Comparison Of Holy Sonnet 14 By John Donne And Countee Cullen

Poems use lots of different ways to express personal relationships. The authors of these poems can use language, tone, structure and many other ways to convey personal relationships. The poem Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy uses many of these aspects. The main idea of this poem is to compare an onion to the love a woman has for her lover. The poem Sonnet 130 by Shakespeare also uses language, tone, structure and imagery. This poem however uses them in a different way. This poem is about how a man loves his wife/lover in his own special way. These two poems use language, tone, structure, rhyme/rhythm and imagery to express a personal relationship.

After reading this piece of writing from John Donne, it becomes very clear that the writer is having an internal conflict with himself. He is going back and forth in his own mind about how he truly feels about religion. John uses many different tones, word choices, and metaphors to get this point across to the reader. Overall, after getting a closer look at this writing one can see that this is clearly about John and his relationship with religion. More specifically, this passage shows how John is frustrated with his internal conflict over if he is religious or not. In the end however, it becomes apparent that he truly knows how he should feel.

The beauty of John Donne’s holy sonnet 14 is in its language. John Donne is an interesting character who uses metaphors anyhow he pleases and finds a way to make it work. The beginning of the poem depicts a man hopeless without God’s help, a man trying to change his ways but finds no success and asks God to change in a way I find quite terrifying. The use of violent and erotic language (i.e Batter, Force, Labor, Captive; and erotic words: i.e ravish, love, knot etc) set the tone of the sonnet, and it remains constant all through. Before diving into the content of the poem, we look at the form of the poem. This poem has a Petrarchan form, and an Elizabethan structure. I know this because it has 14 lines, the rhymes, and the ending couplet. The poem rhymes like: ABBAABBA – CDCDEE. Also we look at the iambic pentameter. The beginning of the poem looked like it would be in iambic pentameter: Batter my heart, We can see here the poem starts with “Batter” which has a stressed syllable, followed by “My” which is unstressed, and “Heart” which is stressed, but then, that’s followed by “three-personed God” which breaks the iambic pentameter. The same can be seen on Line two. I think the essence of starting a poem this way was to start with an aggressive tone in order to prepare the reader for the story ahead.

Sonnet 130 is a parody of the conventional love sonnet, made popular by Petrarch and, made popular in England by Sidney’s use of the Petrarchan form in his epic poem Astrophel and Stella. When comparing the stanzas of A & S to Sonnet 130, the reader can clearly see that the sonnet does not use grandiose metaphors or allusions to build his beloved into a divine figure. Despite it being an obvious parody, it will be compared to the chosen lines from the Tempest. In Shakespeare’s day, metaphors that allude to putting the beloved on a pedestal of beauty had already become a cliché, but they were an accepted technique for writing love poetry nonetheless. The way these poems would describe the poet’s lover was high idealized, making comparisons

Through the violent act of raping him (14) as well as battering his heart (1) he wants God to temporarily break his divine nature and embody the sinful nature that Donne couldn’t escape; absolving Donne in the aggressive way he felt he deserved. Donne exclaims his frustration and he puzzles at life and his relationship with God in a philosophical way, asking more questions than answering. The sonnet opens with these lines that accentuate the forceful language that Donne

John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 10” serves as both a direct address towards death, and as a sermon on what happens after death for those who practice Christianity. The speaker gives reassurance to those who may fear death and what comes afterwards. Even though the speaker is discussing a somber matter, the overall tone of the poem is uplifting thereby further challenging the typical way people view death. The speaker belittles death when he/she questions death’s magnitude and power over humans. Throughout the poem, the speaker compares death to a restful slumber. Rests are temporary states that bring “much pleasure” (Line 6). By relating death to sleep, the speaker says death is not permanent, but rather a momentary phase that ultimately will bring happiness. Death is a phase and after “one short sleep past, we wake eternally” (Line 13). This relates to the Christian belief

John Donne's poetry reflects many things about him as a poet. Mainly, that his poetry reflects his character make-up as he writes the poem. In the later years of his life, he entered into a religious stage that he continued with until his death in 1631. Sonnet 14 is an example of his religious period, where he is "besieged" and asks God to come into his life in a very real way. His use of parallelism, powerful diction and syntax, and paradox presents thoughts on this subject in an umatched way and stresses the depth of his feelings in this sonnet. (Please infer that references of God refer to the Trinity)

