Donne's Holy Sonnets and the Seven Penitential Psalms

Abstract

It has been customary since the seminal studies by Louis Martz and Helen Gardner to regard the "Holy Sonnets" as formal meditations inspired by continental treatises such as Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises .^There can be little doubt that some of the sonnets are structured on the threefold method of meditation based on the faculties of memory, understanding, and will, while others seem to draw on the traditional meditation on the last things.But, in acknowledging the presence in the "Holy Sonnets" of meditative techniques, one is also aware of other formative influences that may be equal to if not more significant than the techniques of formal meditation.For instance, several critics connect the "Holy Sonnets" to the Psalms, especially the Seven Penitential Psalms.John Wall, Jr. sug- gests that the pattern of man's relationship to God found in the "Holy Son-

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