by InspiredWritingResearch

Created on: September 24, 2009   Last Updated: September 25, 2009

Any poetry review of Holy Sonnet 14 by John Donne must surely mention the sixteenth century English poet's fixation with women and their faithfulness, or lack of it. Some readers will pick up in this metaphysical poem echoes of these fears of separation anxiety and rejection also in his relationship with God. Donne asks his three-in-one God to attack his heart using the word "batter" along with other language of force such as "overthrow," "bend," "burn," "lavish," "divorce," and "break."

The language used in the poem could be seen to represent the degree of power that Donne believes will be needed by God in order to win back a sinner fallen so far from grace as the poet. It is almost as if John Donne believes that God just isn't trying hard enough to win a black heart like his - a heart which has gone astray or become as disloyal as a town which, under siege, then promises its allegiance to another master.

Donne had renounced his Roman Catholic faith in order to fall in with the new political pressures to become a protestant. His own brother had been imprisoned on suspicion of harbouring a Catholic priest. The priest himself was hanged, drawn and quartered. It is little wonder then, that in such times the language of violence was often evident also in poems of love - whether relating to God or womankind. It is not explicit in the poem whether Donne's feelings of guilt emanate from his dissociative religious actions but this would not be surprising to readers who were aware that Donne's own Catholic upbringing debarred him from gaining a university degree.

Yet Holy Sonnet 14 also reflects the more Protestant idea that faith can come from God alone and must be asked, even begged for, as a fallen man can do no good on his own but must be saved from his own wickedness. Lack of salvation meant only one thing to the confused and theologically tortured Donne - the loneliness of separation from the God he loved and needed. Eternal damnation meant permanent exclusion from the warmth, security and protection of God's love. Therefore we have the language of separation also in this poem - "divorce," "cut," "break" and "untie" as Donne labours to be the good soul God wants him to be before he will take him under his wing.

The heavy, pleading, supplicant tone of the prayer sonnet is understandable given Donne's need for God's work in this matter to be done well - without it there could be no redemption and, given his fear of death and separation from the love of God, this was unthinkable for John Donne. The poet's self-esteem seems low and, like a child chastised by its mother, he may feel unloved and undeserving of forgiveness and affection.

He is frustrated also that the cold mathematical reason that helped him so much in his logic-based legal profession is now "'weak'n'd" and can't help him reconcile spiritual love with its more tempting physical secular version. In the images of the carpenter (door, wood and batter) we are reminded not only of Donne's suffering in this matter but also that of the Christ who himself died on the "tree" of self-sacrifice and suffering.

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