Lecture notes
Thou Hast Made Me (John Donne)
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- CCEA
A2 Unit 1-John Donne notes
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Thou hast made me and shall thy work decay?FORM AND STRUCTURE
- The poem is a sonnet
- It is iambic pentameter which is consistent with the sonnet form
- The poem is a mixture of Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnet
- However, while Donne’s sonnet has a Petrarchan form and rhyme scheme, the
quatrain and rhyming couplet structure is more typical of Shakespearean
- The poet inventively uses the Petrarchan sonnet form
- Rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDCDEE
- There is a Volta (pivotal structural turning point) when the poem turns from an
octave to a sestet
- The sonnet form is a concentrated economic way of both resolving conflictual ideas
in the poem and creating tensions in the poem- in this way the poem is a dialectical
construct
- The two-part structure is a feature of the Petrarchan sonnet form
- The octave
LANGUAGE AND IMAGERY
Subject of Poem
- First Quatrain- The speaker contemplates his demise and commands God to make
him whole
- Second Quatrain- The fear of the speaker is emphasised as he feels his demise
looming
- Third Quatrain- The poet explores the dichotomy between his desire to be saved by
God and the continued threat of temptation by Satan
- Couplet- The speaker places his total faith in the grace of God and the belief that his
heart will be drawn away from temptation and towards the divine.
Analysis
First Quatrain
- Line 1: “Thou hast made me”- The poem has a dramatic opening as the poet makes
a direct address to God. The opening address implies that, as God has created the
speaker, who bears responsibility for repairing him. The question “shall thy work
decay?” introduces the themes of death and decay into the poem. The speaker
contemplates his own mortality as he appeals to God.
- Line 2: “Repair me now”- There is a dichotomy between the commanding tone of
the speaker and his acknowledgement of his weakness and dependency on God and
his need for God’s intervention. The language of labour “repair” suggests the divine
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