Holy Sonnet Nine

This week we read and are discussing the poetry of John Donne in my Brit Lit class. He was a metaphysical poet who lived during England's Elizabethan era (and technically into the Stuart period). As a metaphysical poet he wrote using conceits or unique and drawn-out metaphors. In history this was a time of great discoveries and inventions so a lot of metaphors within his poems and sonnets reflect similar subjects. Besides the external influences on Donne's poetry there was also the internal changes that affected his writing during the time that he left the Catholic church and joined the Church of England. This leads me to the two points I'd like to make with this post. First, as a metaphysical poet, John Donne is awesome! And second, as both an artist and a man of religious convictions, John Donne is admirable.

These points are made clearly evident in his Holy Sonnet number 9:

If poisonous minerals, and if that tree
Whose fruit threw death on else-immortal us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damned, alas! why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me, 
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?
And mercy, being easy and glorious
To God, in his stern wrath why threatens he?
But who am I that dare dispute with thee
O God? Oh, of thine only worthy blood
And my tears, make a heavenly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sin's black memory.
That thou remember them some claim as debt;
I think it mercy if thou wilt forget.

For example I love the lines "of thine only worthy blood and my tears make a heavenly Lethean flood, and drown in it my sin's black memory." They're great because they show off all aspects of Donne's abilities. We get a taste of his metaphysical style in the reference to the river Lethe from Greek mythology. This is the river of forgetfulness, which is one of the five rivers of the underworld. We also hear his artistic use of words in these lines. He rhymes without being cheesy and the phrases roll off the tongue when read aloud. And we see his religious mindset in these lines, too. He is asking, by Christ's perfect sacrifice on the cross ("thine only worthy blood") and his own repentance for his sins ("my tears"), that God would forget his wrong-doings ("drown in [a heavenly Lethean flood] my sin's black memory"). 

As a person who has been made new by a very similar instance of repentance and forgiveness that Donne writes about here I can't help but nod in agreement with this sonnet. As humans we often are skeptical of a supposed God of mercy who would condemn people to eternal suffering. Donne does an excellent job of revealing to his reader that first of all we are insignificant compared to God's bigger picture and eternal plan ("But who am I that dare dispute with thee O God?") and second that God IS a God of mercy who does indeed "forget" our sins when we accept the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and repent or turn from our sin ("I think it mercy if thou wilt forget"). I think of two Bible passages when reading this sonnet. 

"For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” (Hebrews 8:12 ESV) 

"Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:18-19 ESV) 

I could go on and on dissecting and commenting on this sonnet, but I must conclude here by saying that even though I don't have any desire to be a poet, I do hope that, like Donne, I can find a good balance with my writing style. I'd like to tie mythology, science, Biblical truths, etc into my own story writing like Donne does in his poetry. This may seem like a tall order, but now that I think about it C.S. Lewis (my writing idol) achieves this in many of his stories. I just need to keep learning and reading and writing. 

Anyway, that's all for now,

J