Batter My Heart- John Donne
Rachel Hanks
The Poem
Batter my heart, three person’d 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.
I, like an ursurpt town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But I am betroth’d unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthral me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Background
• Likely written about 1609
• Lucy of Bedford
• Catholic practice of meditation
Meditation
• St. Ignatius Loyola
– Prayer
– Preludes
• Imagination related to subject
• Petition
– Points
• Reflections on the history of sin
– Colloquy
• A type of conversation, spoken either casually or as a servant
to a master, with God
– Our father
• Iambic pentameter and
rhyme scheme
• Original notations of
blending vowel sounds
included
Analysis
• Batter my heart, three person’d God; for you
as yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to
mend
– Batter
– Allusion
– Sound
– Contrast
– Iambic pentameter
– Stylistically like a Shakespearean sonnet
• That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and
bend Your force, to break, blow, burn, and
make me new.
– Alliteration
– Break in stress of meter
– Continuation of conceit
• I, like an usurpt town, to another due, Labour
to admit you, but Oh, to no end,
– Oh
– Conceit
– Diction
• Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
– viceroy
• Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy:
– Change in metaphysical conceit
– Fain
• Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
– Contrast
– Conceit
– Pronouns
• Except you enthral me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me
– Paradox
– Rhyming couplet
– Enthral
Bibliography
• Carey, John. Donne the Major Works including
Songs Sonnets and Sermons. Oxford: Oxford
publishing inc. 1990
• The book AMANDA didn’t bring back…… ;)
• http://poemshape.wordpress.com/2009/05/1
7/john-donne-batter-my-heart-his-sonnet/
• http://www.ccel.org/ccel/ignatius/exercises.xi
i.v.html