Death is often feared by people due to being unsure of what comes next. Some do not fear it at all due to the fact that there is an afterlife, and they will live on for the rest of eternity in a better place. The author of “Holy Sonnet 10,” John Donne, is a well known English poet who was famous during his time. His writing lived on for a few decades after his death, but soon went out of style. His writing did not become popular again until later in the nineteenth century. Dylan Thomas, writer of “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” was surrounded by poetry growing up. His father would read poetry to him before he was could read it himself. Thomas moved to London in his early twenties to continue his career as a successful poet. In “Holy Sonnet 10” and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” Donne and Thomas have two completely different views on Death. Donne jokes about Death as if the thought of it does not even phase him, while Thomas considers Death as a terrifying thought.

This sonnet starts off with a rhetorical question to create a slightly meditative tone that Donne utilizes to remind his soul of what God, who is the king of the universe, does and has done for

Throughout John Donne’s Holy Sonnet “Death Be Not Proud” Donne speaks to Death in the first person point of view, personifying “Death”

This paper will speak of two literary works, Song of Songs and Sonnet 130, analyzing how they compare and contrast to one another in terms of their literary voice by examining their use of literary techniques. Song of Songs unveils the true nature of what the Bride loves about the Bridegroom using similes and imagery to convey her deep expression of laudatory by not only revealing who he is to her as a person but why she loves and praises him so, whereas in Sonnet 130 Shakespeare expresses harsh truth towards his mistress’ beauty with the use of similes, metaphors, and prose to develop the theme of how his mistress’ is not considered the perfect woman but that he, Shakespeare, loves her for her. In Song of Songs, it is shown that the literary

Would it make sense for the author of so many famous tragic love stories to be gay? In his collection of sonnets Shakespeare writes a lot about his desires for another man, which lead you to the conclusion that he was homosexual. William Shakespeare in “Sonnet 135” uses transgressive sexuality, homosocial bonding and homoerotic language to express his feelings and how the Golden Young Man does not reciprocate those same feelings. In addition, who was this Golden Young Man besides the object of Shakespeare’s

In “Holy Sonnet 14” by John Donne, dramatizes the conflict between contradictions and a relationship with God.

By making many references to the Bible, John Donne's Holy Sonnets reveal his want to be accepted and forgiven by God. A fear of death without God's forgiveness of sins is conveyed in these sonnets. Donne expresses extreme anxiety and fright that Satan has taken over his soul and God won't forgive him for it or his sins. A central theme of healing and forgiveness imply that John Donne, however much he wrote about God and being holy, wasn't such a holy man all of the time and tried to make up for it in his writing.

242). He rhetorically questions ‘Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won / Others to sin, and made my sin their door?’ (Donne, 2012c, L. 7-8). He does this despite being influenced by the Calvinist teachings that predetermined humans were saved by God’s grace not by their own good deeds. His doubt leads him to ask God to ‘swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son / Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore’ (Donne, 2012c, L. 15-16) as Donne fears that if he ‘… awakes from death to find out that he is a non-elect, damned forever … or [there will be] no awakening at all … [that] Christianity's promise of resurrection is a lie’ (Horn, 2010, p. 366). However, in ‘A Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness’, Donne is satisfied he will be received into heaven. In an extended metaphor, Donne is an instrument of the Lord who '... should try to prepare himself before entering the "door", or entrance to heaven' (Brackett, 2008, p. 224). He uses imagery to show his arrival in heaven, ‘So, in his purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord’ (Donne, 2018, L. 26). He makes purple a metaphorical cloak as it is associated Christ, therefore, he asks God to cover him with Christ as he ascends into heaven so he can be sure of his salvation. The final line of the poem ‘“Therefore that he may raise, the Lord throws down”’ (Donne, 2018, L. 30) explains Donne’s doubts and faith, the oxymoronic statement claims that in order to be raised to heaven, one must suffer what the Lord