Doing Donne: Donne’s Use of the Divine Rape Conceit in Holy Sonnet 14 As a young poet, John Donne often utilized metaphors of spiritual bond in many of his Songs and Sonnets in order to explain fleshly love. Once he renounced Catholicism and converted to the Anglican faith (circa 1597), Donne donned a more devotional style of verse, such as in his Holy Sonnets (circa 1609-1610), finding parallels to divine love in the carnal union. In …showed first 75 words of 805 total…

…showed last 75 words of 805 total…first two lines, the speaker states that he or she does not want to be “mend[ed]” by God, but rather spiritually reborn. The speaker’s old self is insufficient, and no amount of prayer will qualify him as worthy of redemption. God must act first and “make [the speaker] new” (ll. 4). In the second quatrain of Holy Sonnet 14, Donne uses the simile of a usurped town to further portray the speaker as spiritually impotent.