Batter My Heart by John Donne

Holly Sonnet

1. Batter My Heart
ENG 124: Introduction to poetry (section-1)
Department of English
Hamdard University Bangladesh
Gobindo Deb
Lecturer
Department of English
Hamdard University Bangladesh

2. Sonnet XIV
Batter My Heart: Summary
As with all the Holy Sonnets, this one has no separate title, merely
taking the first half line as a title. It is probably one of the best known
of all Donne's religious poems, since its images are so striking and
dramatic. Donne uses the language of violent sexuality, as well as
images of warfare, to make an impassioned plea to God for some
spiritual breakthrough. Just as in his love poetry, Donne desired
intensity and a complete experience. The most similar of Donne's other
sonnets is As due by many titles.
More on love language:there is a long tradition in medieval poetry of
mixing the language of human and divine love, taking images of one to
apply to the other. Donne does this frequently in his love poems. The
Bible itself contains examples of this approach. In the New Testament,
the love of Christ for his church is likened to a husband's towards his
wife (Ephesians 5:25). In Christian tradition, the sexual love found in
the Old Testament book of The Song of Solomon was also seen as
symbolic of the human soul's desire for God.

3. Batter My Heart: Commentary
An impassioned plea
In the sonnet Batter my heart Donne quite deliberately goes out to find as many
paradoxes as possible. But far from being an intellectual exercise, it is a deeply
impassioned plea to the ‘three person'dGod’. The Trinity is invoked as if the term
‘God’ alone would not be sufficient as the person addressed.
Apathy?
As always, Donne's drama requires someone to address or argue with or, as here,
plead with. The forceful opening is a plea for deliverance from a supposed state of
apathy or lack of devotion and for a renewal of spirit. In fact the desperation voiced
suggests a state far from apathy! So there is an unconscious paradox underlying the
conscious ones.
In the first quatrain, then, God has to be very active. In the second quatrain Donne
explains why. Try (‘Labour’) as he might, he just cannot seem to allow God to have
control of his life. He knows God should govern his life, but it is as if he's been taken
over by other forces, though he does not say what these forces might be. They might
be apathy, or they may be more obviously evil.

4. Batter My Heart: Commentary
Love for God
In the sestet, he declares his continuing love for God, and his
desire to receive God's love. Here the language becomes very
sexual. Unless God really acts and takes Donne by force, he is
never going to get out of his present spiritual state of sinfulness
and indifference.
Donne here is not unique but is echoing the cry of many
Christians down the centuries who have expressed a desire to
be free to love and serve God more deeply, yet who have felt
that something has held them back. The classic biblical passage
expressing this comes in Romans 7, where Paul cries out: ‘O
wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body
of this death?’(Romans 7:24 AV). Paul finds a way out; Donne
leaves his poem unresolved, yet at the same time there is a
sense that the battle has in fact been won.

5. Batter My Heart: Themes
Sinful, unworthy, unfaithful
The overriding theme of Batter my heart is Personal Sinfulness and
Unworthiness, to which, almost as a corollary, the theme of Unfaithfulness
is attached. The imagery of the sestet is quite explicitly that of marital
unfaithfulness: ‘am betrothed unto our enemie’; ‘Divorce me’; ‘ravish
mee’. It might seem shocking to use such explicit human terminology for
spiritual unfaithfulness, but, then, the Metaphysical poets do set out to
shock. For Donne, we feel, this is not some rhetorical trick, but an
expression of his own sense of being a divided personality.
A divided personality
Various critics have made suggestions about why Donne feels so divided:
His leaving of the Roman Catholic church may still have haunted him with
feelings of betrayal and of division.
It may be more temperamental. Some people are supersensitive to their
own shortcomings and failures.

