John Donne - Holy Sonnets & Meditations

John Donne’s Holy Sonnets and his Devotions show an engagement with God that was absent from the other poems of his that we have read. Where his Song and Sonnets and Elegies are mainly about love and lust, his Holy Sonnets and Devotions demonstrate an immersion into religion: in these there are various references to God (or the Trinity), the Church, and the idea of Heaven, or eternal life.

In Donne’s previous poems, we saw various instances where he sought to be master over something: in The Sun Rising, he feels himself master of nature (“I could eclipse and cloud [thy beams] with a wink”), and in Elegy 19, he seeks to be master of his mistress (“O my America! My new-found-land, my kingdom…”). Although he retains some of this superiority in his Holy Sonnets and Meditations, Donne sees God as superior to himself (and all of mankind): “Thou hast made me,” he says in Sonnet 1. This is also clear in his Meditation 4, where he says “Except God, Man is a diminutive to nothing.” Although he sees man as more complex and exquisite than the earth, he still sees God as more powerful than man. It is this belief in God’s power that allows him to address Death boldly as he does in Sonnet 10: he says Death is not “mighty or dreadful” as some would say. Instead Donne compares Death to rest and sleep, saying that Death is but “one short sleep,” after which the dead will awake and have eternal life, and Death will “die” (no longer exist).

In this vein, we can also say that Donne sees himself as imperfect in comparison to God, and he beseeches Him to “teach [him] how to repent,” and to give him time to do so on earth before Judgment Day (Sonnet 7). He asks God to “batter [his] heart” as if it was the gate of a captured town; he says that he labors to admit God into his heart, but that he needs His help to do it, as he is “betrothed” to his enemy (Sonnet 14). Despite this self-perceived sinful nature, however, Donne longs for a relationship with God. In Sonnet 14, he says “dearly I love you…Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me,” essentially saying that he cannot be happy or free unless God takes possession of his heart and enchants him.

Donne’s relationship with the Church (as an extension of his relationship with God) is also explored in these poems and Meditations. In Sonnet 18, Donne addresses Christ in regard to His spouse, the Church, and begs for religious satisfaction by being allowed to “court” the Church. In Meditation 17 especially, we see Donne’s complex relationship with the Church: he sees it as a universal establishment which connects all men (“No man is an island”). Just as each clod of dirt is a part of Europe, so too is each man a part of the entire human race. Because of this connection, Donne says that in some sense, when the funeral bell tolls for one person, it tolls for everyone: “never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee” (Meditation 17).