Batter my heart (Holy Sonnet 14) Themes

The subject of Donne's Holy Sonnet 14 is religion, even if it's masked by love, sex, and general mayhem. At the most basic level, this is a poem in which a man asks for forgiveness and salvation fr...

Complicating the speaker's desire for salvation is the fact that he loves God in more than just the regular spiritual way. He seems interested in marital and sexual forms of love, as well. The bott...

Sex in this Holy Sonnet 14 is a metaphor our speaker uses for the way in which God might demonstrate his love for the speaker. The speaker really wants a close, reciprocal relationship with God, an...

Violence is a way in which the speaker of Holy Sonnet 14 imagines God manifesting his love. God's more gentle efforts to remind the speaker of his presence haven't done the trick, so the speaker de...

Warfare makes up the major extended metaphor of Holy Sonnet 14, as the speaker presents himself as a captured fortress city. He calls upon God to storm the walls and retake the city. What's curious...