6. Batter My Heart: Imagery
Force and bending into shape
The sonnet Batter my heart is dense with imagery. The verbs in the
first quatrain suggest a variety of activities: from the domestic picture
of a housewife cleaning and polishing to a blacksmith or metalworker
bending into shape some obstinate object. The biblical image of a
furnace used to shape us, as seen in Isaiah 48:10 and Ezekiel 22:20-22,
is echoed here.
Under siege
In the second quatrain, the central image is of a besieged town, perhaps
picking up on the opening word ‘Batter’, as in a battering ram to break
down a city's gates. Interestingly, another religious writer of the same
century, John Bunyan, uses this image as the central symbol in his
fiction The Holy War. The simile is an extended one, as the poet works
out its details. Reason is ‘your viceroy’, or governor, but is powerless
to act. Donne is unable to reason himself into a better spiritual state. It
is as though God's forces are outside, but Donne cannot get to the gates
to let them in –hence the need for the battering ram.

7. Batter My Heart: Imagery
Rape!
In the sestet the imagery becomes markedly sexual –and
paradoxical.
Donne is portrayed as in love with God but betrothed to his
enemy. In his time, when arranged marriages were not
uncommon, this could happen. So the ‘Divorce mee’ means
God is to dissolve the betrothal, undo the knot of the
engagement.
Then come the clinching paradoxes: that of ‘enthral/free’,
where to enthral means to enslave, mentally or morally. The
sexual overtones are made explicit in the last line, where
‘chast/ravish’ are set alongside each other. In the sonnet As due
by many titles, Donne talks of the Devil ravishing him, a more
obvious use. But God ravishing?! The shock reverberates
through the whole poem.

8. Batter My Heart: Language &
Tone
Dramatic language
The language used by Donne in Batter my heart is highly
dramatic.
The monosyllabic verbs especially hit us, as they are run off as
a list in quick succession:
◦‘knocke, breathe, shine’ contrasting with
◦‘breake, blowe, burn’ The alliteration is carried on from the opening
‘Batter’
The paradoxes are similarly paired:
◦‘rise and stand’ with ‘o'erthrow’;
◦‘imprison...enthrall’ with ‘free’
◦The verbs predominate, just as monosyllables do.

9. Batter My Heart: Language &
Tone
Dramatic voice
The initial outburst reminds us of Donne's dramatic voice,
seen in so many other openings:
‘Busie old foole’ (The Sunne Rising)
‘For Godsake hold your tongue’ (The Canonisation)
‘However there is considerable variation of tone: it is not all
strident. 1.6 has more a tone of longing; 1.9 is much softer, a
declaration of love. The drama is never rant. There is a
curious tension between importunity and reverence.

10. Batter My Heart: Structure and
Versification
Complex form
The octave form of the first part, with the rhyming scheme
of abba abba definitely suggests the Petrarchan form. But as
with other Donne sonnets, the sestet is somewhat of a mixed
form, as Donne likes to get the clinching effect of the final
couplet of the Shakespearean sonnet form. So, as with other
sonnets, he rhymes cdcd ee.
The punctuation goes against this, however. The last six
lines break into a 2+1+3 pattern, which means that the last
three lines read like a triplet. Even the ‘I/ee’ rhyme is close.
We could even argue that the last line stands apart, and it is
that which is by itself the clincher, though anticipated by the
preceding lines.

11. Batter My Heart: Structure &
Versification
The iambic pentameter form of the sonnet is kept fairly
rigidl. There are significant first foot inversions in ‘Batter’,
‘Labour’ and ‘Reason’. However, the urgency is maintained
through the number of run-on lines (enjambment), at ll.1,3
and significantly, 12. The many lists of words make extra
stresses (as ll.2,4) and also for an interrupted and jerky
reading, which of course, mirrors his own state of mind.
Even a line like
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend
which seems to run smoothly enough to start with, has the
deliberately awkward ‘me, me’ in the middle to force a
caesura. Lines 9,10 are the only ones to give a smooth
reading, perhaps suggesting how tempting his present
captivity still is to him.