“The Good Morrow” and “Batter My Heart”. John Donne. Love of Man. Love of God. How to Deconstruct.

Metaphysical Poetry at Its Best.

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Metaphysical poetry is a 17th-century genre, pioneered by John Donne, characterized by highly intellectual, witty, and philosophical exploration of love, religion, and existence. It uses complex, unconventional metaphors (conceits¹), paradoxes, and colloquial language to blend emotion with intense analysis. These two poems are a great contrast of two kinds of love: earthly and spiritual. The Good Morrow consists of three 7-line stanzas, with rhyme scheme: ababccc, in iambic pentameter².

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The Good-morrow is a variation of the traditional Aubade, a poem or piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning.

The poem begins with a rhetorical question ³apparently asked of one lover by the other, the speaker. What were the lovers like before they fell in love? Were they not really fully formed (wean’d) until then? But suckled on simple, immature (country) delights (pleasures), as do infants (childishly). Or have we just been asleep (snorted [snored]) as in the story of the seven sleepers.⁴ The speaker answers his own question: T’was so. So the aubade signals not just the awakening of a new day, but the awakening of true life in the lovers, whose earlier, separate pleasures were just an illusion, a dream (fancies). Any beauty the speaker had desired and obtained (got) was just an insubstantial reflection (dream) of his love.

Now, however, they can bid good morrow to their reborn souls, awakening (waking) as is the day, and observing (watch) each other with no jealousy (fear) because true love limits (controls) how we see others (all love of other sights controules). and, in a typically Metaphysical combination of *hyperbole*⁵ and *paradox*⁶, makes one little roome, an every where. In the *anaphora*⁷ repetition of Let in the next three lines, the speaker dismissively trivializes the significance of exploration (sea-discoverers; Maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown) since their love’s world is complete in and of itself (Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne, Let us possesse one world, each hath one, and is one) and doesn’t have to look elsewhere for anything further.

In the final stanza, using *synecdoche,*⁸ the speaker begins by asserting the soul-sharing quality of their love, with the literary tradition of the eyes being the windows to the soul : My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,/And true plaine hearts (souls) doe in the faces rest, Utilizing a conceit, another rhetorical question follows, as the speaker asks, where can one find better hemispheres than the two lovers’ faces, which merge perfectly, and without freezing North or declining West. He concludes that since whatever dies (dyes) does not consist of equal parts (was not mixt equally), and since their two loves are one (with equal [alike, none doe slacken] love ), their love will be immortal (none can die).

A quintessential representation of Metaphysical poetry, replete with hyperbole, conceit, and paradox, extolling a perfect, earthly love.

We now transition to a poem using the same figures, but to emphasize the love between man and his God.

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Batter My Heart is a Petrarchan Sonnet in format: 14 lines consisting of an octet(8-line stanza) and a sestet (6-line stanza), with rhyme scheme abbaabbacdcddd, written in iambic pentameter.

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While The Good-morrow uses a variety of figures of speech to enhance its meaning, Batter My Heart uses extended paradox throughout the poem, battering the reader to make clear Donne’s meaning. He purposely starts the poem with that word: Batter, a term associated with violence, not usually with love poetry. my heart suggests this may be a love poem, quickly clarified by the next three words, three person’d God (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in Christianity). The poem then becomes a fervent prayer, a personal plea to God, a kind of *epistolary*⁹ poem in an *apostrophe*¹⁰ to God, in literary terms, but basically a beleaguered soul’s prayer to God for help.

Unlike the serenity of some prayers, Batter My Heart is somewhat shocking in its intensity and physically violent word-choice, typically hyperbolic for Metaphysical Poetry. Donne begins by claiming that so far God has been too gentle with him: knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend. But, paradoxically, in order for him to rise up to be worthy (rise, and stand), he needs God instead to overpower him. (o‘erthrow, bend/Your force),to: breake, blowe, burn and make me new.

In the next four lines, he uses an extended metaphor in comparing himself to a conquered (usurpt) towne in which he is a prisoner, subject (due) to another power (i.e., sin). He strives to break free and admit God (you), but cannot (to no end), since God’s representative (viceroy) , Reason–which should defend him–is also captiv’d and so is weake or untrue, of no assistance.

As a result, he needs God’s powerful intervention.

In a turning point in the poem, called the *volta,* Donne returns to the paradoxes of the first four lines, but this time with the ironic use of the language of betrothal. Yet dearely’I love you,’ and would be loved faine,(back)/But am betroth’d unto your enemie (Satan), the strongest expression yet of Donne’s ties to God’s enemy. There follows, in *anaphora,* a series of imperative clauses¹¹ , pleading for–almost demanding–action on God’s part: Divorce mee, ‘untie, or breake that knot againe, /Take mee to you, imprison mee. For, unless God enthralls him, he never can be free,/ Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee. In the most startling paradox of all, Donne asserts that he can never be pure (chaste) unless God violates (ravishes) him.

The two poems, in comparison, exhibit Donne’s command of the range of figurative language, as well as the depth of understanding of the human condition. The gentle and affectionate tone of The good-morrow is as captivating as the harsh and assaulting tone of Batter My Heart. Each succeeds in conveying Donne’s approach to earthly and to spiritual love.

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1. Far-fetched, elaborate metaphors that compare unlikely things (e.g., comparing lovers to the two legs of a compass).
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2. Lines with five iambic feet-each containing one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one (ta-DUM  ta-DUM  ta-DUM  ta-DUM  ta-DUM). This 10-syllable pattern is often likened to a heartbeat.  ↩︎
3. A question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer. ↩︎
4.   refers to the legendary cave near Ephesus (modern-day Turkey) where seven Christian youths, fleeing Roman persecution under Emperor Decius (c. 250 AD), fell into a miraculous, multi-century sleep. They awoke 200–300 years later during the Christian era of Theodosius II, confirming the resurrection. ↩︎
5. exaggerated statements or claims. ↩︎
6.  seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.
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7. the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. ↩︎
8.  figure of speech where a part of something is used to represent the whole ↩︎
9.  a poem written in the form of a letter, directly addressing a person, entity, or “you,” often featuring a conversational tone, intimate sentiment, or a specific, named recipient. These poems bridge the private nature of a letter with the public nature of poetry. ↩︎
10. a literary device in which a speaker directly addresses an absent person, an abstract concept, or an inanimate object as if it were present and capable of responding.  ↩︎
11. used to give direct commands, instructions, requests, or warnings, usually starting with a base-form verb and omitting the subject (“you”). ↩︎

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