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The Grammar of Salvation and the Poetics of Possibility in Donne's Holy Sonnets

The Grammar of Salvation and the Poetics of Possibility in Donne's Holy Sonnets <p>One of the difficulties facing early seventeenth-century Protestants in England, as Catherine Gimelli Martin has argued, was how to reconcile God&apos;s decree of election, which is made before and outside time, with the temporal human experience of coming to be assured in one&apos;s salvation. The question of "am I saved?" is thus closely allied with the question "when will I know that I am saved?" This article explores the tension between these two questions in Donne&apos;s Holy Sonnets, examining the Sonnets&apos; temporal ambiguities in order to suggest that Donne uses this ambiguity as a strategy to recast the question of his salvation within a framework he controls. Through careful reading of Donne&apos;s use of shifting verb tenses and moods, this article shows how the Holy Sonnets struggle to develop a concrete narrative of salvation, a struggle consistent with Donne&apos;s widely noted distrust of time. Instead of tracing a linear temporal progression toward assurance, the Sonnets shift from the indicative and conditional to the imperative mood as a way to stop time and reframe the question of the speaker&apos;s salvation as a matter of possibility rather than of future promise. Instead of asking whether he is saved or when he will know whether he is saved, Donne&apos;s speaker refigures the problem around the question of whether he is able to be saved, using the poetic and grammatical tools at his disposal to produce the answer he wants.</p> http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Studies in Philology University of North Carolina Press

The Grammar of Salvation and the Poetics of Possibility in Donne&apos;s Holy Sonnets

Hilaire, Danielle A.
Studies in Philology , Volume 114 (3) – Jul 14, 2017
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 The University of North Carolina Press.
ISSN
1543-0383

Abstract

<p>One of the difficulties facing early seventeenth-century Protestants in England, as Catherine Gimelli Martin has argued, was how to reconcile God&apos;s decree of election, which is made before and outside time, with the temporal human experience of coming to be assured in one&apos;s salvation. The question of "am I saved?" is thus closely allied with the question "when will I know that I am saved?" This article explores the tension between these two questions in Donne&apos;s Holy Sonnets, examining the Sonnets&apos; temporal ambiguities in order to suggest that Donne uses this ambiguity as a strategy to recast the question of his salvation within a framework he controls. Through careful reading of Donne&apos;s use of shifting verb tenses and moods, this article shows how the Holy Sonnets struggle to develop a concrete narrative of salvation, a struggle consistent with Donne&apos;s widely noted distrust of time. Instead of tracing a linear temporal progression toward assurance, the Sonnets shift from the indicative and conditional to the imperative mood as a way to stop time and reframe the question of the speaker&apos;s salvation as a matter of possibility rather than of future promise. Instead of asking whether he is saved or when he will know whether he is saved, Donne&apos;s speaker refigures the problem around the question of whether he is able to be saved, using the poetic and grammatical tools at his disposal to produce the answer he wants.</p>

Journal

Studies in Philology – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Jul 14, 2017

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