Divorce Me Untie or Break That Knot Again
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Concoction my heart (Holy Sonnet fourteen) Section II (lines 7-14)
Section II (lines 7-14)
Lines 7-8
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
Only is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
- Our bet is that these are the trickiest lines in the poem for you. Us too. They're weird, simply it helps to put them into simple English: "Reason, my local ruler who works for you, should be defending me, only he was captured, and revealed himself to be weak or unfaithful."
- We assume that the "you" to whom Reason is supposed to report is God.
- The whole idea guiding these lines is that God gave usa reason (rationality) to defend ourselves from evil, only at present the speaker's reason seems to have turned on God (or is simply incapable of warding off evil), so the speaker is having trouble showing his organized religion in God.
- As we talk over in the "Speaker" section, the sense of entitlement is interesting. Cheque out the back-to-dorsum "me's" and the "should" in "Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend." It's all about the speaker's self-interest, and he sounds similar a spoiled little kid: "Me! Me! Yous should defend me!"
- And, if we zoom out a bit, why on globe is he treating his ability to reason every bit if it were a existent person? The answer may exist: so that he can pass the cadet and arraign this other person (who's really God's responsibleness, co-ordinate to the speaker).
- If you think virtually it, the speaker actually blames God, through his representative (Reason) for the speaker turning over to the enemy'south side.
Lines 9-10
Even so dearly I beloved you, and would exist loved fain,
Merely am betroth'd unto your enemy;
- When you get to line ix of a sonnet, yous know that y'all take to exercise a fiddling actress work, since the 9th line of a sonnet traditionally marks the "turn" in the poem, where the trouble prepare in the first 8 lines begins to movement towards a solution.
- To be honest, though, this line doesn't make for much of a plow at all. The simile of the fortress ends here (until it's picked upwards again at "imprison"), but this line, like those before it, mainly furthers the development of the speaker's desired human relationship with God.
- He hints at no solution, only the line does mark a shift in tone. The speaker seems to exist a bit more candid and personal here, and he abandons some of the similes and metaphors that he uses before. "Still dearly I beloved you" is the most straightforward line nosotros've had and then far.
- "And would exist loved fain," though, is a continuation of the kind of cocky-centeredness nosotros see in lines seven-eight. He'due south saying "I'd be happy to be loved," simply like you'd tell a friend "I'd be happy to help" – he makes information technology sound a little like he'southward doing God a favor.
- What's more, the speaker quickly drops the directly-talk, and goes back into some other metaphor: he says he's "betroth'd," or engaged to marry, the "enemy."
- This discussion "enemy" is troublesome, because we don't know who information technology is. There'southward no 1 right answer hither, just our speaker may be referring to Satan.
- The question is, why did the speaker choose the metaphor of a wedding ceremony appointment? Why didn't he merely say, "I'yard under the Devil's control, and so assistance gratis me?"
- Perchance an date implies that the speaker is absurd with the whole affair and isn't forced into this relationship with the enemy. Dissimilar in lines 5-8, where the speaker blamed Reason for losing touch with God, here he seems to advise that information technology is actually kind of his fault, since he agrees to an engagement with the "enemy."
Lines 11-12
Divorce me, untie, or pause that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
- Line 11 continues the train of idea in line 10, asking God to aid him leave of this close appointment with the enemy. He wants God to aid him break the hymeneals "knot" he tied when he was "betroth'd," and take him abroad from the enemy.
- What'southward absolutely central hither is the word "again" – does information technology mean this isn't the first time the speaker needed to inquire God for help in getting away from the Devil?
- Of a sudden, we learn that these pleas to God may exist a frequent occurrence. This can have a major impact on our understanding of the poem. The speaker begins to look less like a poor guy who's all-of-a-sudden blurting out his love for God the just way he knows how -- and more like a con-artist who makes it seem similar he's badly in demand, when, in fact, he'due south been downwardly this road a number of times.
- Just, instead of thinking that the speaker has wanted a wedding knot broken before, we might read "once more" as referring to another time when God had to break a knot. (As if the speaker were maxim, "Sorry, God, you take to go through that whole knot-breaking thing again.")
- By this logic, "once more" could be a reference to the moment in Genesis (in the Old Testament) when God expels Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden because they follow Satan'southward communication. This manner, when the speaker says, "Divorce me, untie, or pause that knot over again," he seems to say "either divorce/untie me from Satan, or you lot'll accept to break the knot between us, just every bit you did with Adam."
- In line 12 (and on into line thirteen), the speaker seems to bring dorsum the castle siege metaphor one final time with "imprison," and rekindles the earlier fence about who had captured (or imprisoned) the town in the start place.
- Here, again, the speaker refuses to make things clear, first asking God to imprison him, but only so that he can be free. This all goes back to the Christian idea that a man must to suffer in club to become to Heaven, and reminds us once again that violence and aggressive behavior aren't necessarily bad things in this poem, and so long as God is in the driver's seat.
Lines 13-14
Except yous enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever celibate, except you ravish me.
- These concluding ii lines arrive articulate that the speaker loves those paradoxes and double meanings that we struggle with all along. Both lines accept the form of "If you lot don't ______, I can't be ______," just the speaker fills in that starting time bare with double entendres (words or phrases with ii possible meanings).
- The first can be read as "If y'all don't excite me, I tin't be costless." If we read it that way, it's possible that "excite" has sexual connotations, and this makes sense in light of the following line.
- But, nosotros tin as well read line 13 every bit, "If y'all don't enslave me, I tin can't exist free." Dorsum in the day, "enthrall" would also mean "enslave," and then we should be aware of that possibility.
- We can read line xiv every bit, "If yous don't fill me with delight, I volition never exist able to refrain from sex." Like "excite" in line 13, "fill me with delight" in this reading might comport some sexual connotations.
- Disruptive, right? These lines get out us with some major paradoxes, refusing to pin down exactly what the speaker wants from God.
- As nosotros see it, information technology seems that the speaker wants better admission to God, and having been unsuccessful in the by, demands that God reveal himself forcefully and powerfully.
- In other words, the only style the speaker and his stubborn "reason" will exist convinced of God'south power is to encounter an epic example of information technology. What'due south more, the speaker desperately wants to be convinced, so he tin can be "saved."
- Still, it's hard to brand the terminal line fit, mainly because yous can't really become chaste. Either the speaker is and always has been chaste, in which case he wouldn't have to worry about information technology, or he's had sex merely at present wants to abjure.
- Merely, if he wants to abjure, is more sex really the prescription?
- And, if he wants this divine sexual encounter so much, then wouldn't that contradict the idea that information technology is "rape"?
- In the end, so, we might come to the conclusion that talking about God in human terms and metaphors actually doesn't make sense. The kinds of rewards and interactions that God tin can provide simply can't be described properly in human language, and that's why the speaker gets so caught upwardly in paradox and mixed metaphors.
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Source: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/poetry/batter-my-heart-holy-sonnet-14/summary/section-ii-lines-7-14
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