There are different levels to literary criticism. The first level, the most superficial, examines the work in search of sounds and images that can contribute to the overall meaning of the piece. This type of analysis is an excellent starting point, but if you want to understand the full meaning of the piece it is necessary to take into account the author's life and the circumstances in which the work was composed. Familiarity with the author's background and culture can help the critic bring out all the implications contained in the work. The general consensus on "Holy Sonnets #14" is that Donne's poetry is both highly original and overtly sexual; in the poem, according to the traditional view, the narrator hopes to be raped by God so that he can achieve salvation. According to this perspective, all the images in the poem are explicit allusions to rape. While rape imagery is certainly present, it only serves as a vehicle for Donne to evoke biblical allusions that, once understood, inform readers of the true meaning of the work. Without understanding the biblical foundation of the poem, the reader cannot reach a correct understanding of Donne's deep religiosity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first instruction of the poem, “beat my heart,” contains two separate allusions. Historically, the tribe of Israel used rams when besieging a city. Because the Israelis followed God's orders, there is a historical connection between God tearing down city walls in the Old Testament and God tearing down the speaker's heart in "Holy Sonnets No. 14." The second allusion is contained in the idea of ​​God which breaks the narrator's heart. Psalm 51:17 says that “the sacrifices of God are…a broken and contrite heart.” If God were to strike down the speaker's heart, he would become a sacrificial and deified entity. When the speaker says that God "knock[s]," he is alluding to Luke 11:9, where Jesus says that salvation is free to the speaker. seeker: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you." This is an ironic inversion of action, because in the poem it is God who knocks, yet Jesus says that it is we who must knock on His door. This reversal of action shows us the speaker's true nature: he knows what he wants - salvation - but is unwilling or unable to get it, so he asks God to act in his place. He asks God to make him eligible to become a sacrificial creature, because he is not capable of doing it on his own. The speaker also asks God to "breathe" into him the same life that God first breathed into Adam when he "breathed into [Adam's] nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (King James Bible, Gen. 2:7). Lines four and five are deeply steeped in allusion. In the Bible, salvation is found through destruction and rebirth: God destroys the world with a flood so that Noah and his family can start a new life; the Israelites are sent into captivity by the Babylonians so that they can be saved and redeemed; Jesus is crucified and resurrected in order to offer humanity eternal salvation. Christian teachings hold that a believer's previous life ends when he is saved; in other words, when he is “reborn” as a Christian. With this in mind, the speaker is theologically accurate when he asks God to “overthrow me and bend/Your strength to break me, blow me, burn me, and make me new.” God commands Jeremiah to “uproot, pull down, destroy, pull down, build, and plant” (Jeremiah 1:10). The speaker connects directly to the tribe of Israel when he asks God to “overthrow me…and make me new.” There.