#holy sonnets

[burningvelvet]

“Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, / Take me to you, imprison me, for I, / Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, / Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”

Excerpt from Holy Sonnets: Holy Sonnet XIV aka Batter my heart, three-person'd God (1633) by John Donne / Sculptures by Stephan Sinding at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen; Tapmak [Adoration] (1903) and Slaven [The Slave] (1878)

[poem-today]

A poem by John Donne

Holy Sonnets XIV: Batter my heart, three-person'd God

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp'd town to another due, Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end; Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain, But am betroth'd unto your enemy; Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. 

John Donne

1572-1631

[weirdlookindog]

"I run to death, and death meets me as fast, and all my pleasures are like yesterday"

Jean Brooks in The Seventh Victim (1943)

[greetings-humans]

see in holy sonnet 14, john donne was being erotic about god but something about

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain*

is so deeply akaashi keiji to bokuto koutarou

(*fain meaning gladly)

(yes im aware it's a generic line that fits with most ships but kindly shut it and let me have this)

[obrother1976]

"thy grace may wing me to prevent his art" - not this time

[campgender]

doin a little project-within-a-project in which i write in conversation with famous sonnets except my reimaginings are all about t4t hate sex. so if you have recs / requests hmu lol

[m1ssnovember]

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

[ollierachnid]

Ngl of all the Donne poems I'm surprised 'A Fever' doesn't get more love.

"For I had rather owner be

Of thee one hour, than all else ever."

OK??

[cimmeriana]

❝  they don’t deserve you—  i don’t deserve you.  but at least i’m aware of it.  ❞ 😳

@backscar

Melinoe couldn't tell you what had possessed her to just burst into tears in front of him. She had tried so hard to keep herself contained, to continue on this night with their usual playful back-and-forth and to just push aside the complicated feelings that brewed within her.

There was something so very overwhelming about learning that the reason she had such dark urges whispering monstrosities in her head was because she was born a child of tyranny. There had never been love in her childhood, at least not real love. She never skipped rocks or got scooped up for kisses when she skimmed her knee.

It was why, at the end of it all when she laid down every night, she felt so dreadfully empty. It was why she found herself staring into an abyss to see a twisted smile of all sharp teeth staring back at her. It was why she clung to her companions so tightly, so very afraid of loosing them - even to lose the memory of them.

Deep down, she had known that being loved was an experience barred from her. That she was a tool to be used. A sword to be wielding. An insignificant cunt for seed to plant and more wretched to be born from.

And she knew in the pits of her, even without the memories flashing for her, that she had done and would have done all they asked because of how desperately she wanted to be loved.

A flood of tears washed over her ashen face, salty and stinging, unfamiliar to her usual expressionisms.

❝ Don't say that... please don't say that... ❞ she whimpered, her bottom lip shaking with the same severity as her hands as she reached up to scrub the ever-falling tears from aggravated cheeks.

—— ❝ You're my muse, Astarion. My inspiration and my hope. I see myself in you and every day you surprise me in your beautiful revelations and simple joys. Even when you brood and I can see in your eyes that you've disappeared to some far away realm that exists in your mind. I see you. ❞

Her tone was almost pleading and it felt as if her heart ripped open to empty at their feet as she stood so meekly before him, trembling like a lost little girl. ❝ Every day I think to myself: 'if this wonderful person could have endured for so long, longer than twice my own lifetimes, to get to a point that he can grow more and more every day right before my eyes... then perhaps I can endure.' Perhaps there's hope. Even when it feels so impossible. Even when I feel so trapped. ❞

—— ❝ My darling beastie, can't you see? Can't you see that its I who believes myself so undeserving of you? Of all of you that place your trust in my palm and set your tents beside mine? ❞

Finally, her crying had a moment of break. No, instead she was frustrated. Frustrated and angry that he would belittle himself in such a casual way as if she would allow it. How dare he. He was so precious to her and he dared to think so lowly of himself to not believe he deserve the care and kindness and love she tried so hard to bestow upon him?

❝ But you most of all, my most beloved Astarion, who has kept me company through my dreary and most haunted of nights. My most darling confidante who deserves to have the adoration and praises of every scholar and bard in all of the realms... I can give you so little of the whole you deserve because my heart was born empty from a father who reserved love only for himself and a mother who didn't know how to love something besides the god to whom she gave her entire soul. ❞ She had a resolve about her now. A resolve to cease her pity-party and to endure, to love and to care even harder. To procure those foreign concepts from thin damned air if she had to because she refused to become what her father wanted or a lamb like her mother.

She was her own person who could decide her own fate. Just as Astarion was his own man who could choose his own destiny. She believed in him, and how hypocritical would she be to prop him up with support that she didn't grace herself with too?

