The Devotional Poetry of Donne, Herbert, and Milton

Christian Guides to the Classics

by Leland Ryken

We know about the classics and we assume they're great, but many of us are too intimidated to read them on our own. Crossway's Christian Guides to the Classics series is designed to help readers enjoy the greatest literature in history with the aid of a gifted teacher to answer questions along the way. Popular professor, author, and literary expert Leland Ryken situates each work in its cultural context, incorporates published criticism, includes brief bibliographies for further study, and wisely evaluates classic texts from a Christian worldview through penetrating commentary. This particular volume will help readers understand and engage with the devotional poetry of three seventeenth-century poetic geniuses—John Donne, George Herbert, and John Milton.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Christian, Literature, Religion, Classics

96 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2014

About the author

Dr. Ryken has served on the faculty of Wheaton College since 1968. He has published over thirty books and more than one hundred articles and essays, devoting much of his scholarship to Bible translations and the study of the Bible as literature. He served as Literary Chairman for the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible and in 2003 received the distinguished Gutenberg Award for his contributions to education, writing, and the understanding of the Bible.

He is the father of Philip Graham Ryken

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyric Poems as Classics: definitions of what constitutes a classic; Lewis's comment about line-by-line deliciousness [in a comment comparing Spenser's FQ with sonnets]; Milton's comment about "set[ting] the affections in right tune" [Reason of Church Government, Book 2]; Wordsworth [Preface to Lyrical Ballads] and Shelley [Defence of Poetry] on affections
Lyric Poems as a Genre: a short poem expressing feeling; Greek antiquity and lyres; three primary traits; three-part structure
A Guide to Explicating Poetry: close reading and analysis—not tearing apart, but reading "with" the poet [cf. Lewis's "looking along" vs. "looking at"]; human experience; concentration via figurative language; artistry (Frost's comment that "Literature is performance in words"); look for the big picture; content core; sequential structure; theme; contrast(s); figures of speech
The Sonnet as a Verse Form: mechanics of Italian/Petrarchan and English/Shakespearean sonnets; concluding couplet (English sonnet) is often epigrammatic
How Metaphor, Simile, and Allusion Work: analogy/correspondence; metaphor as "carrying over"
The Content and Format of This Guide: devotional poetry "increases our devotion to God and Christian truth"

