Holy Sonnet 14
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like a usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captivated, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
John Donne was a poet who lived contemporary with and a little bit after Shakespeare. His life and work are often divided into two periods. The first period was that of the young scholar and adventurer, and his poems and other writings speak much of love and passion, sometimes in surprisingly graphic terms for a seventeeth-century poet. He could break boring clichés as if with a sledgehammer, and his work is surprising and fresh, even today.
His other period coincides with his ordination as a preacher in the Church of England. His “Holy Sonnets” are particularly interesting in that they continue to weave love and passion with spiritual themes.
Holy Sonnet 14 is my absolute favorite, mostly for its paradoxes of language that bring out such emotional overtones that wouldn’t have come out otherwise. Donne uses images of violence in company with words of devotion in a conversation with God that seems almost blasphemous on one hand, passionately pious on the other. It is a very exciting poem.
He asks the Holy Trinity, the “three-personed God” to “batter my heart”, a violent conquest indeed for a God of love to make. (1) He apparently feels that his passions for the world and sin are such that only such a violent conquest will be sufficient to truly win his soul. God’s more gentle methods, to “knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend” are insufficient. (2) The contrast here gives a feeling of desperation on Donne’s part; perhaps that God will have to get rough in order to tear his soul from the grips of the Adversary that Donne faces.
He continues the contrast in the next couplet. In order to “rise and stand” as a holy man before God, God must “o’erthrow” the natural man that Donne confesses to be, “and bend your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.” He is not holy enough; a complete overhaul of his person will be necessary for him to stand worthy before God, like a phoenix that must be burned and destroyed in order to rise anew. (3-4)
The next conceit finds Donne comparing himself to a town besieged and powerless before his enemies. “I, like an usurped town, to another due, labor to admit you, but O, to no end.” His reason has been captured by his conflicting desires, which prove too strong for him. “Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, but is captivated, and proves weak or untrue.” There is a duality in his own desires, and his struggle with worldly desires is overcoming his desires to be with God. His weakness is again shown in the next line, with a plaintive “Yet dearly I love you” – perhaps his weak reason speaking here? – “and would be loved fain, but am betrothed unto your enemy.” The conceit here moves from a town under siege to an image of God being an adulterous lover that seeks to break an enemy’s marriage, a brutal Iago to an even more villainous Othello. (5-10)
Donne’s next lines are the most dramatic, and continue in the lines as words uttered to a passionate, illicit lover in a desperate whisper. “Divorce me, untie or break that knot again; take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.” (11-14)
They are violent, raging words, and shocking when directed to their intended recipient. We have to ask ourselves, “Why?” It stems perhaps from his overall feeling of powerlessness in the face of his sins. He has been overcome by the devil, an enemy who flouts him at every angle. What is worse is that part of him likes to sin, enjoys it and welcomes it. He is betrayed both within and without. He imagines God as a jealous lover, or as a powerful conqueror, in his hope that God will have the strength and power to steal him away from the enemy that now holds him bound. He begs God to imprisoned him so that he can be free, or to claim his body (ravish him) so that he can be truly clean. He considers God’s prison to be true freedom, and being overshadowed and overcome by God would mean becoming chaste, as God is. He is asking God to save his soul by any means necessary.
The result of these contradictions, instead of being offensive, is a deeply emotional and primal cry that is very affecting. His imagery is clearly meant to be figurative, and when taken in that spirit, very effectively conveys the violence of his feelings; a violence of passion that many of us today have just as readily felt in our struggles with our weakness and our own search for God.