—— ❝ I will not allow for us to speak of ourselves in cruel such ways. Nevermore. You are deserving. And I am deserving. And we will learn to accept that. No matter how difficult and if we have to do it by taking turns holding the other as we're kicking and screaming. ❞

Melinoe sniffled, taking a deep breath before she rose her chin. She didn't feel entirely confident then, but she had to make herself be if she wanted to be better. If she wanted to truly live by her hope and belief that the both of them could be better.

❝ You're my most cherished companion in this silly little thing we mortals call life. Please don't sell yourself short or insult my choice in affections. ❞

[denimbex1986]

'PARADOX lies at the heart of Oppenheimer (Cert. 15). Christopher Nolan is fascinated by links or disparities between the material universe that science tries understanding and (to cite Pascal) the heart’s instinctive recognition of truth, goodness, and beauty. Nolan’s films Memento, Inception, and Tenet explore both the seeming randomness of existence and an underlying meaningfulness in creation.

The opening of Oppenheimer mentions Prometheus, damned for stealing fire from the gods. Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders) is J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose Manhattan Project leads to developing nuclear weapons. Biblical allusions abound. During his postgraduate spell at Christ’s College, Cambridge, he injects poison into an apple intended for his colleague, one who, in an Eden-like manner, had denied him access to certain knowledge. Later, he reads The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot’s epic lament over society’s brokenness. Oppenheimer is fuelled by the desire to end all wars by creating a monster that, unleashed, would deter all future conflict. The film rather underplays how fundamental Oppenheimer’s Jewishness is to this vision of swords being beaten into ploughshares.

Time is rarely linear in Nolan’s films. Much of this 180-minute film is taken up by scientific discussions and political wrangling. Some may find it incomprehensible, tedious even. We meet General Groves (Matt Damon), commander of the Project, torn between the demands of military objectives and scientific research. Also Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.), the opportunistic commissioner of the US Atomic Energy Commission plotting to become a presidential cabinet member. Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), a member of the US Communist Party, introduces her lover to John Donne’s Holy Sonnets which, in turn, inspire Oppenheimer to assign the name Trinity to the nuclear-testing programme. He whispers “Batter my heart, three-personed God” during the explosion. Like Donne, Oppenheimer asks God to save him from his worst excesses. Quoting the Hindu philosophical dialogue Bhagavadgita, Oppenheimer says: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Overwhelmed by the bombs’ devastating effects on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he subsequently campaigns vigorously for placing nuclear materials under international control. This brings him into conflict with government. His youthful flirtations with communism are used by false witnesses to discredit him.

The film dwells extensively on notions of honest doubt and facile certainty; on leaders so convinced of their moral rightness that they can contemplate setting the world and its people on fire. Nolan uses theoretical physics to demonstrate the wondrous complexity of creation. Oppenheimer illustrates this by telling students that light has properties of particles and yet also waves. The seeming haphazardness emerging from quantum mechanics research troubles Einstein (Tom Conti under a mop of grey hair). We get his famous dictum (though not from him) that God doesn’t play dice with the universe. He acknowledges that, with the bomb, such old certainties have been destroyed.

Oppenheimer, appalled at his own godlike destructiveness strives to become Prometheus and also Noah. It is, however, an ark into which too few creatures are willing to enter. One paradox, absent from the film, is that 6 August, the Feast of the Transfiguration, is chosen for releasing the first atom bomb’s blinding light. All is changed utterly. A terrible beauty is born.'

[blossoms-and-petrichor]

why are sonnet writers such simps.

[gretchensinister]

Sheer hubris in the level of reference sonnet hours. Text of image under cut.

22. Reaper

The only true egalitarian

Well-known throughout all nations, peoples, times

Most famed of any non-sectarian

What can I add with yet another rhyme?

Comparison shall be my game, with one

Whose place in verse is loftier still. So:

Yes, patient; kind, no. Proud, no (so says Donne);

Dishonoring, no; quick to anger, no;

Not envious nor boasting. Any wrongs—

No record kept. In evil no delight.

But joy in truth? Both joy and truth are gone

In death. Protection, hope? These too, finite.

Yes, perseveres. But—never fails? Well, Donne’s

Lines go on. I’ll recall them when I’m done.

[iopanic]

Holy Mother Death - Patroness of the Lost

In shadows deep, where whispers softly fall, There dwells a figure veiled in robes of night, A holy mother, heeded by the thrall, Her presence fills the hearts with sacred light.

Santa Muerte, patroness of the lost, In your embrace, all find a refuge sweet, Your gaze, a beacon on the tempest tossed, Guiding weary souls to safe retreat.

In life's dark alleys and in death's domain, Your faithful gather, seeking solace true, Through trials dire, they call upon your name, And find in you their strength, their hope, their view.

O holy mother, with your gentle grace, We praise thee, evermore, in every place.

[gospelborn]

Break, Blow, Burn and Make Me New

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for youAs yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bendYour force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.I, like an usurp’d town to another due,Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d…

[butcharyastark]

WAS ANYONE GOING TO TELL ME THE OPENING BIT TO ROMEO AND JULIET IS A SONNET??