Donne’s Holy Sonnets

The Sonnet Form

 Rigid structure
- 14 lines
- two parts
- strict rhyming scheme
- iambic pentameter
- volta
 Traditionally used for love poetry
The Sonnet Form

Why the sonnet?

 Compression of thoughts and language
 Two part structure allows for movement between extreme emotions
 A sense of urgency emerges
Donne & The Sonnet

 Allowed for expression of urgency and religious fervour

 Meditations on death, sin and salvation
 Move between hope and despair, fear and awe
 Speaker’s search for redemption
 Challenges the traditional form through subject matter, logical questioning
and argument
Donne’s Holy Sonnets

 Written 1609-10
 Encompassed the period of his conversion from Roman Catholicism to
Anglicanism
 Considering entering the clergy
Donne’s Holy Sonnets

 Preoccupied with sin and redemption

 Key trope- salvation before death: spiritual and temporal aspects
 Tone: urgent, serious, dramatic, worrying
 Holy Sonnet VII
At the round earths imagin’d corners
 Offers speaker’s first hand observation
 ‘God’ is the speaker’s controlling force
Holy Sonnet VII
At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow
Your trumpets, Angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of soules, and to your scattered bodies goe.

All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow

All whom warre, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despaire, law, chance, hath slaine, and you whose eyes,
Shall behold God, and never taste deaths woe.
But let the sleepe, Lord, and mee mourne a space,
For, if above all these, my sinnes abound,
‘Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace,
When wee are there; on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good
As if thou’hadst seal’d my pardon, with thy blood.
At the round earths imagin’d corners
 Octave: louder, collective public focus
 Sestet: personal- pronoun and possessive
- self conscious tone
- apostrophe ‘Lord’ slows pace
- mood is one of mourning
 The tonal shift between the octave and sestet from one of urgency to
introspection offers readers prompts for their own spiritual redemption
At the round earths imagin’d corners
 Opens with image of the arrival of Judgement Day- references to the Book of
Revelation
 ‘blow’, ‘arise’, ‘goe’ imperatives which allow Donne to compact his action
and create a sense of urgency, giving the poem a ‘compacted strength’* (the
beauty of the sonnet!)
 Hyperbole ‘numberlesse infinities of soules’
 ‘to your scattred bodies goe’ is at odds with traditional doctrine where the
soul left the body
 ‘All whom the flood did…hath slaine’ the cumulative effect of the ways one
could die excludes no one from judgement, even those who have sinned
 ‘never taste deaths woe’ life everlasting (Corinthians)

 * Louis Martz- Donne scholar and critic

At the round earths imagin’d corners
 The volta marks the shift in voice
 Sestet opens with the negative conjunction ‘but’ denoting this shift
 ‘But let them sleepe…’ delay your judgement of them
 Apostrophe ‘Lord’ slows the pace and creates a personal connection between
speaker and subject
 ‘’Tis late to aske abundance of thy grace…’ too late to seek repentance when
I am on my death bed
 The final couplet conveys Donne’s plea; allow me time to repent whilst I am
here, my sins are many and it will take time
At the round earths imagin’d corners
 How does Donne position the reader to respond to the text? Consider form,
language and features.
 Donne’s context heavily influences the ideas and values of this sonnet. How
might a modern audience perceive these concerns? Does it change the
significance of Donne’s work? Does it lessen the importance of his concerns?
At the round earths imagin’d corners