Batter my heart’ is without doubt an erotic poem and the conjunction
between sexual ecstasy and religious experience, especially of the
mystical sort, is commonplace. My trivial point is that if you think of
‘batter’ as that creamy covering for fried fish, it would be a risible
distraction. It’s like the person I was told of in a seminar who asked why
the Phoenix should fall in love with an amphibian.
I like the idea of this poem being about the potency of grace. Donne is by
no means he only person who suffered from a sense of desire for, but
exclusion from, divine union. He also sees spiritual fulfilment in erotic
terms and, certainly he is one of the foremost and most forceful erotic
poets of any age. Most of his sexuality is couched in ordinary
heterosexual terms. ‘Ravish’ clearly has connotations of violence, indeed
of rape, but OED gives:
2. a. To carry away (a woman) by force. (Sometimes implying subsequent
violation.) Also said fig. of death. ? Obs.
b. To commit rape upon (a woman), to violate
3. b. To carry away (esp. to heaven) in mystical sense; to transport in
spirit without bodily removal.
c. To transport with the strength of some feeling, to carry away with
rapture; to fill with ecstasy or delight; to entrance.
It gives in addition,
b. In pass.: To be carried away from a belief, state, etc. Obs.
and cites,
c1425 Found. St. Bartholomew's (E.E.T.S.) 45 In his slepe he was raueshid
from his resonable wyttys.
This poem is about the need for God to engage in a violent union, but to
see it as about rape, same-sex or otherwise, seems to me an unfortunate
distraction. Rape is not attractive to the victim, unless that person is a
masochist, but there may be times when mere persuasion and reason are not
enough and he seeks to feel the love of God as an ineluctable presence.
The poem’s energy and constant use of paradoxes surely is evidence of
Donne’s turmoil and desire to be dominated. Swans, bulls, and showers of
gold are one thing but is there any implication of a home-erotic wish to
be raped?
Best wishes,
Richard
> Exactly my thought -- on grace, rather than turkeys and swans. The key to
> this poem seems to be the debate about whether divine grace is or is not
> irresistable. Also relevant, of course, is the tradition of love poems
> featuring metaphors of conquest or assault (there's a French song I aways
> think of, "Donnes l'assualt a la fortresse," set by Dufay).
>
> Hannibal
>
>
> Hannibal Hamlin
> Associate Professor of English
> The Ohio State University
> Book Review Editor and Associate Editor, Reformation
>
> Mailing Address (2007-2009):
>
> The Folger Shakespeare Library
> 201 East Capitol Street SE
> Washington, DC 20003
>
> Permanent Address:
>
> Department of English
> The Ohio State University
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>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: anne prescott <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 10:16 am
> Subject: Re: Petrarchism and Christianity
>
>> Well, same-sex rape, anyway. If ravishment is the same as rape--
>> not
>> crystal clear to me, although the words are related even if not
>> identical. "Homosexual" is a debated term for the early modern
>> period, of course. In any case I'm not sure that the rules
>> governing
>> sexual harassment apply to divinities. Turkeys are probably safe,
>> tomorrow, but I'd be careful about letting a swan near me
>> (although
>> divine swans probably prefer younger females to this grandmother).
>>
>> Seriously, though, what Donne wants seems not the same thing as
>> your
>> ordinary rape, and of course what he wants is his will to be
>> overcome, not just his modesty, which means in turn that consent
>> is
>> not logically possible. He wants not just prevenient grace, so to
>> speak, but overcoming grace. No? Anne P.
>> On Nov 21, 2007, at 5:47 AM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>>
>> > I suppose that 'Batter My Heart, three-person'd God' as a
>> > homosexual rape
>> > fantasy is a preferable reading to that which conjures up images of
>> > battered cod and deep-fried Mars bars. Doesn't rape have to be
>> > non-consensual but this is more like a plea for the overcoming
>> of
>> > false
>> > modesty.
>> >
>> > Best wishes,
>> >
>> > Richard R
>> >
>> >
>> >> Hannibal,
>> >>
>> >> Thank you for this explanation. I'm afraid that I betray my
>> lack of
>> >> knowledge of scholarship each time I post a comment to this
>> list. I
>> >> would not have guessed that the readings you describe for
>> either
>> >> Teresa
>> >> or Donne would exist. But that's surely because I generally shun
>> >> critical writing (I'd read more of it if I could, but I have
>> too
>> >> little
>> >> time left and too many original texts I still want to study).
>> >>
>> >> Your last statement:
>> >>
>> >>> I think my broad point is that we need to take greater pains to
>> >>> understand early modern religious experience in its own terms.
