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The Holy Sonnets—also known as the Divine Meditations or Divine Sonnets—are a series of twenty poems by the English poet John Donne (1572-1631). The sonnets were first published in 1633—two years after Donne's death. The poems are sonnets and are predominantly in the style and form prescribed by Renaissance Italian poet Petrarch (or Francesco Petrarca) (1304-1374) in which the sonnet consisted of two quatrains (four-line stanzas) and a sestet (a six-line stanza). However, several rhythmic and structural patterns as well as the inclusion of couplets are elements influenced by the sonnet form developed by English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616).

Donne's work, both in love poetry and religious poetry, places him as a central figure in among the Metaphysical poets. The nineteen poems that constitute the collection were never published during Donne's lifetime although they did circulate in manuscript. Many of the poems are believed to have been written in 1609 and 1610, during a period of great personal distress and strife for Donne who suffered a combination of physical, emotional, and financial hardships during this time. This was also a time of personal religious turmoil as Donne was in the process of conversion from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism, and would take holy orders in 1615 despite profound reluctance and significant self-doubt about becoming a priest.^[1] Sonnet XVII ("Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt") is thought to have been written in 1617 following the death of his wife Anne Moore.^[1] In Holy Sonnets, Donne addresses religious themes of mortality, divine judgment, divine love, and humble penance while reflecting deeply personal anxieties.^[2]

Composition and publication

Writing

The dating of the poems' composition has been tied to the dating of Donne's conversion to Anglicanism. His first biographer, Izaak Walton, claimed the poems dated from the time of Donne's ministry (he became a priest in 1615); modern scholarship agrees that the poems date from 1609–1610, the same period during which he wrote an anti-Catholic polemic, Pseudo-Martyr.^[3]^: p.358 "Since she whom I loved, hath paid her last debt," though, is an elegy to Donne's wife, Anne, who died in 1617,^[4]^: p.63 and two other poems, "Show me, dear Christ, thy spouse so bright and clear" and "Oh, to vex me, contraries meet as one" are first found in 1620.^[4]^: p.51

Publication history

The Holy Sonnets were not published during Donne's lifetime and were first published with other poems two years after his death in 1633.

The Variorum Edition of John Donne's work proposes three sequences for the total of nineteen sonnets. The first, the "original sequence", contains twelve sonnets; the second, the "Westmoreland sequence", contains nineteen; and the third, the "revised sequence", contains the twelve sonnets of the original sequence in a different order.^[5] The relationship between these sequences is explained by Cummings, in his Seventeenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology: two sequences of twelve poems, having eight poems in common, with the addition of three later poems, make up the nineteen.^[4]^: p.51

Many of the poems circulated in manuscript: "Oh my black soul", for instance, survives in no fewer than fifteen manuscript copies, including a miscellany compiled for William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The twelve sonnets of the original sequence were published two years after Donne's death, in the 1633 collection Songs and Sonnets,^[3]^{: pp.386-387} probably from manuscripts overseen by Donne himself.^[4]^: p.51 From an earlier manuscript comes the 1635 collection called Divine Meditations, containing the revised sequence. The total of nineteen sonnets is found in the 1620 Westmoreland manuscript (now in the New York Public Library), prepared by Rowland Woodward, a friend of Donne; this manuscript contains the sixteen different sonnets of the Holy Sonnets (1633) and the Divine Meditations (1635), plus the three later poems.

Eight of the sonnets appear in all three versions.

First line	Original	Westmoreland	Revised
Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay	01	01	omitted
As due by many titles I resign	02	02	01
O might those sighs and tears return again	03	03	omitted
Father, part of his double interest	04	16	09
O, my black soul, now thou art summoned	05	04	02
This is my play's last scene, here heavens appoint	06	06	03
I am a little world made cunningly	07	05	omitted
At the round earth's imagined corners, blow	08	07	04
If poisonous minerals, and if that tree	09	09	05
If faithful souls be alike glorified	10	08	omitted
Death be not proud, though some have called thee	11	10	06
Wilt thou love God, as he thee! then digest	12	15	08
Spit in my face you Jews, and pierce my side	omitted	11	omitted
Why are we by all creatures waited on?	omitted	12	omitted
What if this present were the world's last night?	omitted	13	omitted
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you	omitted	14	10
Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt	omitted	17	omitted
Show me, dear Christ, thy spouse so bright and clear	omitted	18	omitted
O, to vex me, contraries meet in one	omitted	19	omitted
Spit in soned God; for you	omitted	omitted	07

Analysis and interpretation

Themes

According to scholar A. J. Smith, the Holy Sonnets "make a universal drama of religious life, in which every moment may confront us with the final annulment of time."^[1] Donne's poetry is heavily informed by his Anglican faith and are often evidence of his own internal struggles as he considered pursuing the priesthood.^[1] The poems explore the wages of sin and death, the doctrine of redemption, opening "the sinner to God, imploring God's forceful intervention by the sinner's willing acknowledgment of the need for a drastic onslaught upon his present hardened state" and that "self-recognition is a necessary means to grace."^[1] The personal nature of the poems "reflect their author’s struggles to come to terms with his own history of sinfulness, his inconstant and unreliable faith, his anxiety about his salvation."^[6]^: p.108 He is obsessed with his own mortality but acknowledges it as a path to God's grace.^[7] Donne is concerned about the future state of his soul, fearing not the quick sting of death but the need to achieve salvation before damnation and a desire to get one's spiritual affairs in order. The poems are "suffused with the language of bodily decay" expressing a fear of death that recognizes recognizing the impermanence of life by descriptions of his physical condition and inevitability of "mortal flesh" compared with an eternal afterlife.^[6]^{: p.106-107}

Legacy

Nine of the sonnets were set to music for tenor and piano by Benjamin Britten in August 1945.^[8]
The lines "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so" (HS 10) are often quoted—as, for example, in Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize–winning play, Wit (1995), and the movie of the same name.
The first line of HS 14, beginning "Batter my heart three-personed God", are cited by such artists as Hendrik Hofmeyr and in such productions as John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic.^{[citation needed]}
The first nuclear weapon test, Trinity was named by J. Robert Oppenheimer after some extracts of the Holy Sonnets.

