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John Donne The Erotic Preacher? Questions on Holy Sonnet 14: Batter My Heart


  • firebutterfly07
    Oct 27 2:03 PM 2006
    Reply
    I'm writing a paper on John Donne for my english class and I was hoping to get some feedback. The poem that we are analyzing is Holy Sonnet 14: Batter My Heart. Now, John Donne, having a doctorate of divinity was a great motivational preacher for his time, but also a great poet. I find it increasingly interesting as I read through his works how many of his spiritual poems are erotic, and how many of his erotic poems are spritiual. In my paper I am going to be focusing on him as a metaphysical writer, but formost in the context of his eroticism and how that mixed with his content as a preacher. If anyone can offer any links or ideas, I would be eternally grateful. If you think that I could write a better essay with a different focus on John Donne, please let me know, I'll be more that happy to consider it. Also, if you have any commentary/analysis on Holy Sonnet 14 I would looooove to hear opinions! THANKS SO MUCH!

  • gregorcles
    October 31, 2006
    Reply

    John Donne

    It is a very well aimed topic. There is an article in the book Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry, editors Witherspoon / Warnke, pb. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963, which may perhaps be of some use to you, excerpted here,

    "Recent research has established that, contrary to earlier belief, several of the Holy Sonnets were written as early as 1609 and some of the amorous verses as late as 1617. Such a confusing pattern is only to be expected in the work of a poet who felt compelled to view amorous experience under mystical metaphors and devotional experience under erotic metaphors; it may give us a sense of how we ought to approach the entire body of his work. .....
    The actual Donne, his greatest poetry tells us, was torn by the classic conflict in its most extreme form, and his vision of an all-surpassing unity of being was at best fragmentary and transient. But the poet within the troubled human being did at all times strive to articulate his vision honestly, without the facile aid of any wholly accepted tradition, either artistic or theological, and it is this fact, perhaps, which gives his work its enduring value."

    Lines 2-4 of this Holy Sonnet 14 relate to a metaphor used in Scripture, of God as the Potter, and we as the Clay out of which he moulds us. Lines 5-10 are descriptive of the common Christian life, of really wanting to yield our lives / hearts to God, yet still being unable to do so due to love of sin, essentially. Of course the last 4 lines are a plea to God, desperate to be divorced from sin / addiction. Last line '..., except You ravish me,' relates to the spiritual purifying that comes from Christ when we do make the decision to yield. That last line is horribly backwards in a natural way according to the erotic metaphor, but quite correct spiritually, and beautifully expressed. The idea in that is, by being "ravished" we actually gain "chasteness," since purity was inherently lost when we were born, (goes back to Adam & Eve eating of the tree, Humanity subsequently cursed eternally with sin; Christ comes to save us from sin and eternal death with purification).
    I hope that the excerpt and my feeble commentary on the poem are at least a little bit helpful. Donne's one of the few great poets whose major works I don't have unfortunately.
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