John Donne in Context

An extensive account of early modern life and culture as it relates to Donne's richly varied body of work.

Michael Schoenfeldt (Edited by)

9781009010481, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 March 2021

396 pages, 9 b/w illus.
23 x 15 x 2.5 cm, 0.57 kg

'This collection will surely become an essential item on university and higher education reading lists. All undergraduate and postgraduate students of Donne will ?nd stimulating material here on his songs and sonnets, elegies, satires and philosophical and divine poems … While this volume will certainly become essential student reading it also has much to o?er to the many admirers of Donne's writings and reputation outside academia.' Michael Brennan, The Seventeenth Century

John Donne was a writer of dazzling extremes. He was a notorious rake and eloquent preacher; he wrote poems of tender intimacy, and lyrics of gross misogyny. This book offers a comprehensive account of early modern life and culture as it relates to Donne's richly varied body of work. Short, lively, and accessible chapters written by leading experts in early modern studies shed light on Donne's literary career, language and works as well as exploring the social and intellectual contexts of his writing and its reception from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. These chapters provide the depth of interpretation that Donne demands, and the range of knowledge that his prodigiously learned works elicit. Supported by a chronology of Donne's life and works and a comprehensive bibliography, this volume is a major new contribution to the study and criticism on the age of Donne and his writing.

List of illustrations
Notes on contributors
Chronology Kentston Bauman
Abbreviations
Introduction Michael Schoenfeldt
1. Donne's literary career Patrick Cheney
2. Donne's texts and materials Piers Brown
3. Donne and print Katherine Rundell
4. Language Douglas Trevor
5. Donne's poetics of obstruction Kimberly Johnson
6. Elegies and satires Melissa E. Sanchez
7. The unity of the Songs and Sonnets Richard Strier
8. Divine poems David Marno
9. Letters James Daybell
10. Orality and performance Ilona Bell
11. Reading and interpretation Katrin Ettenhuber
12. Education Adrew Wallace
13. Law Gregory Kneidel
14. Donne's prisons Molly Murray
15. Donne and the natural world Rebecca Bushnell
16. Money David Landreth
17. Sexuality Catherine Bates
18. Donne and the passions Christopher Tilmouth
19. Pain Joseph Campana
20. Medicine Stephen Pender
21. Science, alchemy, and the new philosophy Margaret Healy
22. Donne and skepticism Anita Gilman Sherman
23. The metaphysics of the metaphysicals Gordon Teskey
24. Controversial prose Andrew Hadfield
25. Devotional prose Brooke Conti
26. The sermons Lori Anne Ferrell
27. The self Nancy Selleck
28. Portraits Sarah Howe
29. Donne in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Nicholas D. Nace
30. Donne in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries James Longenbach
31. Donne in the twenty-first century: thinking feeling Linda Gregerson
Further reading
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literature: history & criticism [DS]