Donne's Holy Sonnets have long been considered classic examples of Renaissance poetry. They were not printed until after his death in 1631, with the first printing in 1633 and three additional sonnets added some time later when another manuscript was discovered. This essay will examine the rhetorical and textual culture surrounding and influencing Sacred Sonnet 9 (since the order of sonnets in manuscripts and printed versions was not uniform, it appears as sonnet 5 in a sequence), which begins "If poisonous minerals ... .” Additionally, the sonnet's illustration of the Renaissance idea of ​​the self will be examined, as will the meter and other formal features. For convenience, we will henceforth refer to this sonnet simply as “Minerals.” and, for citation purposes, this essay will treat Westmoreland's manuscript version of “Minerals” as the primary source. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Most Renaissance writings, "Minerals" is loaded with rhetorical techniques, the purpose of which is to highlight the points made or influence the audience in some way. Rhetoric is firmly rooted in ancient Greek and Roman culture, the precepts and mechanisms of which are were established by ancient luminaries such as Aristotle and Plato. It is natural, then, that such techniques should be foremost in the minds of Renaissance writers; Jacob Burckhardt, in Renaissance Civilization in Italy, states that “…rhetoric was especially sought after by humanists” (Burckhardt, 1860, p.80), since much of their learning depended on ancient Greece and Rome. The Holy Sonnets actually have a specific meaning for the general idea of ​​rhetorical culture: it was widely believed that the word, and therefore rhetoric, was a gift from God and distinguished human beings from animals. The phrase “Speech ordained of God,” used by Richard Allestree in The Government of the Tongue (1674), sums up this idea well. During the Reformation people began to explore this idea that speech and divinity were intertwined, and so being skilled in rhetoric made sense from a religious point of view: the better you performed your God-given gift, the closer you could be to God .Combined with the emergence of a sense of self during this period, this gave strong cultural weight to the ability to orate effectively. Examples of rhetorical devices that can be found in "Minerals" include the octave that begins it. It is, in its entirety, an example of logos – the use of examples to support an argument based on reason. In both quatrains, Donne uses rhetorical questions. The type of questions he asks are described as anacoenosis and involve asking the audience their opinion directly (though, of course, without expecting an answer). In the first line of the sextet, however, the audience changes and the rhetorical techniques also change since, on the contrary, the sextet constitutes an example of pathos, or appeal to emotion. Donne uses a different type of rhetorical question in line 9, called an epiplexis, to express the pain of asking the questions in the eighth. This is reinforced by the use of another rhetorical technique known as the apostrophe, in line 10, in which Donne exclaims "O God", essentially saying that he is unworthy (although this apostrophe is not present in every surviving version of the sonnet). Further techniques follow this: Donne's reference to his tears forming a “Heauenly Lethean flood” is an example of hyperbole, which is a type of auxesis or amplification. The final line, "I think it's mercy, if you want to forget", is what classifies the sextet as an appeal to emotion rather than logic. This change in rhetorical techniquesunderlines the difference between the two parts of the sonnet and emphasizes the emotions and ideas conveyed within. Our understanding of Donneo's exact idea of ​​the structure of the “Minerals” vocabulary is hampered by the lack of a manuscript with definitive authorial approval. There are three versions of the sonnet, any of which could be the sonnet Donne intended. Between the three existing versions there are mainly minor changes; “Lecherous” contrasted with “Leacherous,” for example, which are likely idiosyncrasies of the author or printer of each manuscript or print. Small changes in spelling or punctuation are common, such as placing parentheses or commas around "ellse immortall" in line two, or placing a comma in line 12 (so it reads "And drown in it, i my sins blacke memoree" as in the Westmoreland manuscript). According to a letter written by Donne, he decided to collect his poems shortly before taking holy orders and asked to borrow "that old book" (Donne, 1654, Internet 1) from Henry Goodere, with whom he corresponded. This implies that, as Stringer stated, he "had not even managed to preserve manuscript copies for his own use or reference" (Stringer, 2005, p. L), so there is no evidence that a definitive version of the sonnet Two Versions even exists each present a significant difference, which means that the complete idea of ​​Donne's sonnet is not certain. The first printed copy, for example (published in 1633), differs from the Westmoreland manuscript (dated to 1620 and verified as written by Rowland Woodward, a friend of Donne) and the print of Divine Meditations (1635) at line 13. Instead of " May you remember them, Some clayme as said", contains the line "May you remember them no more as a debt". This difference is obviously significant as it greatly affects the interpretive depth of the verse, removes (or inserts) what could be a reference to a biblical passage, and is probably a change made to the sonnet by Donne himself some time after its original distribution. The presence of "Some clayme as said" in both the Westmoreland Manuscript and the Divine Meditations (the text of which was taken from a different manuscript) implies that Donne intended the poem to be read in this way, although it is not possible to be sure. The significant difference in Westmoreland's manuscript is between lines 9 and 10; instead of “But who am I that dare to argue with you/O God” we read “But who am I that dare to argue with you/O God?”