Holy Sonnets:
Batter My Heart
John Donne
“Batter my heart,
three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe,
shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand,
o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow,
burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to
another due,
Labor to admit you, but
oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in
me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and
proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and
would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your
enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break
that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison
me, for I,
Except you enthrall me,
never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except
you ravish me.”
John Donne
John Donne was
an English poet, lawyer, cleric and a great scholar. He was born into a catholic
family in 1572. He became a cleric in
the Church of England. He is one of the
greatest representative of the metaphysical poets. His works including sonnets are well known
for his preaching. His works are packed
with sudden openings, paradoxes, ironies and rhythmic speeches. His works met sharp criticism. His poems are based on true religion on which
he spent much of his time. His earlier works showed a great knowledge of
satires which brought out the corruption in the legal system and posh courtiers
and misunderstanding of true religion.
He was ordained deacon in 1615 and served as a member of parliament in
1601 and in 1614.
He lived in great poverty
for several years. His life depended on his wealthy companions. He spent much of wealth on womanizing and
pastimes and travel. He married Anne
More secretly and had twelve children. He died in 1631.
Sonnet
A sonnet is a 14 line
poem, it is written in iambic pentameter. The sonnet is derived from the
Italian word sonetto meaning “sound or song.
There are several types in sonnet but the most common and simplest type
is known as Shakespearean sonnet.
The characters of Sonnets:
·
They consist 14
lines. It can be divided into four
sections as quatrain.
·
The sonnet
follows rhyme scheme strictly. It
follows ABAB/CDCD/EFEF/DD.
·
They are written
in iambic pentameter.
·
The first three
quatrains are written with four lines with alternating rhyme scheme. The final
couplet consists two lines with rhyme.
This poem is the 14th
in a collection of Holy Sonnets of John Donne.
All these poems are religion and deal with true faith, death and love
and his relationship with God.
Summary
The sonnet speaks about
the faithful plea of the speaker to three person’d God- the Holy Trinity.
He asks God to use his force to break his
soul to purify him. He wants God to
overthrow him like a captured town. He pleads
God to break his marriage with His enemy so as to come back to Him. He prays to Him, to be the prisoner of God and
he forces God to take him to purify him.
Detail Study
“Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new”.
The commands the three
person’d God the Holy Trinity (the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit) to
open his heart by force. His heart is
like a fortress which is filled with ideologies and theories which hinder him
to go near to God. He says “come into my heart with great force God of the Holy Trinity.
You knocked, gently breathed and shone your light to make me a good person. I
may rise and stand but knock me over to stand again pure. Brake me, blow me and burn me with great
force so that I can be new again.”
The poet has used:
Symbol: A thing that represents or stands for
something else, especially a material object representing something abstract
Heart symbolizes
his feelings, the poet expresses how much he needs religion to make him a whole
person. But his brain takes him away
from his heart and he is occupied by various hindering thoughts.
Apostrophe: Poem addressed to a
person (typically one who is dead or absent) or thing (typically one that is
personified).
The poet is making a direct conversation to God. It sounds like a prayer to the Almighty.
Metaphor: A figure of speech in
which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not
literally applicable.
“Batter my heart” he compares his
heart to a well-built fortress which could not be destroyed. So he pleads God to open it by using his
mighty force.
Paradox: The contradictory statement which may prove to be
well founded or true.
The way the poet prays to God is paradoxical. A prayer should be like the
psalms (Bible the holy book) in a more humble way like a song. But the words and the expressions are more
desperate to make him pure.
Allusion: An expression made to call something to mind without a clear
reference.
The poet submits his prayers to the three person’d God the Father, Son
and the Holy Ghost –the Holy Trinity. it
doesn’t describe the detail of the Holy Trinity but the way it is expressed
brings out the detail of the Holy Trinity.
Alliteration: Same letter or
sound appearing at the beginning of each lines
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new”.
Break, blow, burn.
“I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.”
The prayer continues. In these four lines he expresses his desperation
to purify himself.
He says,” I am like a town
that has been captured by an enemy. The
enemy is unknown. The enemies are devil or atheism or any other dark forces
that leads me away from God. God must
defend the town or the soul of me (the speaker) God must break into the sinful
soul to free it from such sins. But my thoughts of wisdom or the worldly
pleasures captures me make my soul weak and unfaithful to you.” The
Simile: A figure of speech involving the comparison of
one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description
more emphatic or vivid
“I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
….. He compares himself to
an inanimate object as town and says he is under control of another.
Word pun: Different possible meanings of a word.
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
Admit means allow or to
believe. Reason means cause or thinking.
Reason is quite paradoxical.
“Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,”
The speaker continues his
monologue. He says “whatever, I love you
so much God, I love to be loved by you. It is my desire. But unfortunately I am married to your enemy.”
By your enemies the poet points out all deadly sins of the world. He pleads,” when I am with your enemy you
have to come into my sinful life and break my marriage, if the marriage (sins)
tightens the knot god please come and untie that knot, Take me by force and
imprison me into your bosom.”
The desperate cry of the
speaker to his beloved God could be felt through his cries.
Metaphor
“But am betroth’d unto your enemy;”
Engagement to sins and
devils are interesting descriptions.
“Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”
The speaker ends his
prayer by saying,” make me to love you so much.
You make me your slave. I will be free. I will never be pure unless you
take me into your way.”
“You enthrall me means captivity of slavery. Also
it refers to being under control. Enchanted by the HOLY POWER of God
Finally he accepts his thoughts, what he wants from God, for
he knows he cannot be pure without Him.
“Nor ever chaste, except
you ravish me.” The speaker refers literally to fill him with
delight. Enrapture him with HH His purity. Throughout the poem the language looks
violent and commanding but we could feel the trust he has on God and his
confidence to throw the emotional battle he faces.
Themes
The pain
The speaker after a losing touch with God expresses his
feelings to return to Him back. He
believes that he could come back only by the powerful force of God. The whole
poem deals with the pain of the speaker who wants the love of God
desperately. He pleads God in a
commanding tone to force him to return from his sinful life. He believes that his faith in God would bring
him salvation. He could redeem himself from his sinful past. He could not feel
the presence of God in himself so he longs for it and he wants to experience
the feeling and the joy it could give.
Using Metaphors the poet brings out his agony. “I like an usurped town to another due”
sinful heart has been compared to the captured town by the enemies. The enemies
are not described but the readers understand the unknown enemies are devils and
sinful lifestyle which take us apart from God. “Break into the Town” the solution has been given by the
speaker. He pleads God to break his soul
to make it free. He wants to live in the
love of God but he doesn’t have the determination and strength to go ahead.
Faith
The prayer of the speaker starts with his faith to live in
God. His spiritual thirst makes him to
search his Creator and wants to be filled by the love of God. In reality he could not overcome his sinful
life and his enemies but his faith is the only Savior which paves the way for
his new life. The speaker shows his
agony as if a person has been separated from his love. He miss the
presence of God every minute and
searches for Him. At the end the prayer
turns to be a cry to make the speaker a slave and imprison him, for he believes
that he can be rescued by God. He could
be free from his sinful life.
Form:
Traditional sonnet form. It expresses the spiritual thirst of
the speaker through his demands, requests and cries to God.
Meter and rhyme
Follows the Shakespearean 14 lines sonnet form. It has ABBAABBACDCDEE rhyme Scheme.
Tone: The general character or
attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation, etc
Demanding. It’s a
demand to God with full rights and showing the intimate relationship the
speaker has with God.
Theme: Central
idea or ideas that a writer explores through a text. Pain, agony, faith, love and violent tone.
Narration: process of saying a
story. The poet may be the narrator.
Thus the spiritual thirst and search of the speaker ends in
his Faith. He wants god to save him from
the clutches of devil. He wants his soul
to be pure and free from sins. In each
line his plea to God increases with passion and with force. He demands God to deliver him from evil
powers. John Donne uses Metaphysical
features (Metaphysical poetry is a group of poems that have common features:
they are all highly intellectualized, use rather strange imagery, use
frequent
paradox and contain extremely complicated thoughts)
to compose the whole poem and it may be hard to understand the deep meaning of
the poem. But the more one reads the
more and better he could understand the feelings of the speaker.
Thank you
Comments
Post a Comment