John Donnes The Holy Sonnets Essay - 1100 Words

John Donnes The Holy Sonnets By making many references to the Bible, John Donnes Holy Sonnets reveal his want to be accepted and forgiven by God. A fear of death without Gods forgiveness of sins is conveyed in these sonnets. Donne expresses extreme anxiety and fright that Satan has taken over his soul and God wont 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, wasnt such a holy man all of the time and tried to make up for it in his writing. In sonnet 1, the speaker is talking to God. He tells God that his death is near. He feels that with all of the sins he has committed he is leaning towards hell instead of heaven. Satan†¦show more content†¦He is made craftily and of an angelike sprite;; implying holiness. He then goes on to say that he has sinned and needs both parts of his world to be cleansed and renewed. He asks God to give him more seas, a worlds tears continuing the metaphor, to wash his sin away. Then the speaker makes a Bible reference. He asks the Lord to burn him. It is said in the Bible that the end of the world will be caused by fire. This reference is saying that the speaker wants God to destroy his world now so that he can start anew and forget about his sins in the past. Again we see the theme of sin and the want to be healed and accepted. By using this metaphor in the sonnet, he gives himself a lot of credit. To say that he is a world which God must pay so much attention to creates extrem e self-significance. And to make the allusion that the actions of the Bible would be appropriate to be put to use on such an unholy world seems a little absurd. The end of the world is how sonnet 7 starts out. This is a reminder of the fire reference in sonnet 5, to which sonnet 7 has a strong connection. In this sonnet, the speaker wants to repent so that he will not die like the other mortals who sin. All whom the flood did, and fire shall, oerthrow,; is an allusion to the Bible once again: the great flood, which Noah built his ark for, and the fire which is to cause the end of the world. And in the first two lines, Donne makes a specific allusion to the book ofShow MoreRelated Reciprocal love in John Donnes Holy Sonnets1733 Words   |  7 PagesReciprocal love in John Donnes Holy Sonnets Holy Sonnet XV deals with the question of reciprocal love that runs throughout Donne’s religious poetry. The Sonnet is an address of the speaker’s mind to the speaker’s soul; it is a meditation on the Trinity and man’s relationship to God. The poem’s form and the multi-layered conflation throughout expound upon the nature of the Trinity. 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In both poems, Donne explores the two opposing themes of physical and sacred love; in his love poem The Flea, he depicts the speaker as an immoral human being who is solely concerned with pleasing himself, where as in his sacred poem Holy Sonnet 14 Donne portrays the speaker as a noble human being because he is anxious to pleaseRead MoreJohn Donne s Holy Sonnet 101012 Words   |  5 PagesTh e poem I chose is a sonnet, John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 10. Around 1609, John Donne wrote a variety of religious poems called ‘Divine Poems† that included nineteen sonnets (1410). This literature reflected his interest in Jesuit and Protestant meditative procedures (1410). Although this sonnet is short, the message I received from it greatly influenced my idea of death. The story starts off as the speaker standing up to death. He tells death that it has no power over him and shows death’s comparisonRead MoreWit and Donne1587 Words   |  7 Pagesextent is this made evident in the texts you have studied? 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On the contrary, Donne tells his readers in his first sonnet that he doubts that God can truly absolveRead MoreIn Donnes Poetry the Religious and the Erotic are Dangerously Confused. Discuss1196 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿ ‘In Donne’s Poetry the religious and the erotic are dangerously confused.’ Discuss. John Donne’s Holy Sonnets were a series of metaphysical poems written during the early 17th Century while he was converting to Anglicism from Roman Catholicism. Sonnet 14, known as â€Å"Batter my heart, three person’d God†, documents how Donne desires God to exercise his mastery over him in order to banish his qualms from his mind, which are manifested in the â€Å"reason† or â€Å"enemy†. However, the language that Donne