John Donne and His Poetry: brief biography (1572–1631; conversion from Catholicism to Anglicanism; James I and pressure to enter clergy); ecclesiastical career (Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral; lots of sermons); literary career (most poems published posthumously in 1633; love poetry and devotional poetry); literary style (unconventional; wit)
Holy Sonnet 1: Thou Hast Made Me: prayer to God; vacillation from requests for rescue, to despair; volta at l. 9 is temporary, but so is the despair; cf. penitential psalms; Donne is typically self-lascerating; "back-and-forth rhythm between hope and despair and between divine strength and human weakness"; images of decay, ascent, fleeting time, and God's repairing grace; progression of a speaker's thought
Holy Sonnet 2: As Due by Many Titles I Resign: appeal to God to recapture what has been lost (the speaker); good news (comfort) of the octave transforms into the bad news (terror) of the sestet (bondage to Satan); poem opens with a catalog/list; titles (l. 1) describe how the speaker belongs to God (and could have a legal connection to ownership); titles provide a crash course in Xn theology (creation, fall, redemption in ll. 2–4; created in God's image; Xns as temples of God's Spirit); psalm of lament
Holy Sonnet 4: O My Black Soul: addressed to speaker's own soul; occasioned by a sickness (a summons to death), the poem takes stock of its spiritual state; octave reveals sin, and sestet looks for escape; soul as a pilgrim (on the way to heaven) who has committed treason and cannot return home; soul as an imprisoned thief; steps of repentance; paradox of blood washing garments white; prevenient grace (God must begin the work); color symbolism
Holy Sonnet 6: This Is My Play's Last Scene: Donne's obsession with death appears in his sermons and in his Devotions; "Donne was tortured by his sense of spiritual unworthiness"; transition from earth to heaven; crisis in octave and resolution in sestet; speaker, on verge of death, meditates on death (meditatio mortis); physical death in ll. 1–6, and God as judge in ll. 7–8; lots of terminal imagery (e.g., play's last scene, last mile of pilgrimage, etc.); analogy of body staying on earth at death, so maybe sins will stay here as well; imputed righteousness of Christ; world/flesh/devil is a commonplace (found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer; see Eph. 2:1–3)
Holy Sonnet 7: At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners: urgency of repentance; speaker wants an immediate judgment (octave—commotion scene and crowd scene), then changes mind and wants more time (sestet); audience shifts from angels, to all human souls thru history, to God; medieval method of imagining oneself in a biblical scene; death as sleeping and resurrection as waking
Holy Sonnet 10: Death, Be Not Proud: "the most famous poem on immortality in the English language"; taunting a personified death; framed (envelope structure) by biblical subtexts (1 Cor. 15:55 [no victory/sting], Dan. 12:2 [death as sleep, and resurrection as waking], Rev. 21:4 ["Death shall be no more"]); four stressed monosyllables introduce and conclude the poem; theme (ll. 1–2, 13–14) and variation (ll. 3–12)—5 pairs of lines that each explain why death shouldn't be proud; "The poem is governed by the rhetoric of the put-down or taunt"; the middle is emotional (lots of feeling)
Holy Sonnet 11: Spit in My Face, You Jews: "confession of personal sinfulness"; "the speaker...imagines himself present at the crucifixion"; octave focuses on continuing guilt; sestet focuses on the superiority of Jesus' work to human effort; series of contrasts throughout
Holy Sonnet 14: Batter My Heart: theme of God's deliverance (including conversion and sanctification); far-fetched comparisons and paradoxes; ll. 1–4 are a petition; ll. 5–10 are about spiritual bondage; ll. 11–14 return to petition; imagery of a metal tinker, military, politics, love relationships, and imprisonment; list of paradoxes; psalm of lament (only God can solve the problem); cf. Rom. 7:15–25 (Paul's struggle); God as potter in Jer. 18:1–4 [and Rom. 9:21–24]; biblical imagery of sexual faithfulness and unfaithfulness
Holy Sonnet 15: Wilt Thou Love God as He Thee?: God's love for us, and our corresponding love for God; invitation to share in the meditation; four phases; climax at the paradox of the concluding couplet; devotional poetry gives us fresh insights into Xn doctrine
Meditation 17: this is a prose poem (figurative language and rhythmic cadence); Donne's 1623 illness; bells of London probably rang a lot; emergent means sudden and/or urgent; awareness of death is useful; subjects of unity (with Xn and humanity) and mortality; lots of figurative language (e.g., humanity as a book, suffering as money)
From Sermon 7: very poetic; stream of consciousness; two concluding paragraphs of a sermon preached at Whitehall on Feb. 29, 1627; death as sleeping, and resurrection as waking; text was Acts 7:60 (martyrdom of Stephen—death as sleep); laborers welcome rest (par. 1); famous sentence with means between extremes (often adapted as a prayer); Donne displays his associate method of thinking