>> >>
>> >> is so telling. To truly understand religion, or art, or even
>> science>> from late Medieval times within that period's own frame
>> of
>> >> reference --
>> >> rather than through projection our own age's common viewpoint,
>> >> with all
>> >> its laughable errors (future generations will readily identify
>> these,>> though we can't easily see them ourselves) -- would
>> appear to be
>> >> almost
>> >> impossible.
>> >>
>> >> For example, the possibility of a representation such as
>> "Petrarchan">> appears not to have been conceivable to humans
>> until centuries after
>> >> Petrarch's own time -- if Owen Barfield's study of the past is
>> to be
>> >> believed. In his "History in English Words" he says that the
>> >> identification of a world view with a particular human being
>> was not
>> >> something that was ever conceived until the Renaissance; or,
>> there is
>> >> no record of such a conception prior to that time.
>> >>
>> >> I mean, it wasn't conceivable then that the world could
>> "validly" be
>> >> seen in a "Petrachan" manner or in "Aquinas's way", etc. You
>> couldn't>> just select a perferred point of view and move on, as
>> we do today.
>> >> No,
>> >> in those times, there was only ONE world, and it existed
>> outside of
>> >> humans, "out there" in the perceivable phenomena. And most of those
>> >> phenomena themselves were actually objective living organisms,
>> or
>> >> else
>> >> representations of creatures, gods, nymphs, who normally chose to
>> >> remain invisible to humans, wrapping themselves within, or hiding
>> >> behind, the veil of the perceivable phenomena. Try "seeing" the
>> world>> that way today. It's difficult!
>> >>
>> >> Hence, to appreciate what Petrarch, or Dante, or Teresa were
>> >> experiencing and thinking as they wrote their works is indeed
>> almost>> impossible for a modern person. How do we wipe away from
>> our eyes,
>> >> our
>> >> own vision, the mechanical universe (which didn't exist in Medieval
>> >> times) and see and feel the sun as a living being, image of
>> God,
>> >> every
>> >> day when we walk outside? How can we read their writings within the
>> >> reference frame of the reality they themselves lived?
>> >>
>> >> It's quite difficult -- if not impossible.
>> >>
>> >> Just one example of our difficulty: invocation of the muses. To us,
>> >> this looks like artifice; perhaps we even think it "cute". I highly
>> >> doubt Medieval and earlier writers looked at it that way. To
>> them, it
>> >> was a prayer to the actual, literal source of the words that would
>> >> (they hoped) be transmitted to them from the gods, which they would
>> >> then record. They conceived themselves as "scribes". Hence, Dante:
>> >>
>> >> When Love inspires me with delight,
>> >> Or pain, or longing, I take careful note,
>> >> And as he dictates in my soul, I write.
>> >>
>> >> [Purgatorio, Canto 24]
>> >>
>> >> I don't think he was lying to us, or saying this with tongue-in-
>>
>> >> cheek.
>> >> This is how he felt what we would call "the artistic process"
>> >> happened,
>> >> how he felt his work was formed, deposited within him. His job
>> was
>> >> not
>> >> to create (only Love and the gods can create realities out of
>> >> nothing),
>> >> but rather to sift and sort and select and, ultimately,
>> record/write.>>
>> >> Well.. I'm again surely showing my lack of scholarship, since I
>> have>> read almost no criticism of Dante, either! These are merely
>> my own
>> >> opinions.
>> >>
>> >> I do thank you very much, Hannibal, for your very interesting
>> initial>> comment and especially for taking the time to provide
>> further>> explanation.
>> >>
>> >> Regards,
>> >> Kevin
>> >>
>> >> ----------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:37:55 -0500
>> >> HANNIBAL HAMLIN <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Kevin,
>> >>>
>> >>> I didn't express myself very well, I'm afraid. I didn't mean
>> that I
>> >>> don't take her seriously (I do), but that many, especially
>> American>>> academics who assume a particular secular worldview,
>> tend to read
>> >>> her
>> >>> religious experience in non-religious terms (sexual,
>> psychological,>>> political). The same thing has often happened
>> with Donne, another
>> >>> writer who blurs boundaries between the sexual and
>> spiritual/secular>>> and sacred (so that "Batter My Heart," for
>> instance, becomes a
>> >>> homosexual rape fantasy).
>> >>>
>> >>> I think my broad point is that we need to take greater pains to
>> >>> understand early modern religious experience in its own terms.
>> >>>
>> >>> Hannibal
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>>
>>
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