Holy Sonnet #14 was good poem to try to make sense of, at least in my opinion. The speaker is involved in a spiritual struggle and it's a struggle he feels he cannot win. The first 4 lines are a plea for God to be less merciful and less patient.
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new
He's basically feeling like God is being to kind and gentle and that's why he keeps resorting to acts of evil. He is pleading with God to not "knock, breath, shine, or seek to mend" his heart but to batter it, burn it away, and force him to be righteous.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue
Here, the speaker tells why he's struggling and who both sides are. One is, of course, God and what it means to spiritual and the other side is reason, which according to the speaker, is getting in the way of his spirituality and belief in God. I'm curious about "me should defend" however. It really sounds like bad English, so I'm kind of at a loss to what he's trying to get across here. Perhaps, just the fact that he's trying to defend his reason but cannot turn his back on God.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain
But am betrothed unto your enemy
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me
The end of the sonnet really sounds a lot like something one would say to a lover (a crazy someone, but nonetheless). So it gets very intimate, talking about being "betrothed" to the enemy, which is likely the Devil, or just sin in general. He asks for God to break that bond and for God to pull the speaker unto himself. He asks to be made a slave and to be taken by force.
So overall, the poem just really addresses a spiritual battle between reason and faith. He finds his faith struggling due to reason and finds he can't completely turn over to reason because of his faith. So he's caught in the middle, and sort of blames God for letting him just hang there, waiting for him to choose. He doesn't want to make the choice, he'd rather it be made for him.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree with you. The speaker is definitely struggling with some sort of higher power. At the end where he is talking in an almost obsessive voice, "except you enthrall me, except you ravish me," seems like the guy is pleading, not wanting the knot to be broken. Definite spiritual struggle. Good point.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I really like the humor you add in amongst the analysis.
ReplyDeleteAlso, after reading what you said about the "me should defend" I tried to reread that part of the poem two or three times and I agree, I have no idea what the guy is talking about. Just seems like he needed someone to proofread his poem for grammar before he published it.
I agree with your analysis of the poem it does seem like the speaker is looking to god and asking him. Forcing him to say here this is the right path. I think the speaker (maybe author) is forgetting that god's greatest gift is that of free will and therefore he will never get the push he is looking for.
ReplyDeleteThe way the guy argues between sin and God, it almost sounds as if he's trying to trade an addiction for another.
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job with this. I read this poem and was like "Okay...I'm moving on to the next one." So props to you for going through with it. :)
ReplyDelete