Multimodal Donne Annotation: Stage 1

HOLY SONNET XI







Spit in my face, you Jews, and pierce my side,
Buffet, and scoff, scourge, and crucify me,
For I have sinn'd, and sinne', and only He,
Who could do no iniquity, hath died.
But by my death can not be satisfied
My sins, which pass the Jews' impiety.
They kill'd once an inglorious man, but I
Crucify him daily, being now glorified.
O let me then His strange love still admire ;
Kings pardon, but He bore our punishment ;
And Jacob came clothed in vile harsh attire,
But to supplant, and with gainful intent ;
God clothed Himself in vile man's flesh, that so
He might be weak enough to suffer woe.


Trevor, Douglas. “John Donne and Scholarly Melancholy”. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 40, No. 1, p. 81-102 . Jan 01, 2000. Print. March 2, 2010.


This excerpt was taken from Studies in English Literature, written by Douglas Trevor, who is the assistant professor of English at the University of Iowa. I chose this citation, because not only was the source and author credible, in terms of his scholarly qualifications, but because of the content of the passage in relation to my sonnet, Holy Sonnet XI (see above). The article, from its title, speaks about the relationship between the main themes in Donne’s sonnets and what the author refers to as “scholarly melancholy”. The author draws reference to Donne himself as a reason behind the melancholy in his works, stating that “Throughout his life, John Donne’s prose and poetry are filled with references to, as well as accounts of, his self-understanding as a melancholic”. He then delves deeper into this melancholy, linking it with religion, which is very apt in reference to Sonnet XI; this melancholy, and furthermore religious melancholy, would have no doubt been as a result of Donne’s tumultuous and contradictory life, especially within the context of his being an official of the Church. According to Julia Kristeva, whom the author quotes in his analysis, "the implicitness of love and consequently of reconciliation and forgiveness completely transforms the scope of Christian initiation by giving it an aura of glory and unwavering hope for those who believe. Christian faith appears then as an antidote to hiatus and depression, along with hiatus and depression and starting from them."

In the beginning of Sonnet XI, Donne gives us quite a violent awakening. He is essentially asking to be persecuted and subjected to the suffering that Jesus endured, acknowledging his life as a sinner and the fact that he continues to persecute Jesus in his sinfulness, in his humanity. We see the parallels with Donne’s religious melancholy and the hiatus and depression that accompany the beginning of Christian faith as he obviously wants to suffer like Jesus did, to endure depression and desolation for the sake of his Lord. But we also see the Christian faith that they also speak of, in lines 9-14, where Donne, despite his self-persecution, admires the fact that God still loves us in spite of our sin and that Jesus, who was the only person who did not deserve to die from sin, was the one who did. We can also infer this from the picture of the Crucifixion above in that although it was a depressing image, it also conveyed a message of hope. And so we get the melancholy in Christ’s death, but can rejoice from a Christian perspective that Christ’s death brought us new life. And I think this is what Donne is getting at.



Grant, Patrick. “Augustinian Spirituality and the Holy Sonnets of John Donne”. ELH, Vol. 38, No. 4, p. 542-561. Dec. 1971. Print. March 2, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2872265

This article, written by Patrick Grant and published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, begins with St. Bonaventure, who was a faithful disciple of St. Augustine, and his thoughts on atonement. It is similar to the previous excerpt “John Donne and Scholarly Melancholy”. What I found particularly interesting was that the analogy I drew of Jesus on the crucifix as being both a symbol of sadness and one of hope before I even read this excerpt, is being drawn by St. Bonaventure here as well, in particular, the cross as a symbol of our salvation. Again we see the parallels here with suffering and melancholy, but joyous suffering in terms of Christianity, as with Donne. Grant the author, quotes verses from a meditation that St. Bonaventure is promoting, which draws our attention to the cross and its significance and concludes with him wanting to eventually join Christ on the cross. This is essentially the same motive that Donne has in Sonnet XI, where he is fixated on the suffering that Jesus endured, as stated in greater detail previously, and so wants to be persecuted in the same way for his own sins. What I think is even more interesting is that these men are not just willing to suffer for their sins, but desire to suffer in the same fashion. Bonaventure draws reference to the cross; Donne goes into great detail in his first two lines, using quite violent descriptions.




Stachniewski, John. “John Donne: The Despair of the "Holy Sonnets"”. ELH, Vol. 48, No. 4,p.677-705.Winter 1981. Print. March 2, 2010.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2872957

In this article, the author sets his purpose firmly to establish “a strong Calvinist influence on the Holy Sonnets”. What is interesting is that Calvinism is based upon total depravity, a theological doctrine which derives from the Augustinian concept of original sin. This article therefore ties in with the excerpt concerning St. Bonaventure. The author mentions that his intention is to relate Donne’s sonnets to an “expression of a dominant mood of despair”; I disagree that the dominant mood in this sonnet is one of despair, but there is an element of sadness, scholarly melancholy if you will.



Hahn, Thomas; “The Antecedents of Donne’s Holy Sonnet XI.” American Benedictine Review, 1979; 30: 69-79. Print. March 2, 2010.

I have not as yet gotten the information on this article as I had to borrow it and am waiting for it to be delivered. But I do intend to use this as one of my sources.



Labriola, Albert C., “ ‘Vile harsh attire: Biblical Typology in John Donne’s ‘Spit In My Face Yee Jewes’”. John Donne Journal: Studies in the Age of Donne, Vol. 22, p. 47 57. 2003. Print. March 2, 2010.

Again, I had to request this source from the ILLiad Library and so it has not yet been delivered to me. But again, I intend to use this as a source for my annotation.

	John Donne - Holy Sonnet 11 - Spit in my face you Jews... .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

This is a voiceover of the Holy Sonnet XI, the sonnet I chose to annotate. It is refreshing in the sense that it is not an excerpt from a book, but rather, one can infer other things from the audio than from text. In this case, the first thing I noticed was the speaker's monotone and low pitch. This I expect would be utilized in this case to convey the somberness of the sonnet, in terms of Jesus' death and the fact that Donne himself is asking to suffer in this same way for his sins because he feels he deserves to.

I notice how Donne writes the sonnet, in particular the first two lines where he says " Spit in my face, you Jews, and pierce my side, buffet, and scoff, and scourge, and crucify me" - this gives the impression of continuous suffering, in his use of the word "and" between each punishment, as there is no pause that would have been granted by the use of a comma alone. We can hear from the voiceover how the speaker recites it as well that the suffering verbs just seem to go from one to the other without a break, and alos increase in intensity. We also hear the use of the "and" in line 3 where Donne says he has "sinn'd and sinne'", which again gives the impression of continuity, in that he was a sinner and continues to be one; he wants his suffering to be as continuous as his sin.

We hear the long pause brought about by the use of the full stop at the end of lines 6, 7 and 8, where Donne talks firstly about wanting to suffer, then moves to his death, followed by Jesus' death. The last use of the full stop moves us from a theme of death to one of faith and hope, where he begins to talk about admiring God's love for us in examining the Crucifixion; while earthly kings merely pardon their perpetrators, the King of Kings subjected himself to humanity, sin and death so that we, his perpetrators, might live. I also noted the use of the semi-colon to transition in this portion of the poem dealing with faith and hope. I think he uses the semicolon in this area because we are linking ideas of the same theme of hope and God's love, whether it be in the form of Jesus or Jacob, who was clothed in vile harsh attire just as Jesus was "clothed" in human form.

I am not exactly sure of the meter of the sonnet but I know that we can tell the meter by listening to it aloud as opposed to merely reading, hence why I chose this audio file.