This paper examines how John Donne, the English writer, uses spirit and flesh in his poetry. Donne, who wrote during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, often presents his readers with a puzzling picture of sensual imagery combined with spiritual language. By considering the theological and cultural contexts of his religious world, such as the shift in England from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism, this essay interrogates the recurrent overlaps between spiritual and sensual meanings in Donne’s work. It will also attend to several scriptural and literary traditions, from the model of the psalmist, or the Song of Songs, to contemporary developments throughout England and Europe in sonnet writing. Careful attention to these scriptural and literary models reveals one of the primary functions of Donne’s erotic language: the sensual imagery in the Holy Sonnets offers a powerful mode of expressing his spiritual longing and desired relationship with God.
