john donne

Purify my heart for I have sinned: An Irony In John Donne¡¯s ¡°Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You,¡± the moral and religious qualms of the speaker are manifest in a sonnet which seems at first almost like an avowal between lovers. These convictions of guilt, which stem from his sexual emotion, are what induce desire for a creator/creation relationship with God. With further analysis, the violent and sexual slant on the relationship …showed first 75 words of 1298 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1298 total…with irony, and fittingly, the poem ends in a contradiction. Analogous to the irony of rape as a means of purification, God builds up as he tears down. Donne¡¯s religious principle is revealed in this metaphor, in his shocking request to be ravished into chastity. He is a man who is in desperate need of being forgiven and purified by God, a man who sees violence as the only effective means of doing so.