crossref-it.info - AS/A2 English Literature Study Guides - texts in context.John Donne: Poem analysis » Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward » Themes in Good Friday, 1613
Unworthiness
The most obvious theme that emerges is Donne's sense of his own personal sinfulness and unworthiness. His failure to attend to his Good Friday devotions becomes a sign of that unworthiness. He has allowed other motivations before his love for God. Yet, ironically, the writing of the poem IS the devotion: what more could he have done if he had attended a worship service? This is the central irony we find in poems on this theme: that the poet's very sense of unworthiness IS a proof of his worthiness. This is a biblical principle. The sinner in the Temple is justified because of his humility while the (self-)righteous religious man is condemned (Luke 18:9-14). Of course ‘humility’ can just be a pose: ‘look at me being unworthy!’
God’s love and mercy
God's love and mercy is the other theme, suitable for an Easter meditation. The love is seen both in
- the incarnation: ‘that fleshe which was worne/By God’
- and in the redemption of the cross: ‘What a death were it then to see God dye?’
- God's mercy is also shown in the way he deals with Donne. God does ‘thinke mee worth thine anger’, just as a father thinks his child worth punishing.
- Today's New International Version
- 9To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10'Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people - robbers, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' 13'But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' 14'I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.'
- King James Version
- 9And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: 10Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. 11The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. 12I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 13And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 14I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
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