Penitence

The primary motive behind the Holy Sonnets is to allow the speaker a means of honest penitence that will lead him toward the absolution of his sins. As such, the sonnets themselves tend to read like prayers in which the speaker addresses God directly, asks questions, and begs for answers. This type of devotional poetry was not unprecedented in the early modern period, having been taken up by poets like Anne Lok, Mary Sidney, and Henry Constable before Donne penned the Holy Sonnets. However, Donne's penitential speaker is unique in that he is more readily concerned with the difficulty of living an honest Christian life on earth than he is with the fantasy of heaven and eternal life. Another poet to whom Donne is often compared is George Herbert, whose poetry was published the same year as Donne's (1633) in "The Temple." Both Donne and Herbert focus...