Monday, March 25, 2019
Donnes Holy Sonnet XIV - Batter my heart, three persond God Essays
Donnes divine praise XIV - Batter my heart, trey persond GodBatter my heart, three persond God for, youAs yet exactly knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mendThat I may rise, and stand, oerthrow me, and bendYour force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.I, worry an usurpt towne, tanother due,Labor to admit you, but Oh, to no end,Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend, save is captivd, and proves weake or untrue,Yet dearelyI love you, and would be lovd faine,But am betrothd unto your enemy, separate me, untie, or breake that knot againeTake me to you, imprison me, for IExcept you enthr only me, neer shall be free,Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. -- lav DonneThe analogous language of romantic passion (I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine Song Sol. 2.16, New worldwide Version) and intellectual paradox (Whoever give lose his life for my sake will find it Matt. 10.39, NIV) has always seemed natural to those seeking to understand and speak of ghostlike mysteries. Even so, John Donnes image of the Divine Rape in the dedicated Sonnet XIV, by which the victim becomes, or remains, chaste is at prototypical startling we are not accustomed to such spiritual intensity.1 preliminary explications have attempted to downplay this figure for example, Thomas J. Steele, SJ The Explicator 29 (1971) 74, maintains that the knowledgeable meaning is a secondary meaning and probably not meant to be explicitly affirmed. Moreover, George Knox The Explicator 15 (1956) 2 writes that the poem does not require our imagining literally the coitus between man and God in heterosexual terms and that the traditions of Christian mysticism allow such symbolism of ... ... as he rupture down, possesses as he frees, is as honorable as passionate--that is, in him all paradoxes find their supra-rational resolution, resolution not only presented in the imagery of the windup couplet, but reflected in the sudden tranquillity of the completely regular iambic pentam eter. Thus Donne links content to form throughout the Holy Sonnet XIV. His aesthetic presentation of the relationships implicit in the ancient theological conceitedness of the righteous souls marriage to God3 is therefore doubly moving. NOTES 1. John Donne, Holy Sonnet XIV, John Donne The Complete English Poems, ed. A. J. Smith (New York Penguin, 1984) 314-315. 2. William Karrigan, The Fearful Accommodations of John Donne, John Donne and the Seventeenth-Century Metaphysical Poets, ed. Harold Bloom (New York Chelsea House, 1986) 44. 3. Karrigan, 40.
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