The Cambridge Companion to John Donne

by Edited by Achsah Guibbory

• ISBN13: 9780521832373
• ISBN10: 0521832373
• Format: Hardcover
• 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
1 Donne's life: a sketch
JONATHAN F.S. POST	1	(22)
2 The text of Donne's writings
TED-LARRY PEBWORTH	23	(12)
3 The social context and nature of Donne's writing: occasional verse and letters
ARTHUR F. MAROTTI	35	(14)
4 Literary contexts: predecessors and contemporaries
ANDREW HADFIELD	49	(16)
5 Donne's religious world
ALISON SHELL AND ARNOLD HUNT	65	(18)
6 Donne's political world
TOM CAIN	83	(18)
7 Reading and rereading Donne's poetry
JUDITH SCHERER HERZ	101	(16)
8 Satirical writing: Donne in shadows
ANN ABEL PATTERSON	117	(16)
9 Erotic poetry
ACHSAH GUIBBORY	133	(16)
10 Devotional writing
HELEN WILCOX	149	(18)
11 Donne as preacher
PETER McCULLOUGH	167	(16)
12 Donne's language: the conditions of communication
LYNNE MAGNUSSON	183	(18)
13 Gender matters: the women in Donne's poems
ILONA BELL	201	(16)
14 Facing death
RAMIE TARGOFF	217	(16)
15 Donne's afterlife
DAYTON HASKIN	233	(14)
16 Feeling thought: Donne and the embodied mind
A.S. BYATT	247	(12)
Select bibliography
L.E. SEMLER	259	(20)
Index	279