and commerce activities, is secular territory 'usurped' by God. John Donne compares himself to the 'usurped town,' which possibly could have mirrored his sudden conversion to the Anglican faith after the Bishop had persuaded him numerous times to convert. Additionally, the spiritual conversion is an invasion. Consider the death of his immediate family members, his ill health and financial strain. These unfortunate events eventually led to a change in theme in Donne's poetry, a change that infiltrated his life like an invasion. Therefore, the theme of rapture by God subsequently correlates to the sudden turn of events of Donne's life.

Interestingly, like his earlier love poems, Donne preserves the sonnet form for this occasion as well. On the one hand, Donne's love sonnets expressed many different emotions. For instance, in the poem Extasie, he equates sex as a religious experience. In Holy Sonnet Fourteen, the word choices 'ravish' and 'enthrall' have a sexual connotation. It is only through the sonnet form and his peculiar expressions of love that singularly directs to his past inclinations. Otherwise, the poet vehemently tries to disengage from his past. However, according to this poem, habits die-hard as the poet convinces God and himself to be torn from the material world. Yet, this is not a die-hard poem. Because it is in sonnet form, such a crude act is dressed with eloquent language. It makes rape sound beautiful.