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The Holy Sonnet - Batter My Heart

Proverbs 3:5, 6 explains that the starting point of knowledge is God, and He is the source of knowledge and the intelligence to which is only revealed to the one who seeks Him diligently. God's knowledge is hidden from the rebels and ignorant and God demands an effort to find it and to use it.
             b. Violence.
             i. The term "batter" is used in this poem to describe the speaker's desire for God to force His way into his heart and is making a demand for God to do so. It is apparent that he is weak and unable to let God in of his own free will and may have hardened his heart spiritually, possibly due to disbelief or distrust. Now the speaker is in anguish needing God to batter his heart, to break down the barrier for it may be the only way to be saved and for peace to enter his heart. Breaking, blowing and burning are all forms of violence but in terms of this poem it is not to be misconstrued with the physical aspect of it. The speaker wants to renew his link with God.
             ii. God is a spiritual being and when the heart becomes spiritually hardened to God's instruction, the effects are in the entire outlook, boldness and eventually the future of a child of God. A spiritually hardened heart occurs when it becomes resistant to the Word, the will, and the ways of God and only wants to go its own way allowing sin to come in and then becoming enslaved against the will of the heart. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths" (KJV). It appears that the heart of the speaker went astray and is now in captivity.
             c. War.
             i. In this poem the speaker is comparing himself to a city under siege in which he is a prisoner. He is at war with himself because he does not want to belong to his current captor, but the other. His anguish here is that he is not able to escape because the hold of the siege is too strong and thus he needs God to be the catapult that breaks down the city walls and retakes it.


Essays Related to The Holy Sonnet - Batter My Heart

1. Sonnet XIV

In describing the opening and closing of the poem, Steir states: "They rely on the conception of total spiritual dependence on God, on the need for man to be utterly regenerated by God-'made new'-not merely aided and assisted by him" The poem opens by asking God to "batter my heart". The word "heart" in Donne's time had a sexual connotation according to Craig Payne, "heart, also being Elizabethan slang for the vagina". ... The "Holy Sonnets" must be looked at in relation to Donne's life. ... It was once thought that the "Holy Sonnets" were composed after Donne had becom...

  • Word Count: 752
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

2. John Donne's "Batter My Heart, Three Person God"

Violent imagery in a holy sonnet: Batter my heart, three-personed God In John Donne's "Batter my heart, three-personed God ," the speaker is in despair about his ability to be chaste. ... He asks God to use a battering ram to knock down the gate to the town, his heart. ... In other words, God has knocked upon his heart, the gate to his walled fortress, asking for a response. ... The poem is a sonnet with three quatrains, or four-line stanzas, and a rhyming couplet. ...

  • Word Count: 750
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

3. John Donnes Ideas on Love And Salvation

" Thy firmness makes my circle just and makes me end, where I began". ... In the holy sonnet batter my heart Donne uses violent paradoxes to explain more complex issues. ... In the sonnet Batter my heart Donne uses images of evil and torture. ...

  • Word Count: 820
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

4. A Matter of Forced Salvation:

Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee' and bend Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new. ... "Batter my heart," a holy sonnet by John Donne, uses sexual imagery to describe the speaker's acceptance of God's will. ... Another perspective has also arisen from the first three words of the poem, "Batter my heart." ... An argument could be created that "Batter my heart" has nothing to do with Christian principles. ... "The battered heart becomes the attack...

  • Word Count: 2802
  • Approx Pages: 11

5. A Three-Personed God by John Donne

Batter my heart, three personed God, for You As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend. ... John Donnes' Batter my heart, three-personed God, for You the sonnet begins with the speaker asking God (along with Jesus and the Holy Ghost; together, they are the Trinity that makes up the Christian "three-personed God") to attack his heart. ... The first line of "Batter my Heart, three- personed God, for You" begins with "batter my heart, three-personed God, for You as yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend.... The three-personed God refers to the trinity, which...

  • Word Count: 1898
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Shakespeare vs. John Donne

However he did use it when he wrote his nineteen Holy Sonnets. For example, Holy Sonnet ten uses the regular Italian sonnet pattern with iambic pentameter. "Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you [ ] (Donne, 10, I)." ... "And in some perfume is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks (Shakespeare 130, vii-viii)." ... This is where the Holy Sonnets were derived from. ...

  • Word Count: 2289
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Grade Level: High School

7. Analysis of John Donne

Transforms confines of iambic pentameter form of sonnets - Strong lined - Violent changes in tone: 1. ... Sonnet 3. ... When it became clear that preferments would be open to him only if he entered Holy Orders, Donne was ordained in the Anglican church in 1615. ... Love Songs and Sonnets: In fact Donne is unusual, if not unique, for his era in that courtly love hardly appears in his poetry at all. ... In contrast Donne expresses an enormously wide range of feelings in his Songs and Sonnets, all relating to the experience of real love, but varying from the heights of ecstasy to the dep...

  • Word Count: 7662
  • Approx Pages: 31
  • Grade Level: High School

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