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

Donnes divine sonnet XIV - Batter my heart, ternion persond GodBatter my heart, three persond God for, youAs yet however 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, similar 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, disjoin me, untie, or breake that knot againeTake me to you, imprison me, for IExcept you enthr solely me, neer shall be free,Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. -- tooshie DonneThe analogous language of amative passion (I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine Song Sol. 2.16, New international Version) and intellectual paradox (Whoever pull up stakes 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 mysteries. Even so, John Donnes image of the Divine Rape in the consecrated Sonnet XIV, by which the victim becomes, or remains, chaste is at prime(prenominal) startling we are not accustomed to such spiritual intensity.1 anterior explications have attempted to downplay this figure for example, Thomas J. Steele, SJ The Explicator 29 (1971) 74, maintains that the informal meaning is a secondary meaning and probably 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 recounting between man and God in heterosexual terms 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 death couplet, but reflected in the sudden tranquillity of the completely r egular iambic pentameter. Thus Donne links content to form throughout the Holy Sonnet XIV. His aesthetic presentation of the relationships implicit in the ancient theological self-assertion of the righteous souls marriage 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 Bloom (New York Chelsea House, 1986) 44. 3. Karrigan, 40.