“Batter My Heart, Three-Person’d God,” also known as Holy Sonnet XIV, is the 17th-century poet-priest John Donne’s brilliant and controversial poem on the primacy of God’s grace in our salvation. Using both martial and marital metaphors, Donne calls God to action, pleading for rescue from our spiritual enemy. Theologically, the poem reflects the reformed principle…
The Anglican Poet-Priests
Anglicanism’s beautiful use of language has shaped the many Christian believers it has discipled. There should be no surprise, then, that the Anglican tradition has produced centuries of poets among its adherents—even its very clergy.
Death, Be Not Proud: A Reading of John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X
“Death, Be not proud,” also known as Holy Sonnet X, is John Donne’s great poem in mockery of Death. Composed in 1609, the poem was published posthumously in 1633. It is fitting that Donne got the final word, laughing at Death from his grave. The power of the poem is its reversal of our experience….
