John Donne is known for his use of religious themes in his poems, coupled with metaphors and seemingly unthinkable ideas. This is most evident in the collection of poetry called “Holy Sonnets.” The most famous of these is Saint Sonnet 10, in which the power of imagination greatly injures the reader. The explanation that follows will explain the poem and the violent phantasms to help the reader understand Donne’s intention.
Donne begins #10 with violent imagery in the first line of the poem, “Bear my heart, three persons of God; for you / Still beats, breathes, shines and complains to mend;” (1-2). The imagery set the tone for the entire poem. Donne wants God to return to his heart. The common belief of Christians is that God dwells in all men, in their hearts. Donne tells the reader that God is present outside his heart, and can only enter by peacefully knocking. This does not work for Donne, and he asks God to strike his heart to enter; By creating this image, he allows for later explanations of why God must return violently to the speaker.
Throughout lines three and four, the force and reasoning continues as to why the speaker wants violence. He says: “I will arise, and I will stand, and stop me, and bend / Your power, break, blow, burn and make me new” (3-4). Another common Christian belief is that of being born again. Finally, faith is the way for people who have lost or fallen from God to return to God, through repentance and essentially being reborn into faith. In verse three the speakers want to be under God again. The four lines represent this idea of being born again, but again with a violent image. This violence reinforces the speaker’s belief that for some reason God is unable to come back into his life through a “benevolent” medium.
The reason why it cannot be taken peacefully is offered by a metaphor in lines five by eight;
I, like the invader of my country, owe others;
I labor to confess thee, but oh the end;
Why do you protect me with your viceroy in me;
But he is caught, and proves whether he is weak or true (5-8).
The declaimer returns to the town; while still loyal to the former leader of the five. For he usually describes why God will come in the speaker through violence. God must “take the town by force” as if by force. For when he says that he who assumed him, something contrary or contrary to God can be assumed: temptation, sin, the Devil. Line six provides reinforcement that the speaker longs to let God into his life, but cannot. In lines seven and eight, the same speaker says that he defends the just ruler of his body, but is a prisoner to the usurping power, and is too weak or false to either defend or admit God himself.
Lines nine through twelve continue the idea that the speaker wants God back into his life, no matter what it takes. There is also despair, which means by the incongruity that it is necessary for the speaker to receive God into his life;
I still love you, and eagerly
But I am a sponsor to your enemy;
Let me go, or loose that knot;
Lead me to you, imprison me […] (9-12)
Furthermore, the speaker confirms his love for God in nine lines, and also says that he is willing to be loved by God, although in line ten he says that then it would be impossible, because he would marry an enemy of God (also confirming that the “villa” or the speaker’s body has been usurped by the devil) . The speaker therefore commands in lines eleven and twelve, how much he asks God to release the speaker from what he had received from him. Then the speaker asks God to defeat him. This is another atypical image that is common throughout this poem, but it also works very well in context. He wants to be locked in conversation with God, so that he will never deviate again, even when temptation comes behind him.
The last lines of this song are the most famous, and they twist at the end. carrying the image of imprisonment in twelve lines, the speaker says “for me, / unless you draw me, you will never be free” (12-13). This paradox can be very confusing. He who says that he cannot be free unless God completely comprehends him. While this seems impossible, the speaker wants to live well the Christian life, and there is no other way to do this he can make a shield come over him to defend him from all the evil in the world. The fourteenth verse of the poem is stunning: “Never chaste, unless you snatch me” (14). The line offers the same paradox as the line above. The proposition says that it can never be true of the one who speaks to God, unless God snatches him away. While this absolutely shocking speech seems almost sacrilegious, it fits with all the violent imagery that precedes this passage. It is reasonable, with all the images in the poem, that the speaker should say, in the way that he is true to God, that he should force God in the speaker, and hold him by all means, and hold him. speaker
While the images in this poem may seem silly or playful, they are also very apt descriptions of what the poet is trying to communicate. The poem is a terrible cry for God to return into the orator’s life. It begins with the belief that all other means have been exhausted, and this is the last attempt of the claimant to have God back. It is a common belief among Christians that all things are possible through God; this song embraces the full concept.
