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Today I read a poem. Let's talk about lines 10-14 of that poem.
Lines 10-14
In these lines, Donne portrays a man calling out to God, making the claim that he is filled with God’s enemy instead of him, and seeks freedom from this. He asks for God to break the ties that he has, to what we can assume to be the devil, and to take him as a prisoner of God so that he, the speaker, may never have to be tempted with either evil or worldly pleasures again.
This poem can stand for both a man seeking religious redemption from God, or as someone simply looking for an escape from worldly temptations that he may have, but doesn’t want. It is clear that the speaker of the poem knows what is right and wrong, and certainly wants to do right, but the volta that comes out in line 10 shows that he isn’t in a situation where he necessarily can do the right thing. This can stand for the fact that there are certainly occasions in life where doing the wrong thing is definitely more tempting and worthwhile than doing the right thing. The speaker, acknowledging his human flaws that lead him to temptation, is taking the path of actually asking for help. Upon scansion of the poem, I came across the fact that there are numerous sequences of stressed words in lists in the poem such as “Your force to break, blow, burn…”, and this goes to show that the speaker truly is desperately crying out for help because he is stressing words strongly in an alliteration, begging for God to do that to him. It’s clear that the poem could easily be any man, in any situation of temptation, but John Donne’s choice of words and desperation, particularly the heavy use of religious allegory, makes a grander issue of common internal struggle.
Lines 10-14
In these lines, Donne portrays a man calling out to God, making the claim that he is filled with God’s enemy instead of him, and seeks freedom from this. He asks for God to break the ties that he has, to what we can assume to be the devil, and to take him as a prisoner of God so that he, the speaker, may never have to be tempted with either evil or worldly pleasures again.
This poem can stand for both a man seeking religious redemption from God, or as someone simply looking for an escape from worldly temptations that he may have, but doesn’t want. It is clear that the speaker of the poem knows what is right and wrong, and certainly wants to do right, but the volta that comes out in line 10 shows that he isn’t in a situation where he necessarily can do the right thing. This can stand for the fact that there are certainly occasions in life where doing the wrong thing is definitely more tempting and worthwhile than doing the right thing. The speaker, acknowledging his human flaws that lead him to temptation, is taking the path of actually asking for help. Upon scansion of the poem, I came across the fact that there are numerous sequences of stressed words in lists in the poem such as “Your force to break, blow, burn…”, and this goes to show that the speaker truly is desperately crying out for help because he is stressing words strongly in an alliteration, begging for God to do that to him. It’s clear that the poem could easily be any man, in any situation of temptation, but John Donne’s choice of words and desperation, particularly the heavy use of religious allegory, makes a grander issue of common internal struggle.
