Holy Sonnet 13: "What if this present.."

Question 1

Overview:

Answer 1

It’s a deeply religious poem that demonstrates Donne’s moral and spiritual turmoil in the latter part of his life. The poem’s imagery empasises the depth of Christ’s sacrifice and the boundless nature of God’s love.

Question 2

Loyola mediation:

Answer 2

• Meditation that uses the visualisation and the imagination.
• Focuses on an experience of Jesus/ a passage of the Bible.

Question 3

“What if this present was the worlds last night?”

Answer 3

• Speakers opens with a rhetorical question.
• Imagining the ending of the world.
• Suggests some sort of divine questioning.
• Media res - implies anxiety about the thought of salvation.

Question 4

Conceit of God being a lover:

Answer 4

• “beauty of pity, foulness only is a sign of rigour”.
• Likens christ to a lover - secular love being used to explain God’s love of human kind.

Question 5

“Tears in his eyes, quench his amazing light”.

Answer 5

• Amazing light - a sign of divinity.
• Tears - repetence - Ignatius contemplation.

Question 6

“I said to all my profound mistresses, Beauty of pity, foulness only is”.

Answer 6

• Donne reflecting on his youth - said to his secular mistresses that they were beautiful so that they would treat hime pity.
• Beauty becomes a sign of pity - the image of christ being beautiful therefore will afford him pity.

Question 7

Context:

Answer 7

• Religious uncertainty - perhaps a reflection of Donne’s own apostasy.