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Ever since their rediscovery in the 1920s, John Donne's writings have been praised for their energy, vigour and drama – yet so far, no attempt has been made to approach and define systematically these major characteristics of his work. Drawing on J. L. Austin's speech act theory, Margret Fetzer's comparative reading of Donne's poetry and prose eschews questions of personal or religious sincerity and instead recreates an image of John Donne as a man of many performances. No matter if engaged in the writing of a sermon or a piece of erotic poetry, Donne placed enormous trust in what words could do. Questions as to how saying something may actually bring about that very thing, or how playing the part of someone else affects an actor's identity, are central to Donne's oeuvre – and moreover highly relevant in the cultural and theological contexts of the early modern period in general. In treating both canonical and lesser known Donne texts, John Donne's Performances hopes to make a significant contribution not only to Donne criticism and research into early modern culture: by using concepts of performance and performativity as its major theoretical backdrop, it aims to establish an interdisciplinary link with the field of performance studies.
Investigations into how the brain actually works have led to remarkable discoveries and these findings carry profound implications for interpreting literature. This study applies recent breakthroughs from neuroscience and evolutionary psychology in order to deepen our understanding of John Donne's Songs and Sonnets.
Based on an exhaustive study of the manuscripts and printed editions in which these poems have appeared, the eighth in the series of The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne presents newly edited critical texts of thirteen Divine Poems and details the genealogical history of each poem, accompanied by a thorough prose discussion. Arranged chronologically within sections, the material is organized under the following headings: Dates and Circumstances; General Commentary; Genre; Language, Versification, and Style; the Poet/Persona; and Themes. The volume also offers a comprehensive digest of general and topical commentary on the Divine Poems from Donne's time through 2012.
New studies offer a revisionist interpretation of Donne's career, making a polemical case for studying the full range of his writings. During his life, John Donne occupied a range of professional positions, in all of which he produced writings considered by his contemporaries to be worthy of interest, collection and annotation. Donne's lifetime also coincided with the period during which the notion of the profession became increasingly significant. This volume makes a strong argument for the importance of Donne's professional writings to our understanding of his oeuvre and of the cultureof late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. Studying in depth his remarkable use of a wide range of terms and even whole vocabularies - legal, theological, and medical, among others - it shows how Donne moulded his identity as a professional intellectual with the languages that were at hand. A tightly focussed series of essays by scholars of international reputation and younger experts in the field, John Donne's Professional Lives contains new discoveries and fresh interpretations. It offers a revisionist interpretation of Donne's career and makes a polemical case for studying the full range of his writings.Contributors: JAMES CANNON, DAVID CUNNINGTON, LOUISA. KNAFLA, PETER MCCULLOUGH, JESSICA MARTIN, JEREMY MAULE, MARY MORRISSEY, STEPHEN PENDER, JEANNE SHAMI, ALISON SHELL, JOHANN P. SOMMERVILLE.DAVID COLCLOUGH is a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London.
William Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece and John Donne’s Holy Sonnets are read against the background of concepts of the soul during the early modern period. This approach provides new insights into concepts of interiority and performance as well as a new understanding of the soliloquy in both poetry and drama.
Based on an exhaustive study of the manuscripts and printed editions in which these poems have appeared, the eighth in the series of The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne presents newly edited critical texts of thirteen Divine Poems and details the genealogical history of each poem, accompanied by a thorough prose discussion. Arranged chronologically within sections, the material is organized under the following headings: Dates and Circumstances; General Commentary; Genre; Language, Versification, and Style; the Poet/Persona; and Themes. The volume also offers a comprehensive digest of general and topical commentary on the Divine Poems from Donne's time through 2012.
