Loved these poems this week. I am blown away at the beauty. Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 is an English Poem and Abba rhyme scheme. It is, at first glance negative and the comparisons are strange, "My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun / Coral is far more red than her lips /". This could not be a flattering poem about the love of a man for a woman! However we soon see that although she is not perfect compared to some things that are seemingly perfection in their discriptions of beauty, he loves her and she is perfect to him. "I grant I never saw a goddess go / ... and yet by heaven I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare". He sees her and he loves her for everything she is.
Donne's Holy Sonnet 14 is an Italian poem it is Abba rhyme scheme. The meaning of "three-personed God is father-son-spirit and that is catholic in nature. Donne's sin is such that his god must "....break, blow, burn and make me new" however, at the same time he states to god "I am betrothed to your enemy..." which is to say he is a sinner and that makes us know that he cannot be without sin and in order to be united with God he is hoping to be changed and made a new. The only way to make him new is for God completely take him over "take me to you, and imprison me,for I / Except you enthrall me, never shall be free " This indicates that he will never be without sin while he is human. His humanness causes him to commit the same offenses again and again.
Deb, I really like your take on Donnes Holy Sonnet 14. The words break, blow, burn and make me new, are very powerful. This does suggest that in order for the speaker to change his evil ways, he asked to be taken completely away from the human earth. This almost reminds me of Jesus Christ on the cross, in his last minutes. Obviously I wasn't there during that time to know, I am only going off of movies and things that I have read.
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