Holy Sonnets

This sonnet, written by John Donne, is penned in iambic pentameter. This means that each line contains ten syllables each, grouped into five (hence, the prefix "penta-") "feet" or two-syllable...

Donne uses forceful and startling comparisons in his Holy Sonnet 14 to show the strength of his conviction in his quest to know God intimately. The initial four lines beg God not to hold back in...

In the early part of his life, John Donne wrote poetry about love—he was, in fact, a partier and a womanizer. However, as he grew older—and perhaps because of his marriage and his growing faith—his...

The first two lines of John Donne's poem "Holy Sonnet 14" express the speaker's desire that God figuratively beat ("batter") his heart so that he can be a better person and a better Christian. The...

First off, I can say that from the perspective of a university-level poetry professor, your frustration with understanding meter is totally common; my students frequently struggle to understand how...

John Donne, the great English poet, lived in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He thus lived well before the so-called “Enlightenment,” which is usually associated with the late...

I do not find any contradiction between John Donne's Holy Sonnet 14 and his Satire 3. In Satire 3, John Donne is telling people how important it is to see to their faith, while Sonnet 14 speaks...

This line appears in one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets, this one called "This is My Play's Last Scene." In this sonnet, Donne imagines himself on his deathbed. The quote in fuller context reads as...

Yes, the Holy Sonnets could successfully be translated to music. They are quite regular from a metrical point of view and feature many rhymes and assonances, two important factors to consider when...