John Donne Holy Sonnet 14

In reading some works by John Donne, I came to admire one entitled Holy Sonnet 14. The fact that Donne wrote to a three person God, caught my attention because I was able to relate and understand the biblical text. This sonnet made me feel as if I was in the time in which it was written. There are times when many of us feel down and out and need to express ourselves in a very nasty, brutish, and harsh way. This paper will further discuss how Donne has spoken and expressed himself to his God.

This poem is an appeal to God, pleading with Him, not for mercy, forgiveness, or compassionate aid, but for a violent, almost brutal overmastering. Thus, it implores God to perform actions that some would consider to be extremely sinful (i.e. from battering the speaker to actually raping him, which, he says in the final line, is the only way he will ever be chaste). The poem's metaphors (the speaker's heart as a captured town, the speaker as a maiden betrothed to God's enemy) work with a series of violent and powerful verbs (batter, o'erthrow, bend, break, blow, burn, divorce, untie, break, take, imprison, enthrall, ravish) to create the image of God as an overwhelming, violent conqueror. The strange