. This changes the "O God" from an exclamation of emotion or sorrow (mirroring the "alas" found in line 4) to the simple end of a question, and thus impacts the effect of the sonnet as a whole. complex. “Minerals” is, without a doubt, an exploration of the idea of ​​the self as an autonomous entity and is therefore an appropriate example of a Renaissance perspective on personal identity. In the quatrains, the speaker asks what the difference is between harmful animals or plants and humans, and why the “sins” of plants and animals go unpunished. This brings up the concept of agency, which is a key component of personal identity; the idea that one has the authority to commit sin, or even take any action, of one's own free will. Stephen Greenblatt, in Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, states that self-fashioning occurs under several general conditions, many of which are demonstrated in “Minerals.” It depends on “submission to an absolute power” (Greenblatt, 1980, p.9), which is obviously the very subject of the sonnet and demonstrated by line 9, “But who am I that dare argue with you?” Furthermore, self-fashioning depends on the existence of a dangerous Other who is perceived as “strange, alien, or hostile” (Greenblatt, 1980,p.9). In this sonnet there are many examples: goats, minerals and snakes, which are explicitly mentioned, but also the Devil, whose influence is only implicit. Another of the conditions suggested by Greenblatt is that "one man's authority is alien to another man" (Greenblatt, 1980, p.9), which is a particularly relevant point during the religious upheaval of the Reformation, and the different views of God emerged in that period. The sonnet is particularly salient when looking at the self-fashioning of the Renaissance because the speaker directly questions the audience: in the two quatrains, the listening audience; in the sextet, God himself. This demonstrates that an individual attempts to define their identity within their peer group and reconcile it with the rules of their perceived authority. In line 5, the speaker refers to the "intent, or reason born in me," upon which damnation is said to be based, and these two concepts are crucial to the idea of ​​self. The sonnet's speaker identifies himself as a repentant sinner – not simply someone who has inherited sin, but someone who has willfully and actively sinned, as evidenced by the mention of reason and intent as well as the phrase in line 12 “my sins blacks." memoree” (although it could be figurative, it implies that the speaker remembers his sins). Identifying oneself as a sinner could be considered parrhesia, described as “a verbal activity in which the speaker expresses his personal relationship with the truth” (Foucault, 1999, p.6). With this admission the speaker establishes a conflict between himself, his peer group, and his authority, and identifies him as capable of acting and thinking independently. "Minerals" is written in iambic pentameter, like most other Renaissance sonnets, and has a relatively stable metrical structure with the second, fourth, and eighth syllables stressed in almost every line. However it has two deviations from this structure; depending on how line 11 is read, the first stressed syllable is the sixth, since it is the first occurrence of a polysyllabic word that has forced lexical stress. Although the word “teares” may have a post-lexical accent, it is a monosyllabic word, so its accent is left to the reader; it includes the third syllable of the verse and therefore does not conform to iambic pentameter. This line also requires the elision of the “e” sounds in both “heauenly” and “Lethean” to conform to the meter. The other, more important, deviation is in line 6: the presence of the word “hainous” here places the emphasis on the ninth syllable, with the etymology of the word belying the possibility of a different method of pronunciation. There is no way to read this line without underlining an odd-numbered syllable, so this may be a deliberate subversion of meter on Donne's part. If, however, one observes the punctuation in the versions of the sonnet considered closest to Donne's hand (the Westmoreland and Divine Meditations versions), there is a caesura after "equal" in the form of a comma, after which (if read as a line in its own right) the meter is once again iambic pentameter. In any case, this is a significant departure from the structure and is noteworthy for this reason. The sonnet's rhyme scheme is also interesting, as it does not specifically conform to any particular established sonnet type; is a blend of Shakespearean and Petrarchan patterns, with the rhyme scheme ABBAABBAACCADD. Looking at the sonnet with this in mind, it is divided into three quatrains and a rhyming couplet, rather than a clearly defined octave and sestina. This has the effect of separating the couplet into a kind of epigram, which is confirmed by the punctuation in the Westmoreland and Divine Meditations versions of the sonnet: in these two, the couplet is 02/01/14