George Herbert and His Poetry: brief biography (1593–1633; privileged youth; degree from Cambridge, where he was public orator; patrons failed him, so no political career); ecclesiastical career (became an Anglican priest and ministered in a small, rural village, Bemerton for three years before his death at age 40); literary career (didn't circulate any poetry, unlike Donne; on deathbed, he gave manuscript to Nicholas Ferrar, and it was published posthumously; surface simplicity with underlying complexity; increasing tension resolves in quiet ending)
Aaron: re: calling to the priesthood; poet-priest vocation; problem (sense of unworthiness) solution (divine infilling) poem; Aaron's garment described in Ex. 28:2–38; five phases, one in each stanza (Aaron's garment, speaker's lack, mysterious solution, Christ's sufficiency, resolution); line-by-line correspondence of each stanza (head, breast/heart, music, rest, dressed); personal (preaching) and universal (sphere of calling/vocation) applications
Redemption: sonnet re: "buying back"; lord-tenant relationship; reversal of expectations (false assumptions); quest story with four phases (resolution to search, seek in heaven, seek in earthly influence, place of execution); contrasts and a central paradox (see 1 Cor. 8:9); atonement/crucifixion; biblical allusions
Prayer: sonnet on the nature/effects of prayer; encomium (praise); no main verb; series of epithets/titles for prayer (turning a prism in light); "church's banquet" (food as sustenance; banquets are grand and joyful); "Angels' age" (cf. "age of Shakespeare"—his culture); helpful class activity (corporate insights re: meditation on each description)
Virtue: surface simplicity and underlying complexity; subject is the immortality of the "virtuous soul" (l. 13); image in each stanza (first 3 stanzas are 3 eulogies), and final cause/end of each; mutability/transience of nature; first two lines of each stanza present subjects, then last two lines give death sentence (line-by-line correspondence, as with "Aaron"); trademark quiet ending; final conflagration (2 Peter 3:10)
The Pulley: creation narrative; explanation for why we're so restless in this life: God created humans in such as way as to pull them back to Himself; cf. Augustine's statement in Confessions ("our hearts are restless till they rest in you"); "Let us" from Gen. 1; Herbert domesticates wonder [critic?]; paradoxes (apparent contradictions) such as God's infinite blessings contained in the human hand, and keeping "the rest" (which means everything except rest, and produces restlessness)
The Agony: on Christ's passion, where human sinfulness and divine love converge; medieval meditation often composes a scene by imagining oneself to be at a biblical event (see p. 26); quest to find the epitome of sin and love—found in Jesus' passion; contemplate on Jesus' suffering and God's leniency; Christ spills blood, but we taste wine (seems unfair, but we're grateful)
Love (III): host-guest relationship (cf. "Redemption"); soul personified by guest, and God's love personified by host; this poem (the third poem titled "Love") follows "Death," "Judgment," and "Heaven" and concludes The Temple; we can see God's welcome in conversion, in sanctification, and into Heaven; surface simplicity and underlying complexity, ending quietly (cf. "Virtue"); miniature drama with dialogue; quest motif; Luke 12:37 (Lord asks servants to eat with him); KJV was Herbert's Bible; cf. reluctance of Moses (Ex. 4) and Isaiah (Is. 4:5–8); archetype of messianic banquet (union with God); "God is love" (1 John 4:8)
The Elixir: a prayer re: living a godly life; Protestant sacramentality—not in ecclesiastical icons, but in seeing God in the mundane (Reformation doctrine of vocation; see 1 Cor. 10:31); medieval alchemy and the power to transform; progressive phases of petitionary prayer (ll. 1–8), windowpane analogy (ll. 9–12), main idea (ll. 13–16), application (ll. 17–20), and restatement (ll. 21–24)
Easter (Song): Christ's resurrection (think of sunrise service); think of May Day (greenery brought in); l. 2—think of crowds at Jesus' triumphal entry to Jerusalem; undercutting our performances—Jesus brings His own celebration in the resurrection (all our activities are inferior); hyperbole—Easter supplants all other days
The Collar: probably the most famous of Herbert's poems (and the last four lines of the poem may be the most famous four lines of Herbert's poetry); lord-tenant relationship (cf. "Redemption" and "Love (3)")—farmer rebelling against landlord [Ryken sees the board as a kitchen table and doesn't mention the communion table]; disordered thought process (which is typical for humans—"psychological structure" is much more realistic than it is polished [think of "Virtue"]); implied listener (we find in l. 17 that the speaker is talking to himself); topics change rapidly: narrative lead-in (ll. 1–2), growing discontent/rebellion (ll. 3–16), vision of alternate life (ll. 17–32), sudden reversal (ll. 33–36); trademark quiet ending; distorted picture of the Xn life (wasteland, legalistic bondage); l. 29 and the medieval practice of contemplating a skull to remember the brevity of life; sudden reversal suggests that the rebel knew he was wrong; new imagery (parent-child relationship replaces lord-tenant relationship) and new emotions (submission replaces rebellion); rhyme scheme is chaotic throughout, but the last four lines rhyme abab; collar for a horse; "slip the collar" was a common description of rebellion; clerical collar isn't accurate, because 17c Anglican clergy didn't wear collars; also choler (anger) and caller; prodigal son parable; see the experience in Ps. 73; "My Lord and my God" is what "doubting Thomas" says in John 20:28; ll. 4–5: road (freedom), wind (looseness of movement), and granary (largeness)