For every day from Advent Sunday to Christmas Day and beyond, the bestselling poet Malcolm Guite chooses a favourite poem from across the Christian spiritual and English literary traditions and offers incisive seasonal reflections on it. A scholar of poetry as well as a renowned poet himself, his knowledge is deep and wide and he offers readers a soul-food feast for Advent. Among the classic writers he includes are: George Herbert, John Donne, Milton, Tennyson,and Christina Rossetti,as well as contemporary poets like Scott Cairns, Luci Shaw, and Grevel Lindop. He also includes a selection of his own highly praised work.
"'Bold Conscience' chronicles the shifting conception of conscience in early modern England, as it evolved from a faculty of restraint--what the author labels "cowardly conscience"--to one of bold and forthright self-assertion. Caught at the vortex of public and private concerns, the concept of the conscience played an important role in post-Reformation England, from clerical leaders on down to laymen, not least because of its central place in determining loyalties during the English Civil War and the consequent regicide of King Charles I. Yet within this mix of perspectives, the most sinuous, complex, and ultimately lasting perspectives on bold conscience emerge from deliberately literary, rhetorically artistic voices--Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. Joshua Held argues that literary texts by these authors, in re-casting the idea of conscience as a private, interior, shameful state to one of boldness fit for the public realm, parallel a historical development in which the conscience becomes a platform both for royal power and for common dissent in post-Reformation England. With the 1649 regicide of King Charles I as a fulcrum that unites both literary and historical timelines, Held tracks the increasing power of the conscience from William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henry VIII to John Donne's court sermons, and finally to Milton's Areopagitica and Charles's defense of his kingship, Eikon Basilike. In a direct attack on Eikon Basilike, Milton destroys the prerogative of the royal conscience in Eikonoklastes, and later in Paradise Lost proposes an alternative basis for inner confidence, rooting it not in divine right but in the 'paradise within,' a metonym for conscience. Applying a fine-grain literary analysis to literary England from about 1601 to 1667, this study looks backward as well to the theological foundations of the concept in Luther of the 1520s and forward to its transformation by Locke into the term 'consciousness' in 1689. Ultimately, Held's study shows how the idea of a conscience in early modern England, long central to the private self and linked to the will, memory, and mind-emerges as a nexus between the private self and the realm of public action, a bulwark against absolute sovereignty, and its attenuation as a means of more limited, personal certainty. Whether in Milton's struggle against King Charles or Hamlet's against King Claudius, the conscience born of the Reformation becomes less a state of inner critique and more a form of outward expression fit for the communal life and commitments demanded by the early modern era"--
The Cambridge Companion to John Donne introduces students (undergraduate and graduate) to the range, brilliance, and complexity of John Donne. Sixteen essays, written by an international array of leading scholars and critics, cover Donne's poetry (erotic, satirical, devotional) and his prose (including his Sermons and occasional letters). Providing readings of his texts and also fully situating them in the historical and cultural context of early modern England, these essays offer the most up-to-date scholarship and introduce students to the current thinking and debates about Donne, while providing tools for students to read Donne with greater understanding and enjoyment. Special features include a chronology; a short biography; essays on political and religious contexts; an essay on the experience of reading his lyrics; a meditation on Donne by the contemporary novelist A. S. Byatt; and an extensive bibliography of editions and criticism.
This study argues the thesis that John Donne's poetry, already well-served by the insightful close readings of earlier generations of scholars, can now profit from being read in the context of early modern cultural experience, specifically its visual culture. It points out that the focus on visual culture allows for a non-monolithic, flexible reading of Donne's verse, in part because it acknowledges that while the complexity of his religious identity has been well-explored, the complexity of his secular interest has perhaps been less thoroughly examined. Since a study of early modern visual culture is deeply concerned with the vicissitudes of the image, both religious and secular, such a context serves to integrate what in Donne sometimes invites polarity.Focused on close readings of several poems, the study is in two parts. On the one hand, it examines the visual culture of early modern England and argues that reading Donne's poetry enhances our understanding of how that culture actually operated when looked at through the experience of a practicing poet. the visual culture through which it participated adds a dimension to that verse that would otherwise be less accessible to us. Ann H. Hurley is Professor of English at Wagner College.