Hannah Jonus
Mrs. Dunlap
AP Literature (1)
31 January 2012
John Donne
1572-1631
Born the third of six children, John Donnes family was Roman Catholic when practicing
that religion was illegal. Johns father died when he was very young, in 1576, so he was mainly
raised by his mother and step father Dr. John Syminges. However, in 1577, his mother died,
leaving him and his siblings orphaned. He attended Oxford through his teens and later attended
Thavies Inn legal school. During his years, Donne spent a fair share of his large inheritance on
women, literature, pastimes, and travel. At the age of 25, he was appointed chief secretary of the
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, the most influential social group in England. He later married
Anne More, ruining his career. She died after giving birth to their 12th child in 1617. Donne, an
English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is one of the best representatives of the metaphysical
poets. He tended to write with a strong, sensual style and use sonnets, love poetry, religious
poems, Latin translations, epigrams, etc. He is known for his vibrancy of language and
inventiveness of metaphor. Donne used abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies, and
dislocations. These qualities were a reaction against the smooth, conventional Elizabethan
poetry. Donne often wrote with an immense knowledge of British society as well as religion.
Batter my heart, three-personed God
John Donne
T-Title: The title connotes that the poem will be about a man struggling with his faith. The
three-personed God represents the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He is either struggling to
defend his faith or struggling to keep it. It is 14 lines and is therefore a sonnet.
P-Paraphrase: Break my heart, almighty God, for you will and can do anything to mend it.
Help me stand with you and have your spirit and my religion break me until I am reborn in
your faith. I am held to you by a force that is not mine, and will always work to stand up for
you. I should have the power to stand up to you, but I am often too weak and sometimes
cannot do it. However, I still love you and am devoted to you. But I am married to the
enemy. Help me break free and forever stay away from him, Satan, even if you have to
imprison me. I will never be free from him unless you love me.
C-Connotation:
o Batter- break his heart away from the devil and make it devoted to Him
o Knock, breathe, shine, mend- knock, father; breathe, spirit; shine, son. Each of these
go along with break, blow, bum, and new.
o Usurped town- a town taken by force; he has no control of the devils power over
him, metaphor to his own life
o Labor, captive, weak- all of these words show a struggle against something, just as
the author is struggling to stay away from the devil
o Divorce- divorce was not accepted by Catholics at the authors time period, shows the
backwards way the world works. He wants to be devoted to God, yet is unable to be
100% in love because of the devil
A-Attitude: The speaker is surrendering himself to God; he has a tone of love and adoration
to God but yet also a tone of conflict, weakness. He knows he will be flawed in his devotion
so he is begging God to take his heart completely.
S-Shifts: There is a slight shift in the ninth line. The beginning shows his asking and
surrendering to God. Then line nine talks about his weaknesses and faults in being and why
he needs God to completely take his heart.
T-Title: The title is talking about a one personed, weak man, speaking to a three personed,
strong all powerful God. The title shows the surrender the speaker has to God, he wants him
to break his heart and mend it to be perfect and love only God.
T-Theme: The theme of this sonnet is that man is always caught in between the trap of good
versus evil. He will always want to only be good, only love God, but always has that
inclination to go towards evil, the devil. The poet is in this struggle to break away from the
evil and only stay true to God. Yet he knows, as he says in the poem, that his mission to only
love God will be unsuccessful, for he knows he is weak and untrue.
Death, be not proud
John Donne
T-Title: The title suggests that the poem will be about death. The speaker obviously
does not like death but also speaks like he does not fear it. It is 14 lines long, and is a
sonnet. The poem could be about a person who has lost someone and is going through
the mourning process. He seems to have conquered his hatefulness towards death and no
longer fears it.
P-Paraphrase: Death should not be proud, although many think it is. It thinks it is big
and terrifyingly dreadful, but it is not. For those who think it is, for those who fear it,
will be defeated by death. I will not die, death itself cannot defeat me. I do not fear it.
It looks like rest and sleep, we receive happiness. Then, death has much more to do. The
best of us go with death. You (death) can only work with fate, chance, Gods, and
desperate men who want to kill themselves, and live with poison, sickness and war. We
can easily sleep by poppies or charms, not only by you. Why should we choose you
then? When we do sleep, or die, we shall wake and defeat you through God, for our souls
can live eternally, but death, you shall die.
C-Connotation:
o Proud, mighty, dreadful- all strong, powerful adjectives describing death. The
diction plants images of what the reader would normally view death as. It shows
the author has, at a time, viewed death like that. However, he immediately says
that death is not so. He says death wants to be viewed that way, but in reality is
not like that.
o Rest, sleep- calming, peaceful words that cause people to look like theyre dead or
a dead person can look like theyre sleeping. Either way, sleep and rest deceive
death.
o Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men- only the weak and prideful succumb to
deaths allure.
o Wake eternally- he is referring to eternal life in heaven
A-Attitude: The speakers attitude toward the subject is one of triumph with a critical
tone. The speaker continuously puts down death and anyone who thinks death has great
power. He is trying to get his view across that death should not have a powerful hold
over people and that if you defeat death, you can live eternally.
S-Shift: There is a shift at line 9. The speaker begins creating lists directly criticizing
death. He builds up to the ending of the last defeat. He uses and in the beginning of the
line in lines 10-12, and 14.
T-Title: The author is not criticizing death because he lost a life, but most likely because
he found a new one. He has been spiritually reborn in a religion that allows spiritual life
after death. His faith allows him to not fear death. Fate and chance are all things left to
the world, not to a God. Therefore, anyone who believes in fate and chance and not in
Gods will, will indeed fear death. But because the speaker believes in the will of God,
he is able to conquer his fear of death.
T-Theme: The speaker of the poem is most likely part of a religion. Death is the last
enemy to be defeated before reaching eternal life. Once you do not have the fear of
losing this world, you will be free and realize deaths weaknesses. When you believe in
God and eternal life in heaven, you no longer need to fear leaving this world.