John Milton and His Sonnets: brief biography (1608–74; born into a wealthy, middle-class, Puritan family in London; child prodigy; educated at Cambridge; spent 20 years in politics; Puritan spokesman; Latin Secretary for Cromwell; went totally blind before the restoration of the monarchy in 1660; wrote his major poetry in retirement); religion (Puritan, not arch-Anglicans like Donne and Herbert; Puritans were basically English Protestants; Puritans and Anglicans agree that the Bible was the sole authority for faith and practice, but Puritans eschewed Catholic vestiges in the Church of England); sonnets (most of Milton's poetry can be read devotionally; only poetry he wrote during his political career; Italian form); poetic style (high style intended for grand effect; "Miltonic sublime"; Donne and Herbert wrote in a middle, conversational style; characteristics of the high style: long syntax, exalted vocabulary, literary allusions, parallelism, and disrupted word order)
Sonnet 7: How Soon Hath Time: occasional poem—Milton's 23rd (maybe 24th) birthday and the end of his time at Cambridge; this sonnet was enclosed in a letter to a friend who was concerned that Milton too studious and not active enough in the world [and was delaying his decision to enter the ministry]; Milton senses his own underachievement and writes about human mutability and the transience of time; Milton's early sonnets strictly followed the Italian form (problem in octave, volta in l. 9, solution in sestet); contrasts throughout; ll. 1–3 mention the swift passage of time and the speaker's lack of achievement/maturity; Time personified as a thief; self-accusation in ll. 4–8; in ll. 9–12, Time becomes a guide, not a thief; style changes (ll. 9–12 is one sentence) and doublets are antithetically parallel (producing copia/fulness); grand theme and grand style; confidence in Time because it's a guide (Pindar and "King Fate"), because of God's providence ("the will of Heaven" is a metonymy for God), and because he is answerable only to God (ll. 13–14); these last two lines give the final reason to trust Time and act as the concluding epigrammatic couplet in English sonnets (Milton conflates the Italian and English forms); last two lines probably mean "all that matters is that I have grace to use my time in such a way that I regard myself as always being in my great Task-Master's eye" (Puritan idea of vocation and stewardship); class activity: personal anxieties about time's passage, sense of underachievement, and achieving an attitude of acceptance
Sonnet 9: Lady That in the Prime of Earliest Youth: sonnet addressed to and encouraging a virtuous young lady (possibly a younger acquaintance) who faces opposition (possibly her own family); cultivating Xn virtues prepares us for Heaven; present endeavor (ll. 1–11) and future reward (ll. 12–14); underlying contrasts; no Miltonic sonnet has more biblical allusions than this one (e.g., Sermon on the Mount, Mary/Martha, Ruth/Boaz, wise/foolish virgins); archetypes (e.g., hill of difficulty, dating back at least to Hesiod, and also appearing in Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress; cf. Ps. 24:3–4); readers are encouraged to apply the poem to our own lives and to live similarly (virtuously and courageously)
Sonnet 14: When Faith and Love: occasional poem; attached title: "On the religious memory of Mrs. Catharine Thomason, my Christian friend, deceased December 1646"; organized as a journey from earth to Heaven; lots of motifs; for the source for celebratory drinking, see Rev. 22:1, 17; Puritan genre of funeral sermons for women had 5 elements: sermon based on a single text (in this case, Rev. 14:13), doctrine followed by eulogy, the deceased as an example, the deceased as a model of piety, and consolation in the promise of a heavenly reward; Milton's Bible was the KJV; rest as a destination, to which works follow someone; four phases of the narrative flow: announcement of death, deeds went with her, deeds commend her to the Judge, and reward given; On Christian Doctrine is divided into two parts: faith (knowledge of God) and love (worship of God); Catholic-Protestant debate on faith and works (Ryken: "works, while necessary for salvation, do not merit God's favor but instead testify to the genuineness of a person's faith"; "salvation depends on faith and . . . works are something that follow saving faith"; "God judges on the basis of faith and approves deeds on the basis of prior faith"); narrative level, portrait level, and theological level
Sonnet 19: When I Consider How My Light Is Spent: Ryken loves this poem; occasion is Milton's complete blindness at age 44 (an early editor [Thomas Newton in 1761] titled it "On His Blindness"); the poem has elements of both resignation/submission and self-justification; quest motif (trying to answer "What does it take to please God?"); problem in octave is resolved in the sestet, although the volta begins in l. 8 instead of l. 9; major premise is that God requires service, but there are different kinds of service (active/public, and private); the experience of loss/handicap/incapacity is universal; Milton is more concerned (like Puritans were) that the physical condition has brought on a spiritual condition—spiritual crisis of fearing that one cannot serve God as one ought; spiritual solutions of submission to providence, patience, and hope; several major contrasts; syntactical convolution in the octave, and syntactical simplicity in the sestet; mosaic of biblical allusions (esp. parables of workers in the vineyard and the talents—both about rewards for active stewards, and punishments for slackers); see John 9:1–4 [9:4 on Truett clock tower]; Puritan view of vocation is at play here (active work in the world is good)—Puritanism could bring anxiety (doing enough?), but it brings comfort (submission is worship and service); "God does not require a service that someone cannot perform"; best service is to submit to God; yoke imagery from Matt. 11:29–30; ll. 10–11 seem like a good ending, but the poem continues triumphantly (like a mini praise psalm); medieval/Renaissance ideas of angelology (active and contemplative)—Milton links himself with the contemplative angels (praise, worship, devotion); "wait" on monarchs (active service; see Dan. 7:10), but "waiting on God" has various meanings (see the entry in Ryken's Dictionary of Biblical Imagery), which includes patience, resignation, dependence, contentment, hope, and joyous (eschatological) expectancy; class activity: because "literature is a mirror in which we see ourselves," think about how this poem inspires and instructs you re: irremedial loss
Sonnet 23: Methought I Saw My Late Espouséd Saint: See here for more.

