Batter My Heart


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

Popular posts from this blog

Friends and Flatterers by William Shakespeare

TOM SAWYER

Two's Company