Donne and Bacons Portrayal of Religious Themes and Images

Donne and Bacon’s Portrayal of Religious Themes and Images

Many people regularly contemplate which one of the many churches is proclaimed to be the one true religion. An Augustinian monk from Germany, Martin Luther, sparked arguments that finally resulted in Protestantism, a Catholic reformation. In 1534, England established Anglicanism, a transformed form of Catholicism. Consequently, the reformation began. Individuals started to doubt religion because of the proliferation of churches and sects. Therefore, “Satire 3” was composed during Donne’s transformation from Catholicism to Anglicanism (Puchner et al. 1394). However, the question of how a person could discover a real church when so many make similar claims remained. For instance, in Holy Sonnet 18, the poet asks Christ to reveal his wife’s name (Puchner et al. 1414). None of the poems adopts a single religion, yet none rejects the concept of a single actual church or religion. Donne’s writings characterize religious enlightenment as a sensuous paradise.

Religious dedication gives one a sense of wholeness, while sexual desire gives one a sense of contentment. In the Holy Sonnet, the poet requests God to rape him to free him from this life of woes (Puchner et al. 1410). The rape will make the speaker virginal. In the Holy Sonnet, the single true church is likened to having sex with a woman. It is as though the poet believes that by having a sexual engagement with Christ’s wife, he would please Christ. Bacon being a devoted Anglican portrays religion in the sense that the natural world and philosophy have to be inductively studied, but only God’s existence can be studied. He says, “it were better to have no view of God at all as such an opinion is unworthy of him” (Puchner et al. 1616). This meant people had negated opinions about God, ultimately resulting in superstition, a criticism of the deity. Therefore, Bacon proves that God remains the highest deity who should not be criticized. The religious fervor of these poems and works safeguards them from being judged scandalously and sacrilegiously. Therefore, religious zeal and sexual pleasure may be mutually irreconcilable.

Work Cited

Puchner, Martin, et al., Eds. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. London and New York: WW Norton, 2018. 1564-1616.

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In a 150-200 word post, respond to one of the following prompts:
Several of the texts in this module focus on the relationship between men and women. Choose one or two works from this module and analyze how the author portrays love, lust, or gender differences.

Donne and Bacons Portrayal of Religious Themes and Images

Focusing on the works of Donne and Bacon, explain how they portray religious themes and images. Give specific examples from the texts to support your answer.