MANARAT INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Bachelor of Arts in English (ENB)

Course Name: Introduction to Poetry.
Course Code: ENG 105
Topic: Your Feelings and Thoughts about the most favorite poem you have read
in Introduction to Poetry.

Submitted To

Tasmia Moslehuddin
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Manarat International University

Submitted By

Ashraful Islam Zayed

ID: 1950ENB01169
Contact No: 01722371559
Email: aislam.ai71@gmail.com

Date of Submission: 16/05/2020

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―Batter my Heart‖ is the most favorite poem I have read in Introduction to Poetry. So I am
highlighting my feelings and thoughts on this Poem.

Batter my Heart is one of the beautiful religious sonnets of Donne written in a Petrarchan
verse with the rhyming scheme abbaabba known as octave followed by the rhyme scheme
cdccdc known as sestet. The poet here is picturing an afflicted lover of the God who is hurt
because he is deviated from the holy path to the sinful path. He urges God to ravish his body
and make him chaste. This is a remarkable sonnet because, although it was written after
Donne‘s confirmation as a priest in the Church of England, it is teeming with the same erotic
language we find in his earlier ‗love poems‘.

Donne's religious and his magnificent sermons reached astounding heights of subtlety and
intensity. Batter my heart, three-person‘s God: a typically blunt and direct opening for a John
Donne poem, from a poet who is renowned for his bluff, attention-grabbing opening lines.
The searching of the soul and the horrified fascination with which he contemplated and
realized his awful sin in "Batter my Heart" with amazing sincerity, intensity and earnestness
is, of course noteworthy in the poem. The language has the same intensity with mood and
experience and Donne's grand style of expressing noble thought in this poem deserves
admiration.

This poem, written using the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet form, sees Donne calling upon God
to take hold of him and consume him, in a collection of images that are at once deeply
spiritual and physically arresting. Perhaps the best way to summarize and understand is to
paraphrase. Beat me into submission, God at the moment you merely try to persuade me.

Gently, to accept you into my heart. But in order to make me rise up and stand before you a
new, devout man, use your power to break me and remold me into someone new. I am like a
town that has been captured and long to let you, my savior, in to reclaim me. But it‘s no
good, for my reason – which should act as your second-in-command within me and make me
see sense, has been captured by the other side and is ineffectual or else has proved a turncoat.
Yet I do dearly love you, and would gladly accept your love, but I have been promised to the
Devil; sever the ties between me and him, take me to you and lock me up, for paradoxically I
will never be free unless you take me as your slave – I will never be pure unless you ravish
me.

Strong stuff, this – which, when paraphrased and put into modern-day language (with ‗thee‘
replaced by ‗you‘), only becomes all the more shocking as a holy poem. God is not only
depicted as an almighty force, but is called upon to use his might and force to beat Donne
into submission. Here is a man wanting to be treated mean to be kept keen: ‗Batter my heart‘,
with that opening trochee (in a poem that is largely written in iambic pentameter), sets the
trend.

In the ―Holy Sonnet XIV‖ John Donne makes use of an overall metaphorical language. The
metaphors depict the lyric persona‘s willingness to an excessive submission to God‘s will and
actions. Firstly the lyric persona offers God to ―batter (his) heart‖. As this is the first
utterance or even wish expressed in the sonnet, it reveals the lyric persona‘s feeling towards
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God and the impact on himself. The combination of ―batter‖ and ―heart‖, as a symbol for
love, depicts the ambiguity of the lyric persona‘s feelings to God. On the one hand love is
represented by the symbol of the heart but on the other hand God is allowed to hurt and this
love violently by battering. Moreover the lyric persona‘s demands God to ―knocker, breathe,
shine and seeker to mend‖ him, which points out his desire to be handled like a tool. He
demotes himself. His trust in God‘s words and ―actions‖ tempt the lyric persona.

The poet prays to God in his threefold capacity as the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost to
batter his heart and reshape it. He is sunk in the tank of sin and method of persuasion is not
going to work on him. God has knocked at him, blown his breath through his bellows and
lighted the fire of his love and mercy to purify him and reshape him. But all these methods
ended without attaining the end (Objective). So God should overthrow the poet and bend his
force to break, blow and make him new and free from sin.