Further Resources
See variorum editions (summaries of most relevant scholarship) for Donne, Herbert, and Milton. The commentary is necessarily religious because of the content of the poems.

Glossary
Two pages of basic terms.

[Joe Haack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic resource.

[Danielle Ma · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very lovely introduction to some of Donne, Herbert, and Milton's devotional poetry. An accessible and edifying read; inspiring too!

[JR Snow · Rating 5 out of 5]

2nd reading through–still beautiful, but I've come to agree more with C.S. Lewis on Donne, which is that he's a bit too dark for my taste. Herbert I love even more now that I can read through the surface simplicity to the theological and poetic depths of his poetry. Ryken does a good job balancing concision and detail in this guide. -2024.



Beautiful–Especially John Donne. –2015

[Will O'kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry has always been a paradox to me. On the one hand, poems are like frogs; the more you dissect them, the more dead they become. The emotional force of a poem is often drained away for me any time I hear someone start to explain that such and such poem was written in iambic pentameter, etc. However, paradoxically, I find that I'm not smart enough to really 'get it' when I read most poetry. I actually need someone to explain things to me, to break things down, provide context and commentary.

I thought the book did a fairly decent job of avoiding the extremes of under and overexplaining. Most wonderful for me was the exposure I got through this little primer to George Herbert. After reading through John Donne's poems, I felt a bit under (over?)whelmed. Donne feels too stuffy to me...too intellectual. But Herbert! What a guy. Humble, easy to read poems so full of wisdom and insight into the Christian experience. I loved reading about Herbert's life as well--he truly seemed like a humble man who loved God. I am eager to read all of The Temple after this.

So 4 stars for the book overall, but 5 stars for George Herbert :)

And now I leave you with my favorite two lines from this little book from Herbert's poem, The Agony:

"Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,

Which my God feels as blood, but I, as wine."

[Mike Prince · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, but very helpful introduction to Donne, Herbert, and Milton. Ryken has done a masterful job.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great.

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ryken goes through the poems of 3 of the 5 greatest Christian poets (Dante and Hopkins are not represented), particularly their "devotional poetry." That basically means the sonnets of Donne and Milton and the cream of the crop of Herbert (everything he wrote was devotional!).

After a brief introduction to such verse, we get the poets as ordered in the title. A poem is provided, followed by a brief commentary. It is good literary criticism, not deconstructionism or reader-response garbage. And it fulfills its purpose: bringing the reader to drink deep of the well of this incredible poetry. It heightened my respect for these poets, and my love. Any time you get to sit down and read some Donne, Herbert, or Milton, do so!

[Scott Fillmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb look at these great poets

If you are even slightly interested in poetry I couldn't recommend this book enough, it is a great look at a small sampling of work from three of the greats in spiritual poetry.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding.