The Holy Sonnets are complex poems. They reflect a sense of personal urgency, a painful oscillation between contradictory attitudes, a fluctuation between different definitions of the self. This study offers a detailed linguistic analysis of Donne’s use of language in the Holy Sonnets, especially focussing on those aspects of meaning which are related to the expression of the interpersonal function. It explores the dynamics of the construction of the fictional characters, their specific, and each time, different relationships and the way these are modified discursively. Attention has also been paid to the dialogic structure of the texts. What emerges from this investigation is a fundamental restlessness of the poetic voice. This, in turn, highlights the nature of Donne’s specific discourse, a discourse, essentially conative in orientation, which eventually becomes an arena where different points of view are brought into unresolved collision or contradiction. Thus, the Holy Sonnets witness an agon between the need, or perhaps the wish, to submit to a divine authority and a resistance, or an inability, to accept a subordinate role. In their attempt to achieve salvation, Donne’s ‘powerless’ subjects constantly question and probe the validity of received sets of assumptions and beliefs concerning the individual and his problematic relationship with the authority par excellence.

"Of stuffe and forme perplext". The interactive language of Donne's Holy Sonnets / PALLOTTI O BALLOTTI, Donatella. - STAMPA. - (2012), pp. 5-316.

"Of stuffe and forme perplext". The interactive language of Donne's Holy Sonnets

PALLOTTI O BALLOTTI, DONATELLA
2012

Abstract

The Holy Sonnets are complex poems. They reflect a sense of personal urgency, a painful oscillation between contradictory attitudes, a fluctuation between different definitions of the self. This study offers a detailed linguistic analysis of Donne’s use of language in the Holy Sonnets, especially focussing on those aspects of meaning which are related to the expression of the interpersonal function. It explores the dynamics of the construction of the fictional characters, their specific, and each time, different relationships and the way these are modified discursively. Attention has also been paid to the dialogic structure of the texts. What emerges from this investigation is a fundamental restlessness of the poetic voice. This, in turn, highlights the nature of Donne’s specific discourse, a discourse, essentially conative in orientation, which eventually becomes an arena where different points of view are brought into unresolved collision or contradiction. Thus, the Holy Sonnets witness an agon between the need, or perhaps the wish, to submit to a divine authority and a resistance, or an inability, to accept a subordinate role. In their attempt to achieve salvation, Donne’s ‘powerless’ subjects constantly question and probe the validity of received sets of assumptions and beliefs concerning the individual and his problematic relationship with the authority par excellence.
2012
978-88-6680-027-9
5
316
PALLOTTI O BALLOTTI, Donatella
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Utilizza questo identificatore per citare o creare un link a questa risorsa: https://hdl.handle.net/2158/779490
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