How to Write a Poetry

Outline 

Introduction 

Overview of the Poet and the Poem 

Thesis Statement: The Biblical Book of Jeremiah, Chapter Seventeen and verse number nine states “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” thus a gentle approach can never conquer such strong will hence the poets desire, nay plea, for a violently forceful God to subjugate and transmute his wicked nature. 

Body Paragraph 1: Thematic connotations and its relation to the setting. 

Main theme this qualification 

Secondary theme(s) with qualification 

Body Paragraph 2: Cataloguing 

Body Paragraph 3: Form, structure and versification 

Forms 

Structure 

Versification 

Figures of Speech 

Euphemism: Metaphors and Allegories 

Metonymy 

Personification 

Litotes 

Irony 

Growth into contemporary cultural context 

Conclusion 

The Reverend John Donne was a cleric on the Church of England. His popularity, however, stemmed from his being one of the most notable writer in the informal classification of English renaissance poetic writers known as metaphysical poets. His poems are celebrated for their strong, almost sensual style that made some of them, including Batter My Heart , become somewhat shunned by the Victorian society due to the seeming inclinations toward rape related propensities, by a Christian Gentleman in an extremely reserved Puritan correlated society while talking about God and the Christian faith. The Biblical Book of Jeremiah, Chapter Seventeen and verse number nine states “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” thus a gentle approach can never conquer such strong will hence the poets desire, nay plea, for a violently forceful God to subjugate and transmute his wicked nature. 

A drowning man who is gulping in water and staring an ugly and painful death followed by a watery grave will scream and shout for help without much concern for etiquette, class or how he is saved as long as he gets saved in the end. When this drowning man has seen several gentle but futile attempts to save himself and realizes he is running out of time, he is bound to yell at his rescuers to use all means necessary, painful or otherwise to rescue him even of it means miming him in the process. 1609 when John Donne is billed to have penned this poem found him a broken Christian gentlemen who had squandered his fortune of debaucheries, the secretly married and fathered a dozen children and at the end of his tether as far as life in general and the Christina faith is concerned as per line eleven “break that knot again.” 

In one final desperate plea for help and salvation, the theme of the poem is a yell for help as the poet begs God to go beyond the normal gentle rescue effort but go overboard and batter his heart into submission (Line 1), overcome him (Line 3) make him afresh (Line 4) and imprison him for good (Line 12) lest he becomes permanently lost to the devil through sin (Line 10). The Secondary themes involve the duality of man in Christendom as per the scripture For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (Romans 7:15) that clearly comes out in the contradiction in lines nine and ten where the poets claims to love God but be Betrothed to the enemy, a depiction of Satan. 

‘Batter my soul’ is a sonnet that combines the Italian Petrarchan format with format and structures with the general English, and specifically Shakespearean structure forming an almost novel format popularly referred to as Holy Sonnets, a format distinctive to Donne’s works. Whereas the poem has fourteen lines in a singular flowing verse but is structurally feral, as opposed to the strict rules employed by sonnets: perhaps even the structure itself is a euphemism of the pandemonium in the poets mind during its composition as replicated in the poems theme. 

The beauty of the poem however lies in the intense employment of figurative language from the very first word to the last. From a general perspective, the poem depicts a man who is asking God to conduct activities akin to rape and sensual extremities upon him, which led to its informal banishment in the Victorian days, as indicated above, and only resurfaced with the 20 th century mentality that allowed more room for expression by artists. Scholars attribute this almost bizarre euphemism to the traditional meditation that involved extreme virtual relations with God. A contemporary Pentecostal Christian would however understand this better as their mode of 

Worship and prayer is not unlike the extreme erotic activities associated sexual liaison albeit with a seemingly invisible being. 

Line one is a combined metaphor where the poet asks God with a reference to the trinity in the words “three-person’d’ to batter his heart: the level of euphemism in this singular statement is infinite; from a literal perspective, the poem is written in days when the gates of a besieged city would be pounded with battering rams until they broke down and a forced entry made as supported by line 5 which makes reference “an usurp'd town” and the allegory on line Seven about God being a Viceroy in the poet’s heart after it is conquered. Line Eight also confirms that the heart a personification of the internal character or soul of the poet which “proves weak or untrue.” 

When combined with the second line’s statement “as yet ye knock”, the combined euphemism depicts the Revelation 3:20 scenario of Christ knocking at the door of the heart, with the heart now being the metonymy of the Soul of an unbeliever seeking to bring salvation. It is however impossible to ignore the underlying meaning that comes to mind when one rationally considers the first line, the euphemism of a rape as the virgin aperture is battered, rammed and prodded until it gives way! 

Whether intentional or not, this euphemism was perhaps the basis of the poem’s banishment. However, this could also have been a foresight by the poet to the contemporary Christianity that is riddled with talk of man having intimacy with God through worship: the culture of today’s worship mirrors actual sexual relations albeit with consent which embodied the elements of praise that involve vigorous and sometimes wild dancing that engenders an erotic undertone followed or preceded by a quiet, almost surreal moments of talking and listening to God on a personal basis, even in the middle of a crowd. 

There is also gigantic litotes in the entire poem that depict a Christian gentlemen whose heart tends towards evil despite his every effort which becomes more particularized when line nine is juxtaposed with line ten: a bride who is in love with her rightful groomed but is betrothed to the grooms worst enemy and freely indicates her preference from the enemy unless her rightful husband to be forcefully enchant her (Line 13) and sets her free by imprisoning her thus creating chastity in her through debauchery (line 14)! There is epic irony in that statement that outlines the atmosphere of the ironic nature of the entire poem. 

John Donne’s ‘Batter my heart’ is unique in many ways including the elementary issues such as form and element and almost creates the impression that it is in a class of its own albeit classified as a sonnet from the renaissance period. It clearly depicts the internal turmoil within a Christian who desires purity and perfection but finds himself tending towards evil, which is Christianity, is associated with the devil and leads to eternal damnation. The Poet however doesn’t give up and succumb to evil but keeps on calling out to God for salvation, perhaps his prayer was finally answered when six years after composing this sonnet he is ordained an Anglican priest and perhaps got fully imprisoned by God as he sought. 

Reference 

Cayward, M. (1980). Donne's battery my heart, three-personed God. Explicator, 38(3), 5