In "Batter My Heart, three-person'd God," Donne draws liberally upon biblical imagery in calling upon the Almighty to take hold of and consume him. The opening quatrain is replete with verbs suggesting a variety of work-related activities:
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
Some critics have seen this line as an allusion to certain verses in the Bible, such as Isaiah 48:10, in which the image of the furnace is used as a metaphor for how the human soul is shaped by God. The speaker of the poem wants God to take hold of him, an unworthy sinner, like a piece of metal and forge his soul anew in the furnace of affliction.
An even more striking image comes in the next quatrain. Here, the central image is that of a besieged town. What makes this image all the more arresting is that, from within the...
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walls of that town (i.e., the speaker's heart), so to speak, comes a loud, insistent call to break down the gates. God is envisaged here as an almighty battering-ram, responding to an S.O.S. call from a penitent sinner and smashing his way in. The speaker urges God to break in, as he cannot "open the gates" himself; in other words, he needs God's help to achieve a higher spiritual state.
In "The Flea," Donne once again uses Christian imagery, this time the Holy Trinity (the "three-person'd God" of the poem we've just been looking at), except that here, the context is much less serious. In this poem—one of Donne's earlier, more risqué pieces—a highly irreverent parody of the Trinity is presented, in terms of both the poem's structure and content. For instance, "The Flea" consists of three stanzas, and the first six lines in each stanza are made from three rhyming couplets. Additionally, the last three lines of each stanza are triplets.
The central image of the flea reinforces the trinitarian theme. Having bitten both the speaker and his lady love, the flea has joined them all together. In this decidedly unholy trinity, man, woman, and flea alike are united by blood. As all three persons partake of the same blood, they are now three in one, just like the Trinity:
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Given this astonishing display of boyish irreverence, perhaps it's not altogether surprising that a deeply repentant Donne would later call upon the three persons of the Trinity to come and batter down the gates of his sinful heart.
References
John Donne's poems "Batter My Heart" and "The Flea" are filled with wit and startling imagery. In "Batter My Heart"--in which the poet addresses God--his wit manifests in the closing lines:
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
These lines demonstrate Donne's wit because he uses paradoxes to make a
point; he can never be free or chaste unless God imprisons and ravishes him.
This quote also exhibits very startling imagery; one does not commonly think of
the Christian God as "ravishing" anyone.
"The Flea" likewise exhibits Donne's wit and use of startling imagery. Consider
the following quote:
This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed, and marriage temple is;
Donne compares the flea to a marriage bed for his beloved and him, since the flea bit both of them and their blood now intermingles within it. This imagery is very shocking, which increases its effectiveness.