John Donne's “Holy Sonnet XIV” is full of biblical imagery and language that suggests psalmic banality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Beat my heart, God of the three persons; because you still do nothing but knock, breathe, shine and try to repair; that I may arise, and stand, and overturn, and bend thy strength, to break, and blow, and burn, and make myself new. (Women 1-4) This image is consistent with statements made throughout the Bible such as Hebrews 12:6: “For the Lord chasteneth whom he loveth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” The analogy of the speaker as a rebellious spouse “engaged to your [God's] enemy” (Donne 10) also evokes the clearly biblical language and marriage metaphors used in the Old Testament prophets and Pauline epistles. Arthur Clements pointed out that the association of “knock, breathe, shine” with “break, blow, burn” is also specifically biblical in his language. There are two points within the poem, however, where the biblical language is disturbed by new ideas that are both intriguing and disconcerting. Ambiguity in a sonnet is certainly not a device introduced by Donne, but the significance of the theological issues addressed in his sacred sonnets make Donne's use of paradox a significant literary and historical event. The first deviation from standard scriptural parroting tactics comes halfway through the book. in lines 7 and 8: “Thy viceroy reasons in me, I should defend myself / But he is a prisoner and proves weak or false.” This is one of the most interesting deviations in Donne's sonnets; although Donne is reasoning through a well-known narrative (God as potter or loving disciplinarian), he concludes the well-written but up to this point banal octave by questioning his method of pursuing relationship with his god. It is important to note that Donne does not question the validity of his own reason, but states that “Reason” itself may prove “weak or false.” reason could be interpreted as a reminder of the primacy of faith in spiritual development, elevated even above fallible reason. This interpretation works reasonably well until the final lines: Take me with you, imprison me, for unless you captivate me, I will never be free, nor ever chaste, unless you rape me. (Women 8-10)The paradoxes can plausibly be resolved up to the last line; one could easily understand that captivity is a kind of protection, and while enslavement may confuse sexual slavery, its relationship to freedom within the line is compelling enough that the sense of enslavement as refuge can be emphasized. The straightforward interpretation one might have constructed up to this point is seriously disturbed when the speaker finally suggests being raped as the only way to achieve chastity. When contrasted with each other, the key words to understand the final phrase, "chaste" and "kidnapped," are evidently used in an overtly sexual sense, but, with this sense in mind, the suggestion seems impossible; being raped means not becoming more chaste. To reconcile this final line with the rest of the poem and resolve the internal paradox it would be easy to look for an alternative meaning of “ravish.” Indeed, if “ravish” is understood in its most etymologically literal sense, the phrase could be interpreted as an understanding that God must use violence to take the speaker from “his enemy” and prevent violation. It is not clear, however, whether this is the most important deixis to focus on in understanding the line. Also the word “chaste”, as used in the line14, has alternative connotations. It might initially be understood as a moral or sexual descriptor, but its status as a form of the sense used in Hebrews 12:6, “The Lord chastens whom he loves” (italics mine) should not be overlooked. The line could thus be understood as an invitation to harsh discipline on the part of the speaker. There is no clear indication that Donne intended any of the possible interpretations suggested by the final line to be exclusively authoritative. This ambiguity gives a certain license to the reader, and since it is a license related to a theological question, there is an important subtext in the poem. John Donne, a minister of the Anglican Church, may not have intended to subvert the church's authority, but he gives readers the power to resolve the ambiguity as they see fit. This seems to link Donne's sonnets to a more liberal theology and politics that would ultimately strip the church of its authoritarian power in a significant way. It's also possible that the paradoxes contained in “Batter My Heart” are better off without a clear resolution. It was underlined that “being a Christian in the 17th century was a particularly complex destiny”. (Strier 360) It is a popular opinion among Donne lovers everywhere that the inability to resolve theological and metaphysical paradoxes within the sacred sonnets is a large part of the appeal. The biggest problem with holding such a view is that it inevitably collapses under any kind of scrutiny. If paradoxes are believed to reflect the absurdity of theological quibbles, that meaning has been imposed on the text with no evidence other than the reader's desire. One could just as easily argue that paradoxes reflect the beautiful curiosities of an infinitely complex creation. None of these reflections are necessarily falsifiable within the text, but the point is that they are in no way contained in the text. To speculate about extratextual meaning as if it were a legitimate analysis of the text is to impose illegitimate authority. To gain meaning independent of the prejudices and extravagant nonsense of an unbridled imagination it is necessary to consider the true meaning of words. Having a reference that truly disambiguates the meaning of words would eliminate our problems with conflicting interpretations, but such a reference cannot exist for two rather obvious reasons. First, books are written by human hands that are generally connected to finite human brains that work to impose meaning on words and worlds regardless of the inability to know omnisciently or outside the lens of one's consciousness. Second, the attempt to define words with words implicitly recognizes the necessary uncertainty of the definition. Despite the instability of language, it is not hypocritical to appeal to a standard, rather than personal conjecture, as the appropriate method of interpretation. While it should be recognized that words are simply what we accept them to be, it is the consensus of a group rather than a single mind that is appealed to through the use of etymological principles of interpretation. With this in mind it should be recognized that literary interpretation without personal conjecture could become nothing more than graphs of the historical use of words and figures drawn from surveys that apply meaning by consensus. Providing meaningful analysis of a text requires the recognized “authorities” and applied tools to be useful, but not as simple as mechanically applying an algorithm that spits out meaning. When a creative human mind encodes information into texts, especially paradox, a creative human mind is ultimately the instrument 86. (1989): 357-384.