He is like "an usurped town", whose duty is to serve God, but he is occupied by the devil. He
labors to let the God enter into his body (town), but it turns out a vain effort. Viceroy of God,
i.e. the reason which is residing inside the poet captive and he has succumbed to the devil.
Yet 'I love you' says the poet and he anticipates love in return. But he has engaged with God's
enemy. He wishes, divorce, to untie or break the nuptial knot and he requests God to take him
with him, imprison him and never-never shall let him free. He would be purified if God
ravishes him.

The literalness with which these images of assault are developed is undoubtedly dramatic, but
perhaps leaves the modern reader feeling uncomfortable. The idea that the Christian Church
can be seen as the Bride of Christ comes from the Bible, but Donne's image makes Christ a
ravisher, not just a husband. It is as if Donne feels that an image which is strong enough for
other men and women is not powerful enough for him: others can be wooed into salvation,
but Donne must be taken by force.

The paradox which drives the poem on is, however a profound one. On the one hand, Donne
wishes to surrender himself entirely to God; on the other, he needs to feel that the self-
claimed by God is still the unique Donne. The poem is both a total surrender to an all-
powerful God, and — through its extraordinary verbal energy, as in the very first line — an
assertion of Donne's personality. The same paradox is found in a later poem, 'A Hymn to God
the Father'.

God is a craftsman in this metaphor. The demand to ―bend (his) force, to breaker, blower,
burn and make (him) new‖ points out his hope of God‘s impact on him. His demand equals a
self-abandonment. The asyndeton ―knocked, breathe, shine‖ and ―break, blower, burn‖ show
the lyric persona‘s hectic urgency to become a different person and to be united with God.
Both requests ―seeker to mend‖ and ―make me new‖ describe the lyric person‘s desire to get
a new and his eyes better life. Both expressions indicate a discontentment with his current
way of living. In the way of improvement the lyric persona wants to be passive while God
actively improves and ―mend(s)‖ him. The word choice describes a mending of a metal pan
by a tinker. The lyric persona sees himself subordinate to God. He thinks it is necessary that

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God controls him. He requests God if he ―may rise and stand‖ to ―overthrow (him) and bend
(his) force‖ on him. Consequently the lyric persona‘s reception of God dwells on mightiness
and omnipotence. Moreover he draws the image of a great warrior and dictator. In the simile
―like a usurp town‖ the lyric persona continues the image of God as an emperor who occupies
the lyric persona‘s soul and heart. He is however ―to another due‖. This applies both to war
and an alleged romantic relationship to the devil. In war his loyalty is still with former
alliance. In marriage it is the promise to another person that stands for ―another due‖. It does
not matter if this one is a marriage - or in his case an engagement - or a military alliance that
was consolidated before the lyric persona found to God.

The lyric persona however leaves it to the divine power if his life on earth is worth those
promises and pursuits or not. In the lyric persona‘s point of view imprisonment by God does
not preclude a free and self-determined life. The ideal life follows the Words of God. So he is
rather enthralled by him, so there is no big distance between them. Just the idea of ravishment
by God is a provocative image. It shows how determined the lyric persona is, to be with God
and experience his power and especially his love. The lyric persona argues that he cannot be
free in his faith except he is captivated and guided by God. Besides the paradox, the order of
the two phrases is similar in syntax but the sequence of the corresponding words is altered.
This chiasmus reveals that both the lyric persona‘s freedom and chastity are equally offered
to God.

‗Batter my heart‘ is close to ‗break my heart‘, but the paradox here – as in that final couplet –
is that only through such ‗tough love‘ will Donne‘s heart be opened to the glory of God in a
visceral and tangible way. He may be asking for heartbreak (and, even, to be ravished –
suggesting sexual force and also, perhaps, sexual assault), but the irony is that only through
such actions will God‘s goodness reach Donne. In order for him to be remade, he must first
be broken.

Considering John Donne‘s personal and professional history, ―Holy Sonnet XIV‖ can also be
seen as a personal processing with his own struggle with God and religion in general.