Explication Of John Donne s Holy Sonnet 14 - 933 Words

Explication of John Donne’s holy sonnet 14 The beauty of John Donne’s holy sonnet 14 is in its language. John Donne is an interesting character who uses metaphors anyhow he pleases and finds a way to make it work. The beginning of the poem depicts a man hopeless without God’s help, a man trying to change his ways but finds no success and asks God to change in a way I find quite terrifying. The use of violent and erotic language (i.e Batter, Force, Labor, Captive; and erotic words: i.e ravish, love, knot etc) set the tone of the sonnet, and it remains constant all through. Before diving into the content of the poem, we look at the form of the poem. This poem has a Petrarchan form, and an Elizabethan structure. I know this because it has 14 lines, the rhymes, and the ending couplet. The poem rhymes like: ABBAABBA – CDCDEE. Also we look at the iambic pentameter. The beginning of the poem looked like it would be in iambic pentameter: Batter my heart, We can see here the poem starts with â€Å"Batter† w hich has a stressed syllable, followed by â€Å"My† which is unstressed, and â€Å"Heart† which is stressed, but then, that’s followed by â€Å"three-personed God† which breaks the iambic pentameter. The same can be seen on Line two. I think the essence of starting a poem this way was to start with an aggressive tone in order to prepare the reader for the story ahead. This easy begins with the writer speaking to a â€Å"three-personed God† (I believe that means the father, son, and holy spirit). He uses