FORM - Irregular iambic pentameter implies jarring dissonance in the thoughts of the speaker - INFERIORITY COMPLEX
HS XIV: Batter My Heart
Thou Hast Made Me
The Flea
Song
CRITICAL INTERPRETATION - "Donne regards his soul as female" (John Carey), his own soul is a female trapped in an unhappy marriage, needs another (God) to overwhelm her and take her away
Holy Sonnet I: Thou Hast Made Me
Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart
Hymn to God The Father
The Relic
Represents the peak of Donne's conflict between secular and religious life, and his efforts to reconcile his new found sacred love with the more familiar, earthly love.
HS I: Thou Hast Made Me
HS X: Death Be Not Proud
Constant friction between the sacred ("Three-person'd God") and the profane ("ravish", "chaste")
Batter My Heart
Holy Sonnet X
Original version had no comma in first line - changes entire meaning of poem
Uses the Renaissance idea of sleep as death's image
"Donne's constant use of the belittling and ridiculing tone throughout the poem is indicative of his defiant stance towards death" - Fraser Small
"Shows anxiety about the permanence of human relationships" - John Carey
Use of spondaic detrameter
Use of rhyming triplet, giving the poem a lilting, sing-song quality - goes with the title.
Hymn to God the Father
Subverted use of adunata to represent the impossibility of finding a faithful woman
The Sun Rising
Alternative interpretation - Donne is mocking Petrarchan poetry, rather than woman
The Good Morrow
"Life from crown to sole" - Coleridge
Death Be Not Proud
Three equally weighted stanzas imply a sense of certainty
Opposition between the speaker's disengaged jaded attitude, and varying line lengths which indicate passion and emotion
Structure - Stanza 1: Whimsical and contemplative Stanza 2: Becomes more absurd, pace quickens Stanza 3: Slowing, reversal of argument
Alludes to the Elizabethan concept of blood being exchanged during sex
Semantic field of religion is emphasised as it seems out of place in a highly profane poem - could be seen as blasphemous, or as elevating the poem to seriousness
Use of opposites such as: innocence/guilt, chastity/sexuality, sex/religion
"About the most merely disgusting poem in our language" - Arthur Quiller-Couch
Use of geographic semantic field - AO4: Renaissance voyages and exploration of the world (macro) and inner exploration of love and the self (micro).
Alludes to the cordiform map to link their love and the universe
"The two lovers create a whole and one is incomplete without the other" - Thomas N Corns
An AUBADE and CELEBRATION
Restrained and controlled Spenserian stanzas in iambic pentameter
Each stanza ends on an Alexandrine (6 iambic feet) - suggests his lover has brought his stability
Structure - First experience of love is childish, fleeting, and unstable Second experience of love is richer, more spiritual
Alludes to the Age of Discovery - celebrating a new beginning (new day/new world)
One of Donne's earliest poems
Regular rhyme scheme - adds to underlying tone of wry wit/irony Irregular line length
Similar to a Madrigal
Use of inclusive plural pronouns makes the poem more loving and inclusive than, for example, The Flea
"Fired by [Donne's] ambivalence about Catholicism" - Carol Rumen
Donne talks about judgement day "with no awesome solemnity" - James Winny
Assumes a geocentric view of the world (sun orbits earth), rather an a heliocentric view (planets orbit sun), which had been developed around 20 years before Donne started writing
The opening line both utilises and challenges the aubade form
Form - cross between a Shakespearean and Spenserian Sonnet - unique, or confused?
Can be read as a glorious love poem, but with darker undertones of objectification and male possessiveness - the woman is reduced to an erotically sexualised acquisition.
"All consuming super reality" - Richard Jacobs
Use of a microcosmic conceit - their love represents the universe
Alludes to Donne's apostasy and his erotic poetry
Only poem Donne had set to music and sung at St Paul's Cathedral
HS I
HS XIV
HS X
Structure - Three controlled sestets - suggests he is in control of his thoughts - counteracts doubt about his divine worth
Exploration of the via affirmative and via negativa
Alludes to the Calvinist belief of pre-destination
Opening of the poem takes an accusatory tone - unusual for the Dean of St Paul's. Reflects Donne's complicated relationship with faith and religion
Octave - imagery associated with moving backwards Sestet - imagery associated with moving upwards Some critics argue this gives the poem a cross-like structure
Use of the chiastic form (A B B1 A1) reinforces the panicked two-way motion
Holy Sonnet X: Death Be Not Proud
Use of rhyming couplet - Shakespearian ending