Essay on John Donne's Sonnet 14

While the first two stanzas illustrate his view of Love in general and all lovers, the third stanza relates his personal experience with Love and Donne reveals the reason for his view of Love as a cruel, consuming power. Donne entice the readers with his use of figurative language, specifically imagery and personification, and diction. The speakers own experience with Love has left him feeling empty. And makes his feel how powerful and cruel love can really be. Donne’s use of those certain literary elements allows him to create a hostile speaker who is against love and is currently feeling heartbreak from losing his

Donne conveys how religion is a central idea through the use of many religious references throughout the holy sonnets. In ‘Death Be Not Proud’, Donne makes a religious reference to Jesus, ‘Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee’, expressing how religion was an underlying theme when handling many issues. When the two texts are studied in alliance, it allows the responder to draw a better understanding of the themes presented in ‘W;t’. This theme, science VS religion, has been emphasised due to the contrasts between Vivian and Donne and their context.

In the poem, Donne starts off by explaining to his wife that he will have to die eventually. He implies, “As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to their souls to go…” (page 484, lines one and two). Donne uses these first lines to explain to his love that even though he has to sail away, he’s eventually going to die anyway; therefore, she should not be upset. His lover then feels even more upset, and he explains to her that they will be in love with each other forever, for they are not in love with each others bodies. Thus, Donne enlightens his wife by telling her that he’ll still be with her, even if it’s not physically.

In “Holy Sonnet 14”, John Donne talks to God because he feels that as long as he has free

John Donne’s diction, detail, point of view, metaphysical format, and tone used in “Holy Sonnet 10” convey both a feeling of cynical and domination, and also a sense of mockery of death. The effects on the reader include assurance and confidence in facing death.

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.

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 was a metaphysical poet who wrote of love and religion. Metaphysical poetry is characterized as being difficult poetry that questions life and religion. John Donne’s poetry was published in 1633, but no one knows the exact date most poems were written. John Donne present many realistic types of love through monologue characterizations. In the poems The Flea, The Canonization, and A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, Donne presents raw sexual love, boastful love, and true spiritual love.

He highlights this through a shift in tone and object of focus, now questioning himself and establishing a tone humility and humbleness. The line “But who am I, that dare dispute with Thee?” ( 9) encapsulates this moment of recognition and plays a parallel role to that a soliloquy takes in drama or theatre. When compared to his superior tone earlier in the sonnet he belittles himself as he recognizes his own audacity to question the motivations of God. Donne’s anagnorisis reveals the one path to salvation through God's mercy and the blood of Jesus alone.

Even though the subject is yearning for the east and a new sense of devotion to God, there are indicators that Donne implements to explain why the subject needs to travel west. The subject is fearful that God will punish him for looking upon Him in the east on one of the holiest days of the year, while still overwhelmed by the amount of sin in his life. On this day, Christ died for the sins of the world so that all of man’s sins can be forgiven. Yet, the subject hasn’t repented. We see this in the text on lines 13-16, in which the subject says, “But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall, Sinne had eternally benighted all. Yet dare I 'almost be glad, I do not see, That spectacle of too much weight for

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

There are two very distinct phases in Donne’s life which contrast one another. Donne had a highly religious upbringing therefore

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.

By using metaphysical conceits in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," Donne attempts to convince his love (presumably his wife) that parting is a positive experience which should not be looked upon with sadness. In the first stanza, Donne compares