Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God- John Donne

1. The paradox in the first quatrain is the line 5 “Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new”. The paradox is to exemplify the speaker’s request. He asks God to do these violent actions to “make me new”. How can someone break and burn a person and at the same time make him new?. It seems he has failed in everything he tried because of his sins and wanted God to help him no matter it would be hard and painful. “Three-personed God refers to the Holy Trinity of Christian Religion (Father, Son and the Holy Spirit) and the speaker compared to the person praying.
2. In the second quatrain, the speaker compares himself to “the usurped town” who’s been conquered by another force. The usurper here is the devil or his sin. The speaker wants God to rescue “the town”, but his reason is too weak and has been deceived. His reason fails and even lies to him. It is the weakness. He speaks of the complexities of God and the things about God that can only be believed through faith
3. In the sestet here, the speaker is compared to “bride” because he uses the marriage imagery. God is compared to his love. He wants God to be with him, asking for holy salvation of God, but he is completely engaged to God’s enemy (devil or sin). He wants to come back to God and asks God to break those bonds. In line 12-13, there are lots of contradiction and double meanings. The speaker can't be free unless he is imprisoned and "enthralled" (for being held captive) by God. He can't be chaste unless he is "ravished" (a nicer word for "raped") by God. The speaker is asking for violent intervention from God to wipe him clean, make him new, and set him free in faith. Those interesting words also have another meaning - enthrall and ravish can also refer to powerful feelings of astonishment and joy. Donne's word choice is very deliberate. The speaker believes in a God that is powerful, strong, even violent when needed, but that still causes an enormous sense of wonder in His faithful. Donne mixes passionate mankind relationship with God and physical violence together.

by: Rini