333 Religious Poetry


Please read the poems in the Norton anthology, looking specifically for answers to the following questions:

 

What is the speaker's sense of his sinfullness?  That is, does he seem to feel he is, as Calvin says, irredeemably depraved?  If so, how does he respond to this notion?

 

How much control does the speaker seem to have over his own salvation, and how does he feel about that control?

 

What role do material things or visible images seem to have in the speaker's thought or efforts to observe his faith?

 

Poems

 

Robert Southwell, "Burning Babe," 640

 

John Donne, "Batter my heart," 1297

     "Oh to vex me," 1299

     "Hymn to Christ," 1300

 

Ben Jonson, "To Heaven," 1436

 

George Herbert, "Redemption," 1607

     "Jordan I," 1611

     "Church Monuments," 1612

 

Andrew Marvell, "Coronet," 1697