In many occasions during the 1600's, which was the time where many Cavalier poets flourished, it was important for someone to gain the love of a person or being. Those people would do whatever was necessary of them in order for them to gain this love. The love could have been religious, where a person devotes themselves to a higher being, sexual, where the love between two people is simply physical, or romantic, where the love between two people is both physical and emotional. Throughout many of their poems, the Cavalier poets explained what people believed was necessary of them to give up in order to attain this love. The Cavalier poets, John Donne, Sir John Suckling, Andrew Marvell, and Robert Suckling, claim that people must sacrifice some part of themselves so that they could experience love, whether it be romantic, sexual, or religious love.
As described in "Holy Sonnet 14" by John Donne, a person must give up some part of themselves so that they could experience religious love. The narrator of this poem wants to give up his body to attain religious love. In the poem, the narrator says, "That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, 'and bend Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new" (Donne 3-4). In these lines, the speaker is asking God to rape him because he wants God to take over him with the intention that he would become more like God. The speaker states that there is something wrong with him that he cannot change so he asks for God to take over his body in order for the speaker to change this. At this point in the poem, the narrator is giving up his body to God. Later in the poem, the narrator gives up another part of himself so that he may be able to attain religious love. He says:.
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I.
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,.
Nor ever chast, except you ravish me (Donne 12-14).
At this point in the poem, the narrator asks for God to imprison him.
