Abstract
My purpose in this article is to establish a strong Calvinist influence on Donne's Holy Sonnets and their related expression of a dominant mood of despair. To achieve this I must first question the plausibility of the arguments for sequence and the invariably accompanying claims for a progression towards peace of mind. Dissatisfaction with the critical assumptions which inform these interpretations then leads to a view of the poems as discrete cris de coeur. There follows an analysis of Donne's technique of subverting the ostensible arguments of apparently pious or confident poems with emotions of fear, resentment, and despair. While this analysis necessarily takes account of Donne's employment of Calvinist ideas, it is left to the final section to confirm the link between these ideas and the presence of despair in the sonnets and to suggest reasons for his responsiveness to a theological system which might be thought alien to him.
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