"Batter My Heart"

Power Struggle

Reason versus religion; from Galileo’s time to the modern age, the notion that God and science are mutually exclusive entities has created conflicts and commanded the thoughts of historians, writers, and philosophers alike. Poet John Donne is no exception. Likely inspired by the tension between skepticism and faith illustrated in his own life, Donne crafted a group of religious poems referred to as the “Holy Sonnets.” In one such sonnet entitled “Batter my heart, three-personed God,” Donne utilizes the tone of an intimate religious plea, employing strong metaphors, thought-provoking paradoxes, coarse language, and surprising motifs to express the speaker’s desperate desire to overcome his struggle with faith and devote himself to God.

In the first quatrain of the sonnet, Donne introduces the fundamental theme of the poem through the use of metaphors, puns, and paradoxical language. Throughout the first four lines, the speaker asks a “three-personed God” to paradoxically “o’erthrow,” “break,” and “burn” him in order to “make [him] new” (1,3,4). In doing so, the speaker reveals his desire for God to conquer his heart so he can become a man of faith. The address to the three-personed God, however, does more than just outline the meaning of the quatrain. The reference alludes to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit of the Christian holy trinity, and the words and parallel sentence structure that Donne uses in lines two and four further clarify the metaphor. The second verbs found in lines two and four, “breathe” and “blow” respectively, when translated into Latin become spirar; when understood as an etymological pun, it becomes evident that with these words, Donne is referencing the Holy Spirit whose name seems to share the Latin root (2,4). Similarly, the third verbs found in lines two and four function as another pun and further aid in the unraveling of the metaphor. Because the sun both shines and burns, it is likely that these verbs refer to the Son of the holy trinity.

Just as Donne makes critical comparisons in the first lines of the poem, in the second quatrain he again applies a strong metaphor to convey the speaker’s grappling with faith. Saying, “I, like an usurped town, to another due, / Labor to admit you,” the speaker expresses his struggle to allow God into his heart (5,6). Donne then extends the metaphor to encompass the role of reason in the speaker’s life. Comparing reason to a viceroy that rules on behalf of God, the speaker admits that although logic and skepticism generally oppose and dismiss religion, reason not only “proves weak or untrue” and does not defend him from God, but also is often provided by faith (8). In other words, the second quatrain uses complex comparisons to illustrate the power struggle between the speaker’s desire to permit God into his life and his inclination towards reason and skepticism.

Donne utilizes the ensuing sestet to expand upon this idea and fully develop the theme and meaning of the work as a whole. Armed with a unique motif and a paradox enriched by violating language and dually-denoted words, Donne expresses the speaker’s passionate desire to love God and his prior skeptical outlook that hinders him from doing so. Introducing a marriage motif, the speaker refers to reason as a spouse and enemy of God, saying, “But am betrothed unto your enemy; / Divorce me, untie or break that knot again” (10,11). In this way, the speaker explains that he is bound to his previous beliefs and wants God to sever the ties so that he can become a man of faith. He continues to express this desire through an interesting paradox. Donne writes, “Take me to you, imprison me, for I, / Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, / Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me” (13-14). The paradox of becoming free by being enthralled and becoming chaste as a result of being ravished is enhanced by the multiple denotations of the words enthrall and ravish. Because enthrall can mean to both capture the attention of and to imprison, it is possible that Donne is referring to both mental and physical freedom in these final lines. Similarly, ravish implies both being filled with intense delight and being raped, and as a result, the paradox can be resolved as a graphic expression of the speaker’s desire to know God.

A study of Donne’s life reveals that a shift from reason to faith in God and the inherent accompanying struggle is a subject that he knows well. Early in his life, Donne himself held an early belief in skepticism. After a burdensome time in his life during which he suffered from numerous illnesses, financial strain, and the loss of loved ones, however, Donne’s early logical beliefs gave way to a firm faith in God and in the Bible. Throughout the work, Donne calls upon raw diction, complex paradoxes, extended metaphors, and effective motifs to express the significance of each portion of the sonnet and ultimately the meaning of the poem as a whole.