Watermarks The Holy Paradox in John Donne's "Batter My Heart" by Maryan Wilborn Harrell

The great paradox of the Christian faith lies in the condition that in order to be truly free, the soul must first be rescued from the bondage of sin, then recaptured and completely conquered by God. One of the most profound expressions of this paradox is to be found in John Donne' poem, "Batter My Heart" (Meyer 882). Donne expresses this spiritual transformation in intensely passionate language, using rhythm, figures of speech, and sounds to convey this theme.

The poem opens with a bang as the speaker addresses God as "three-personed God" (1), hence the Christian God, with a desperate demand. The opening line uses iambic pentameter meter with a rhythm that suggests the sound of someone beating on a door, with the "bam, pa, pa, bam" sound, repeated: "Batter my heart, three-personed God," (line 1, italics mine). The poem begins with alternating trochaic and iambic feet, which make the drumbeat rhythm, and enhance the tone of desperation in the voice. The urgency of the plea is expressed by the direct command, which suddenly ends with a caesura. This is followed by the opening line's enjambment that rushes the plea forward into the next line to explain this urgency. The rhythm then changes to a slower tap, tap, tap, ta tap, ta tap as the speaker tells God that He has been gentle and kindly, "for You/ As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend" (1-2). The spondee stresses on the third foot of the line suggest a deliberate knock, knock, knock, yet the verbs reveal God's quiet, but persistent concern, which the speaker suggests has been too easy, thus far: God, as Holy Spirit, breathes, shines, and mends. The verb "knock" in line two could well refer to Revelation 3:20: "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." However the speaker knows that God's gentle treatment will not be enough, that it will take God's more violent and forceful attention to reach into his or her stubborn heart.

The paradox is restated with another rushing enjambment ending, "and bend" as the speaker expects to "rise and stand" after being "o'erthrow[n]" by God (3). Here is the paradox: the soul must be thrown down in order to stand up, The line ends with the first end rhyme, "bend," to rhyme with "mend" (1) and "end" (6). These are one-syllable masculine rhymes that end the lines with a masculine stressed beat. This rhyme and meter accents the speaker urging God to act in an aggressive masculine way. The speaker realizes that God must strike him down and take full control of his life in order for him to be transformed into the Christian he wants to become.

Hurrying forward, the speaker takes the command further by saying "... and bend/ Your force, to break, blow, bum, and make me new" (3-4). Here the rhythm of line two is repeated, but with important changes in the verbs, as God's heavier hand is invoked with violent one-syllable verbs and alliteration: bend, break, blow, and burn. These verbs suggest a refiner's work, such as a blacksmith's or jeweler's, who would work in metals. This alludes to a simile used in the Bible, as God is described in Malachi 3:2: "But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap."

Throughout the poem Donne uses the caesura for emphasis. As he uses the semicolon in the opening line, Donne uses commas in almost every line to stop the reader's eye (or voice) to stress words. This is especially effective in the lines with lists of verbs such as "break, blow, burn and make" because the reader is made to pause and consider each word and presumably its meaning, as well.

Moving from the heart and soul to the mind and soul, the image shifts to a simile of an occupied village under foreign rule: "I, like an usurped town, to another due,/ Labor to admit You, but Oh to no end!" (5-6). The rhythm accents the words "usurped town" (5) with another caesura to stress the trap in which the soul finds itself. The soul works to let God in, but to no avail. The verb "admit" (6) suggests two meanings: allowing God entrance into the soul, and also acknowledging God's presence. The ambiguity of this verb perhaps suggests that the speaker has not been able to do either.

The simile of the village is carried forward in the next line, where the speaker uses the metaphor describing "reason" (7), or intellect, as God's "viceroy" (7), or agent. In other words, the speaker understands that the mind should be able to guard the soul against the onslaught of the enemy (sin, or Satan), but has not because it "is captived and proves weak or untrue" (8). The mind is bound by sin, and its logic is too weak or false to be of any help to the soul. Thus, the village is occupied by the usurper, sin, and has not been aided by the mind's reasoning power to oust the enemy in order to grant admittance to God, whose knock at the soul's door must be replaced by a battering ram.

Following this line, the tone of the poem shifts again, as the soul states its love for God, and its desire to be loved by Him. Rather than a demanding tone, the tone is the softer yearning of the soul. The subject returns to the heart, and the metaphor shifts to that of a lover betrothed to the enemy of the true love. This appears to make reference to each member of the church being a part of the bride of Christ which has been under the control of the enemy, Satan, whose temptation leads to sin. Every soul is powerless without the strong arm of God. The soul is under the control of sin, and cannot escape on its own.

Punctuated with a colon, line ten introduces the final four lines of the poem in which the speaker explains the soul's need for God to break the bondage of this bad liaison. Shifting back to a more urgent tone, the verbs used in line eleven suggest the dissolution of a bad marriage: "Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again. Again, the speaker uses the imperative, offering no "please" or "thank you," only desperation.

Finally, the metaphor of the soul as lover restates the great paradox again, by expressing in passionate words its understanding of the need for God's help. The speaker still commands God:

Unless God does the saving, the soul will not be saved. Unless the soul is truly conquered to the degree that a lover is united with its mate, it will never be really free. The poem follows the Biblical tradition of using erotic imagery climaxing with intensely passionate language using the verbs "take," "imprison," "enthrall," and "ravish." The poem concludes with the paradox restated in the words "nor ever chaste, except you ravish me" (14). Especially interesting is Donne's application of the verb "ravish" in this line. A consultation of the Oxford English Dictionary suggests that he intentionally used this verb because of its ambiguity. The first definition listed is "to Seize and carry off." The second definition listed is "a. to carry away (a woman) by force; b. to commit rape upon (a woman), to violate." The third definition is "a. to carry away or remove from earth; b. to carry away (esp. to heaven) in mystical sense" (OED 2423). Certainly a woman who has been raped is no longer chaste. The paradox is revealed, however, when all of the meanings are applied to the verb. Since the speaker is pleading with God for deliverance, the verb "ravish" conveys the sense of a mystical "carrying away." Here is a willing, but weak soul seeking God's aggressive act of deliverance. A victim of rape does not ask for such violence. Only when the soul's union with God is finally consummated or ravished will it ever be pure and spotless, chaste without sin. The poem's theme of the great Christian paradox ends with the violence with which it began, but the use of the verbs "enthrall" and "ravish" serve the poet to reflect the rapturous ecstasy of the soul's final joining with God and its victory over the rule of sin.

This rapturous spiritual ecstasy is shown in many other works of art and poetry, perhaps most notably in Bemini's seventeenth century statue of "The Ecstasy of St. Theresa." She is portrayed reclining in an attitude of total submission, with an angel standing over her, which is very reminiscent of Donne's poem.

John Donne's use of the language is masterful in several ways. He is able to convey the spiritual theme of a sudden violent act of God in order to convert a seeking, but weak human soul. He does this by using the carnal act as a metaphor for the mystical work of the Holy Spirit. He also uses human experience as a way to interpret the mystical experience, which would otherwise be inexpressible.

Meyer, Mchael. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000.

"Ravish." The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.

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