Trinity In John Donne's Divine Poems

John Donne is the most important representative of the English"Metaphysical poets"in the 17th century. Life had never been easy for Donne. He was born into a pious Catholic family, but was forced to turn to an Anglican to avoid persecution. At the same time his marriage with Ann More made all his chances of a career at court vanish. In order to make a living and realize his political ambition Donne changed his faith. He never felt comfortable with his changing of religion and even more badly he sank into an abysmal depression.Young Donne is well known for his erotic poetry; however in his later years Donne occupied himself totally in the worship of God and is known for his Divine Poems. The Divine Poems are Donne's religious meditations that penetrate into his inner world. These poems focus on sin, final judgment, death and resurrection; they represent a process of discovery and revision.For the special religious conversion from the Roman Catholic Church to the Church of England Donne experienced, he had to bear the burdens from both his heart and the outside world. It was the burdens he had borne that make the production of so many brilliant divine poems become possible. The experience of having ever changed his original faith got himself into a contradictory situation. His Divine Poems are an evident expression of his intellectual self-introspection and self-abnegation. The contradictory feeling is infested in Donne's divine poems.Apart from the introduction and conclusion this thesis consists of three parts: attempting to exhibit the contradictory position of John Donne by analyzing his Divine Poems.Chapter One explores the deep emotion of Donne for both God and his wife Ann More and exhibits Donne's secularity as a preacher, shows his incomputable thoughts as a clergyman.Chapter Two unfolds Donne's paradoxical devotion to God, which is expressed through his attachment to Catholic God and his transition to Anglican God by compulsion.Chapter Three examines the tortured inner heart of Donne who is sincere to the trinal God, but at the same time has fear for God's will not to pardon him. Donne's heart is filled with the contradictory feeling towards God, sin and death.