John Donne’s “Divine Sonnet VII”, which begins “At the round earth’s imagined corners”, describes the end of the world, and the Last Judgment, but does so largely in terms of the poet’s own feelings and fears. Whether this makes it a moving and personal piece of poetry, or a monstrous piece of egotism, is up to reader – it’s a familiar quandary for readers of John Donne.
The Round Earth’s Imagined Corners
The image contained in the very first line is an unusual one – though it isn’t strictly speaking an image, as most readers will find it difficult to imagine the round earth, then add corners, but add them in a way which makes clear that they are imaginary, even though the whole business is taking place in the reader’s imagination. The line’s effectiveness comes from the tension between the two shapes. Of course they’re not simply geometrical abstractions, but represent two ways of viewing the world. Donne, as a seventeenth century intellectual, knew that the world was round, but mapped on to that worldview was the old medieval and Biblical vision in which the world had corners. Donne is consciously drawing here on the Book of Revelation, 7:1, “I saw four angels standing at the corners of the earth”. The tension between the two visions shows Donne pulled in two directions, as the poem goes on to elaborate.
Time and Tense
Donne’s use of tense is extraordinary in “Divine Sonnet VII”, and perhaps more extraordinary is that the reader understands him instinctively, and doesn’t trip over the shifts in tense. The first commands “blow/ Your trumpets” and “arise” are in the present tense, though since this is a poem about the Last Judgment, it isn’t immediately clear whether Donne’s present tense is the same as ours, or whether he is imagining himself far into the future. His exhortations to “All whom the fire did, and flood shall overthrow” telescopes human time with its shift in tense, as Donne calls on souls to rise from death who haven’t died yet. This underlines the difference between the human, temporal vision and the divine eternal one – Milton uses a similar technique when describing the fallen angels in the opening sections of Paradise Lost. After the volta, Donne moves back to the immediate present, “But let them sleep, Lord”, asking to be allowed to prepare himself in human time for the shift into divine time.
The Volta and Uncertainty
The shift in tone and meaning which occurs at the ninth line, beginning “But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space”, is a volta, or turning point. The volta is an established part of the Italian sonnet, and separates the first eight lines, or “octave”, from the last six, or “sextet”, which traditionally approaches the subject from a different angle, or gives a new turn to the argument. In this case both the tone and argument shift, from the grand exhortations of the octave, which instruct the Last Judgement to begin, to a humble fear that the poet is not worthy, and needs God to provide time to expiate his sins, and teach him “how to repent” whilst he is still on this “lowly ground”. In the hands of a poet like Donne, the volta becomes more than an expected technical device; it provides a shift of attitude which feels natural and even inevitable.
