Multimodal Donne Annotation: Stage 4

Donne’s Holy Sonnets as a whole are simply conversations in a sense by him to God, trying to understand the universe, and depict the experience of repentance (Kuchar). The most interesting Sonnet, to me, is Holy Sonnet XII. After every read, readers can find themselves discovering something new. Let’s start with the sonnet’s structure and rhyme scheme. Sonnets are all 14 lines, and with specific rhyme schemes, this one is {a, b, b, c, c, d, b, a, e, f, f, e, h, h}. Different than most poems, Arthur Fenner writing from the MLA International Bibliography describes this sonnet as “achieving its power entirely by structure of explicit argument. It has no detailed imagery, absolutely no metaphors …or figurate [language]. Also, he explains the main theme of the poem in mathematical terms. Donne says first, animals do not sin, so they are better than humans, but God made humans that sin, and put animals below them for their use (Gen. 1:26-27), and of course God is above all (Fenner Arthur figure). Matt Slick from the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry confirms that Sin is for humans only for animals do not have consciousness. Donne wonders how a God so powerful would create such a paradox for He creates and destroys and is righteous (Fenner, Slick). The last two lines of this sonnet are the most exciting. They say, God created all these great things, but why, if would His son, without sin or nature, meaning his Godliness, would ever sacrifice himself for humans, which are the most corrupt of his creations (Bromber). Taking Fenner’s view of this mathematical analysis, this relationship of God saving those who love him and are his enemies does not compute. Donne introduced a paradox, and explained nothing, but simply explored the God’s awe.

The audio playing of this poem, I believe, is very inaccurate to how the discussions in class portrayed the pauses between commas, periods, and capitalized words. It is made available on audio perhaps, to allow those who cannot read to enjoy Donne’s Holy Sonnets or perhaps, Barnes read these sonnets with a monotone voice because he believed this is how they would be read at Donne’s time. We cannot ask Donne if he meant his punctuation to emphasize his ideas for the reader, or if read out loud, to emphasize tone.

The wordle for Holy Sonnet XII, in a way summarizes the main points; the three biggest words being, “thou” for man, “creatures” for animals, and “nature” for God. The paradox of creation Donne was talking about, and Fenner elaborated on, are visually represented with three distinct colors and the words being larger than the others in the poem. Other words can be seen randomly, for man’s theme, words like corruption, weakness, sin, and subdue appear. For God’s theme, words like pure, created, and creator stick out.


Works Cited
Barnes, David. "Holy Sonnet XII." Rec. 07 Oct. 2007. LibriVox. Public Domain, 07 Oct. 2007. Web. 3 Mar. 2010. http://ia351434.us.archive.org/0/items/holy_sonnets_drb_librivox/holysonnet_12_donne_64kb.mp3.

Bromberg, Howard. “Holy Sonnets.” Masterplots II: Christian Literature. Pasadena, California: Salem Press Inc. 2008. Accessed online: March 02, 2010. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=MOL9830002025&site=lrc-live.

The English Standard Version Bible: Containing the Old and
New Testaments with Apocrypha. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.

Fenner, Arthur. "Donne's 'Holy Sonnet XII'." Explicator 40.4 (1982): 14-15. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 1 Mar. 2010.


Kuchar, Gary. "Petrarchism and Repentance in John Donne's Holy Sonnets." Modern Philology: Critical and Historical Studies in Literature, Medieval Through Contemporary 3rd ser. 105 (2008): 535-69. Print.


Slick, Matt. "Are Animals Sinful Too? Why Do Animals Have to Suffer? | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry." CARM - Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. Web. 11 Mar. 2010. http://www.carm.org/questions/about-morality/are-animals-sinful-too-why-do-animals-have-suffer.

Slick, Matt. "Why Did Jesus Have to Die for Our Sins? | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry." CARM - Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. Web. 05 Mar. 2010. http://www.carm.org/christianity/christian-doctrine/why-did-jesus-have-die-our-sins.