"Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God"
In the poem "Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God" themes of spiritual unworthiness are explored and addressed. This poem opens up with a command which is addressed to the three-personed God. That phase is normally used to describe the Trinity which is a Christian idea that God is the father, son, and Holy Spirit in one. In the beginning of the poem the author pleas to God to help him stay pure, and resist sin or evil. He uses words like "knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend" as gentle actions of verbs and then replaces them with violent wor
d such as "brake, blow, burn" to show the rough physical battering that he wants from the Trinity. For this reason he asks God into his heart. He wants to be God's prisoner and will never be free until God ravishes (rapes) him. When the author says "Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;" it really expresses that he longs to overcome his sinfulness and satisfy the longing of his soul for the satisfaction he knows will be found in God. It is unusual to place "I" at the end of a line, which is used to emphasize his weakness. In line five it is apparent of his failed attempt to suppress sin and that he needs another way of staying celebrate. It shows how unsure a lot of us are in our hearts about the possibility of damnation. The poem expresses the feelings of Christians who know that deliverance is hard to achieve on this earth. He is telling a woman all of the things that she can do to him. He doesn't necessarily want all of these things to happen to him, but he is trying to show her all of the things that he will go through for him. The cruel treatment that he wants is like he compares God to a blacksmith so that his soul may be melted down and cleansed of unclean things. In line ten he says "But am betrothed unto your enemy" which may leave one to think that he feels like he's married to the Devil and that he wants God to break that tie. In conclusion John Donne's sonnet is an excellent poem.
Common topics in this essay:
Holy Spirit,
Devil God,
John Donne's,
Three-Personed God,
Trinity Christian,
three-personed god,
,
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