Analysis of Holy Sonnet XIV Essay - 1496 Words

Analysis of Holy Sonnet XIV Throughout history, many people have endeavoured to convey their interpretations, or experiences, of the relationship between God and mankind. Many interpretations are positive - Psalm 139 of the Bible, for example, portrays the relationship between man and God as a personal and intimate one - yet just as many are decidedly negative. One such interpretation is Holy Sonnet XIV, an intensely personal poem by John Donne which explores the feelings of a man torn between physical desire and spiritual longing. In this essay I aim to study the poem in more depth, analysing what Donne says and how he says it. Holy Sonnet XIV was written at a time of crisis and confusion in†¦show more content†¦The next line expresses Donnes belief that God has not been trying hard enough - he tells God that you as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend. The word breathe is much softer than the batter in the previous line, and this softness serves to emphasise Donnes belief that God is not doing enough to reform him. Donnes longing for spiritual fulfilment and his desire to break free from his current self is emphasised in the next line, where she speaks of his intentions to rise and stand. These words also carry with them the connotation that Donne is spiritually lost, and wants God to help him break free from his current state; rise above the waste. Donne even goes so far as to command God to destroy the person he has become and reform him, with the words oerthrow me, the use of the word me again emphasising the intensely personal nature of the poem. This theme of reformation is carried onto the next line, where Donne tells God to break, blow, burn and make me new. Alliteration of the letter b emphasises the brutality of the actions which Donne commands God to take. Furthermore, the phrase make me new reaffirms the fact that Donne wants God to completely reform him. The next line of the poem sees the beginning of an extended, military-themed metaphor. Donne comparesShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of John Donne s Holy Sonnet Xiv1976 Words   |  8 Pages In Holy Sonnet XIV, John Donne directly addresses God using a desperate and forceful tone. The formal structure of Donne s holy sonnet follows the basic Petrarchan sonnet form. The sonnet has fourteen lines divided into an octave and a sestet. The rhyme scheme of the octave is abba abba. The sestet has the rhyme scheme cdcdee. Donne expresses his spiritual turmoil and longing by using this structure to present different metaphors that illustrate his condition, and he uses Petrarchan conventionsRead More Biography of John Donne Essay3729 Words   |  15 PagesSpain in 1596. When he returned he received a job as the private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, which was entitled, â€Å"Keeper of the Great Seal† (Ross 1). During this time period Donne wrote two of his major works, the Satires and the Songs and Sonnets. It was also during this time that he met Anne More, the sixteen-year-old niece to Sir Thomas Egerton. In 1601 they married, despite the disapproval of her family. Her father had Donne put in jail for a small amount of time for illegally wedding aRead More Male Masochism in the Religious Lyrics of Donne and Crashaw Essay3473 Words   |  14 PagesRichard Rambusss Pleasure and Devotion: The Body of Jesus and Seventeenth-Century Religious Lyric, in which he opens up possibilities for reading eroticism (especially homoeroticism) in early modern representations of Christs body. In this analysis, Rambuss opposes Caroline Walker Bynum who, in response to Leo Steinbergs The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art, claims that depictions of Christs genitalia (the focus of Steinbergs work) can only be regarded as erotic from a modern standpoint