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Available
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Publication
Penguin Classics (1985), Edition: New edition, 192 pages
User reviews
LibraryThing member keylawk
Most of the known poems, sermons, epigrams, elegies, and letters of Dr. John Donne [1572-1631]. This material reflects the Unitarian ("Upon the Annunciation and Passion") Liberal values of great thinker whose influence continues to flower -- (46 "Coummunitie", 49 "good is not good unless a thousand
We still look to Donne for examples of ingenious metaphors and intensities both raw and exquisite. "As princes doe in times of action get / New Taxes, and remit them not in peace, / No winter shall abate the spring[']s increase".
Famous lines endure--"catch a falling star", "death be not proud", "no man is an island", "for whom the bell tolls".
The editor/author of Preface quotes Coleridge who in the 1800s is largely responsible for resurrecting Donne's currency as a poet:
"With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
Wreath iron pokers into true-love knots;
Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,
Wit's forge and fire-blast, meanings's press and screw."
Wilbur describes this as "a critical summary in two couplets which for condensed suggestiveness has not been surpassed". [10]
In the midst of the heating up schisms between Christian sects, Donne made the informed and consistent choice to allow individuals their own creed and keep a unified church (against great calumnies about his inability "to choose" his faith [190]). This is so clearly his final doctrine--in his last sickness, Donne describes himself as a flat map laid on this bed, and it seems insensible to call either East or West his home, and neither Paradise nor Calvary are "in one place". Each preach a Text of his own. [174-175].
The editor also authors "Notes" on the contents, often providing dates, and most helpful for trying to compass a lawyer/preacher born in the decade after Shakespeare.
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it possess", 140, 145, 173 Hymn to Christ "Whoever gives, takes libertie"). And of course, "Any man's death diminishes me, Because I am involved in Mankinde...:. He was imprisoned for practicing what he believed. And we find abundant, evidence from the Inns of Court [48 "I do not sue from thee to draw a non obstante from Nature's law", 145] throughout the dispositions and sermons of Donne. But it is his wit which makes him a treasure.We still look to Donne for examples of ingenious metaphors and intensities both raw and exquisite. "As princes doe in times of action get / New Taxes, and remit them not in peace, / No winter shall abate the spring[']s increase".
Famous lines endure--"catch a falling star", "death be not proud", "no man is an island", "for whom the bell tolls".
The editor/author of Preface quotes Coleridge who in the 1800s is largely responsible for resurrecting Donne's currency as a poet:
"With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
Wreath iron pokers into true-love knots;
Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,
Wit's forge and fire-blast, meanings's press and screw."
Wilbur describes this as "a critical summary in two couplets which for condensed suggestiveness has not been surpassed". [10]
In the midst of the heating up schisms between Christian sects, Donne made the informed and consistent choice to allow individuals their own creed and keep a unified church (against great calumnies about his inability "to choose" his faith [190]). This is so clearly his final doctrine--in his last sickness, Donne describes himself as a flat map laid on this bed, and it seems insensible to call either East or West his home, and neither Paradise nor Calvary are "in one place". Each preach a Text of his own. [174-175].
The editor also authors "Notes" on the contents, often providing dates, and most helpful for trying to compass a lawyer/preacher born in the decade after Shakespeare.
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Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1962
ISBN
0140585184 / 9780140585186