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Smith, A. J. Biography: John Donne 1572-1631 at Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org). Retrieved 2 July 2013.
^ Ruf, Frederick J. Entangled Voices: Genre and the Religious Construction of the Self. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 41. ISBN 978-0-19-510263-5.
^ ^a ^b Cummings, Brian. The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). ISBN 978-0-19-922633-7
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Cummings, Robert M. Seventeenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology. (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2000). ISBN 978-0-631-21066-5
^ Stringer, Gary A. The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne. Volume 1, Part 1. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2005), x. ISBN 978-0-253-34701-5
^ ^a ^b Targoff, Ramie. John Donne, Body and Soul. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). ISBN 978-0-226-78963-7
^ Ettari, Gary. "Rebirth and Renewal in John Donne’s The Holy Sonnets,” in Bloom, Harold, and Hobby, Blake (editors). Bloom's Literary Themes: Rebirth and Renewal (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009), 125.
^ Evans, Peter. The Music of Benjamin Britten. (2nd Ed. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 349-353. ISBN 978-0-19-816590-3; White, Eric Walter. Benjamin Britten: His Life and Operas. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 45. ISBN 978-0-520-01679-8

External links

Holy Sonnets audio at LibriVox.org

[PoetryFdnDonneBio-1] Smith, A. J. Biography: John Donne 1572-1631 at Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org). Retrieved 2 July 2013.

[RufEntangledVoices-2] Ruf, Frederick J. Entangled Voices: Genre and the Religious Construction of the Self. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 41. ISBN 978-0-19-510263-5.

[CummingsLiteraryCulture-3] Cummings, Brian. The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). ISBN 978-0-19-922633-7

[Cummings17thCenPoetry-4] Cummings, Robert M. Seventeenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology. (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2000). ISBN 978-0-631-21066-5

[5] Stringer, Gary A. The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne. Volume 1, Part 1. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2005), x. ISBN 978-0-253-34701-5

[TargoffDonneBodySoul-6] Targoff, Ramie. John Donne, Body and Soul. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). ISBN 978-0-226-78963-7

[7] Ettari, Gary. "Rebirth and Renewal in John Donne’s The Holy Sonnets,” in Bloom, Harold, and Hobby, Blake (editors). Bloom's Literary Themes: Rebirth and Renewal (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009), 125.

[8] Evans, Peter. The Music of Benjamin Britten. (2nd Ed. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 349-353. ISBN 978-0-19-816590-3; White, Eric Walter. Benjamin Britten: His Life and Operas. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 45. ISBN 978-0-520-01679-8

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@@ Line 66: / Line 66: @@
 ===Themes===
 According to scholar A. J. Smith, the ''Holy Sonnets'' "make a universal drama of religious life, in which every moment may confront us with the final annulment of time."<ref name="PoetryFdnDonneBio" /> Donne's poetry is heavily informed by his [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] faith and are often evidence of his own internal struggles as he considered pursuing the priesthood.<ref name="PoetryFdnDonneBio" /> The poems explore the wages of sin and death, the doctrine of redemption, opening "the sinner to God, imploring God's forceful intervention by the sinner's willing acknowledgment of the need for a drastic onslaught upon his present hardened state" and that "self-recognition is a necessary means to grace."<ref name="PoetryFdnDonneBio" /> The personal nature of the poems "reflect their author’s struggles to come to terms with his own history of sinfulness, his inconstant and unreliable faith, his anxiety about his salvation."<ref name="TargoffDonneBodySoul">Targoff, Ramie. ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=UvCwQcTEAJEC John Donne, Body and Soul]''. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). ISBN 978-0-226-78963-7
-</ref>{{rp|p.108}}  Donne is concerned about the future state of his soul, fearing not the quick sting of death but the need to achieve salvation before damnation and a desire to get one's spiritual affairs in order.  The poems are "suffused with the language of bodily decay" expressing a fear of death and recognizing the impermanence of life by descriptions of his physical condition and inevitability of "mortal flesh".<ref name="TargoffDonneBodySoul" />{{rp|p.106-107}}
+</ref>{{rp|p.108}}  He is obsessed with his own mortality but acknowledges it as a path to God's grace.<ref>Ettari, Gary. "Rebirth and Renewal in John Donne’s ''The Holy Sonnets'',” in Bloom, Harold, and Hobby, Blake (editors). ''Bloom's Literary Themes: Rebirth and Renewal'' (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009), 125.</ref> Donne is concerned about the future state of his soul, fearing not the quick sting of death but the need to achieve salvation before damnation and a desire to get one's spiritual affairs in order.  The poems are "suffused with the language of bodily decay" expressing a fear of death that recognizes recognizing the impermanence of life by descriptions of his physical condition and inevitability of "mortal flesh" compared with an eternal afterlife.<ref name="TargoffDonneBodySoul" />{{rp|p.106-107}}
 ==Legacy==