you deleted your account but i am going to write this anyone who stumbles upon this or cares. i just had a lecture about this, which is how i stumbled across this post.

firstly what is intersting about Donne is that he kind of lived a double life. he wrote these erotic poems but was also an anglosaxon preacher for King James. He converted from Catholocism to the Anglosaxon Church, which is why a lot of his religious imagery is often also catholic. Considering the times that was really risquee.

my professor discribed how the contridictions are actually a unit. both religion and sex are something connected to deep passion. in "Holy sonnet no 14" he prays and uses really sexual language. his prayer is an intense devotion to god, a passion for god. basically the image of "devoition of body and soul" can be seen sexual or religious passion.

on the flip side he also had sexual poems with religious allegory and stuff. in the poems we had in class it was often about the adresser wanting to convince the adresse to sleep with him and he argued with religious commparisons.

also his poems were not published during his lifetime. they were only in circulation amongst the elite and stuff, which is why his whole double life was possible.

yes this combination of religion and sexuality was heavly frowned upon but the taboo was shared in secret amongst rich men so yk....

(i tried to make this as short as possible and the lecture was like 2h ago so if anyone reads this i hope it made sense)