The Cambridge Companion to John Donne

by Edited by Achsah Guibbory

• ISBN13: 9780521540032
• ISBN10: 0521540038
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-20
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Cambridge Companion to John Donne introduces students (undergraduate and graduate) to the range, brilliance, and complexity of John Donne. Sixteen new 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.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vii
List of contributors	viii
Preface	ix
List of abbreviations	xii
Chronology	xiv
Donne's life: a sketch	1	(22)
Jonathan F. S. Post
The text of Donne's writings	23	(12)
Ted-Larry Pebworth
The social context and nature of Donne's writing: occasional verse and letters	35	(14)
Arthur F. Marotti
Literary contexts: predecessors and contemporaries	49	(16)
Andrew Hadfield
Donne's religious world	65	(18)
Alison Shell
Arnold Hunt
Donne's political world	83	(18)
Tom Cain
Reading and rereading Donne's poetry	101	(16)
Judith Scherer Herz
Satirical writing: Donne in shadows	117	(16)
Annabel Patterson
Erotic poetry	133	(16)
Achsah Guibbory
Devotional writing	149	(18)
Helen Wilcox
Donne as preacher	167	(16)
Peter McCullough
Donne's language: the conditions of communication	183	(18)
Lynne Magnusson
Gender matters: the women in Donne's poems	201	(16)
Ilona Bell
Facing death	217	(16)
Ramie Targoff
Donne's afterlife	233	(14)
Dayton Haskin
Feeling thought: Donne and the embodied mind	247	(12)
A. S. Byatt
Select bibliography	259	(20)
L. E. Semler
Index	279