Holy Sonnets

The holy sonnet ‘Since she whom I loved’ by John Donne paints God as a domineering and punitive lord who manipulates human life for self-satisfaction. The poem’s rhetorician is conflicted between his physical and spiritual love. Such a struggle creates tension between his sense of loss and hope that the decease of his lover was requisite for God’s plan. Nonetheless, an ambiguity penetrates the poem, suggestive of a subtle yearning. A tension infiltrates the poem whereby the speaker…

best try to give us a little bit of a new feeling to this topic of death, three poems in particular that really help us overcome the fear of death that of “I heard a Fly buzz” and “Because I could not stop for Death” both by Emily Dickinson also “Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud” by John Donne. Yet other than the beautiful content of these poems we also need to note what makes a poem good, and the three main points that simply breakdown poems would be theme,wording, and meaning. Now let it…

Through his holy sonnets, Donne explores the relationship with God, as well as questions the authenticity of faith. Through the sonnet Batter my heart, three-personed God, the speaker pleads to God to “renew” his soul as he feels he has been trapped by God’s enemy, Satan. The destructive and violent diction such as “batter”…

In the poem "Death, Be Not Proud (Holy Sonnet 10)," the speaker addresses death directly. While death is typically perceived as "mighty and dreadful," the speaker articulates that this is not the case at all. For the lines that state: "For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow; die not, poor death, not yet canst thou kill me, " death is personified as a ruler that takes control and manipulates the minds of its people. However; for those with a diverse way of thinking, this "ruler" is…

William Wordsworth’s sonnet, “The World Is Too Much with Us” appears in chapter seven of Digging Into Literature in the middle of the discussion about context. On the surface level, the poem might be difficult to interpret because of its direct references and allusions. But a little research on Wordsworth’s background gives clarity to the deeper argument made in the poem. He was an English poet who is credited with being one of the fathers of Romanticism in English Literature during the late…

chapter, the author explains why a character takes a trip using symbolic reasons. The character does not just take a trip, they take a quest. “The reason for a quest is always self-knowledge (Foster 3).” A quest is usually a person looking for the Holy Grail, going to a store for bread; these tasks of varying nobility. When the character goes on a quest, there is never a stated reason why the character goes on the quest. An example of this is the book or movie Odysseus. Because Odysseus is the…

to feel happiness well as pain and grief, “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” (Hamlet 2.2). This complex paradox, between awareness through knowledge and ignorance, is explored by both Donald Justice in his Italian sonnet, “The Wall”, and John Keats’s poem, “Ode to a Nightingale”. In their works this is accomplished through careful choice of poetic form, the use of analogies that define the boundary between knowledge and ignorance, and dream or sleep imagery.…

In the poems “Death Be Not Proud” by John Donne, along with “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” and “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died” both written by Emily Dickinson, the theme of death captures the reader’s attention. In “Death Be Not Proud,” the poet argues with death and claims that in the end, after death itself dies, we live eternally in heaven. Both “blank” and “blank” are written from a different perspective. Dickinson writes in the first person and the deceased narrator reminisces on…

In the 1910’s the First World War was in process and most of the men that sacrificed their lives for their country and family were forced to commit undignified murders of fellow soldiers. Many of the soldiers that went to fight would write poetry about the glorification and traumas of the war to send back to their families at home, many of these poems were later published and used to implicate the horrific world war. Language techniques are used in many different English pieces, through powerful…

Characteristics: The Lady: "The Lady" or the beloved who regularly appears in Donne's poetry is normally a delightful lady who is bashful around an enthusiastic or physical connection to the speaker. Donne for the most part spends the greater part of the ballad participating in a contention to charm her yet from time to time with a resolution. In his later verse, the woman tended to is a perfect lady who cherishes the speaker with a profound love mixed together with physical energy. In these…