Holy Sonnets Analysis

Holy Sonnets

Analysis

Holy Sonnets was written by John Donne. When it came to their form, Donne very loosely followed the Petrachan style for all nineteen. In the first eight lines--the octet--he presents readers with a problem, idea, or situation. And the following six lines--the sestet--he presents an answer to the problem or comments on the idea or situation. He often broke the strict rules of sonnet writing in order to convey a situation that was important or emotionally intense to him. In Holy Sonnet VII, Donne expresses his reverence for God. It was obvious that he exalted God, and had great respect for him, both out of awe and fear. In the octet of this poem, Donne states the issue of sin and evil, and in the sestet, he argues for repent as a way of cleansing our sinned souls. Countless references of biblical events, mainly ones forecasted in The Revelations of Jesus Christ, are made throughout the octet to express Donne's reverence for God and to emphasize a great sense of sinfulness. Through the use of caesurae, alliteration, assonance, substitution, and a loosely followed rhyme scheme, Donne adds emotional intensity to his argument, making it stronger.

With a little knowledge of the Bible's book of Revelations, a reader could quickly pick up on John Donne's reverence, awe, fear of God. Throughout this whole poem, Donne alludes to events predicted in Revelations. The first two lines of the poem, "At the round earth's imagined corners blow/Your trumpets angels", are reference to a part of Revelations that says "I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth" (Revelations 7:1). In the first four lines, it's made apparent that Donne believes in the prophesized coming, and he expresses a respectful but reluctant welcome by calling out to the angels and sinful souls--"blow/Your trumpets, angels" and "numberless infinities/Of souls, to your scattered bodies go." Line 5, "All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow", alludes both to the great flood of Noah and the destructive fire prophesied in Revelations. "All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,/Despair, law, chance hath slain" (lines 6-7) are all allusions from Revelations. These lines list, according to Revelations, all the heavenly signs that the world has come to some sort of crisis. Donne's reverence for God shows when he speaks of His prophesized events in a matter-of-fact way that makes it obvious he believes they are to happen. His awe and fear of God are revealed in lines 9-14. In line 9, Donne practically begs God to let the sinful but unfortunate souls rest--"But let them sleep, Lord." And he pleads in prayer for God to teach him to repent while he's on Earth because it's too late to ask for forgiveness when in heaven. (Lines 11-13, "'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace/When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,/Teach me how to repent."

John Donne portrays his reverence for God through poetry element such as caesurae, alliteration, assonance, substitution, and a loosely followed rhyme scheme.

Holy Sonnet VII has a "rough" and emotionally powerful reading rhythm to it. There are a plethora of caesurae within these lines, for example, in lines 6-7, "war, death, age, agues, tyrannies,/Despair, law, chance." Listing these events in a long line and running the list on to a second line intensifies the sinful nature of all these negatively co notated words. Then, from lines 6-14, there are pauses at the line of every line except line 13. That's because most of Donne's sentences go on for at least four lines. He uses prepositional phrases and lots of compound sentences. For example, "if above all these my sins abound", in line 10, "and, you whose eyes", in lines 7, and "for that's as good as if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood" in lines 13-14. The use of such long sentences, with many pauses, made the poem somewhat sermon-like and earnest.

John Donne, though generally rough in his writing because of tendency to break or stretch the rules of sonnet writing, used lots of alliteration and assonance throughout Holy Sonnet VII. Illustrating his stretch of the rules was his stretch in the use of alliteration. His repetition of consonant sounds were not always the initial consonant sounds, yet it was easy for readers to pick up on the intended string of repeating sounds. Such as the letter r in the first two lines--"At the round earth's imagined corners blow/Your trumpets angels, and arise, arise." Also, in line 5, one picks up on the repetition of the letter f--"the flood did, and fire shall." Furthermore, Donne threads together lines 11-13 by repeating the letter g in the last word of each of these lines. Donne effectively used loads of assonance in his poem as well. In fact, I think that it's what gives this poem most of its fluidity. As in line 2, "and arise, arise", the neighboring words in a line of assonance flow better because of the similar vowel sounds. "Teach me to repent" in line 13 also illustrates this flow.

Repeatedly, the irregular style of John Donne is demonstrated in Holy Sonnet VII. This time, it's through substitutions. Though a majority of the lines are iambic pentameter, more of the individual feet are substitutions and trochaic, rather than iambic. Especially in the middle part of the poem, like line 6--"All whom war, death, age, agues, tyrannies"--there's nothing but substitutions and trochees. By doing this, Donne places emphasis on these differentiated parts of the poem, which happen to be the forecasted events of Revelations, thus stressing their sinful nature and the need to repent.

Finally, even the Petrachan rhyme scheme of abbaabba cdecde/cdcdcd wasn't strictly followed by John Donne. In Holy Sonnet VII, he tweaked it a little and went with abcaacba dedeff. The switching of the bc to cb rhyme in the two halves of the octet (arise, infinities; tyrannies, eyes) shakes up the poem and demonstrates Donne's irregularity and tendency to break the rules.

A master of poetry John Donne really was. He was so original in his style of poetry. Instead of sticking to the traditional strict rules of sonneteers, he bent and molded himself and his poems around the rules. He successfully used elements of prosody to convey his emotionally intense feelings through his poems. In Holy Sonnet VII, Donne used lots of caesurae, alliteration, assonance, substitutions, and rhyme to demonstrate his reverence for God, and to make his plea to learn how to repent stronger. This prosody assignment introduced me to the man considered the greatest metaphysical poet ever. Through scansion of its prosodic elements, I've really come to appreciated and like this poem a lot. The intensity behind it, illustrated through the allusions of forecasted events in The Revelations of Jesus Christ, and through Donne's somewhat obsession with God, death and repentance, is explicit. His poem is of great exaltation to our God. With these literary pieces, he was able to communicate how he praises and worships God, and how he greatly admires God’s mercy unto its sinful people.