John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14

National Poetry Month is a time in which many re-visit the great poets of the past. In this time, we find ourselves wondering exactly what each poem means, and how they are important to us. Many times, authorship matters more than we realize – the background of each time period and writer’s personal stories are all important in analyzing poetry from centuries ago.

John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14 is a poem in which many literary professionals categorize as the work of John Donne’s alter-ego, Doctor Donne. This sub-personality of John Donne is in stark contrast with his other personality, Jack Donne. The Doctor is a more serious, religious man, whereas Jack is a vulgar, sexual writer.

This particular sonnet carries a lot of physical, sexual themes throughout its context. In a way, it’s an exact mirror of Jack Donne poems because the writer is asking for help, instead of being the healthy, hearty, and sometimes cocky character Jack Donne poems usually exhibit. Instead, we see a desperate man who needs God’s help, he even goes so far as to ask to be broken, blown, burned, and made new by God.

The sonnet reads as follows:
Batter my heart, three-person’d 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 an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d 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.
(Source: Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 165.)

The summary of Holy Sonnet 14 is as simple as it is complex. Taking it in order, the poet is asking God to help make him new again, because his reason (which was his viceroy) was not enough. Although he is witty, and clever, it does not eliminate his sins, and in fact, his writing is one of the sins he longs to be forgiven for. He admits to being “betrothed to your enemy”, or the devil, and sins. He asks god to divorce that relationship and “break that knot again”, because Donne wants to be imprisoned for God. In essence, he is saying that he is enthralled by God, and wants to do right by him, but without being held by some force, he will surely sin again.

For a more in-depth look into this sonnet, as well as other works by Donne, a good place to start is with Holy Sonnet 1, which has a similar theme. If you’re interested in some of the works that are written by the Jack Donne persona, The Flea and The Ecstasy offer an excellent window of what his nastier, vulgar works were like.

Sources:
Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 165.