Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)John Donne is the most controversial poet to ever write in English, the focus of controversy for four centuries. He put out almost no poems in life, but they were widely circulated in manuscript, and their publication a few years after his death immediately made him a major poet. His status remained high until Samuel Johnson dismissed him in the late eighteenth century. The Romantic Era saw a mini-revival, and he always had at least a cult following, but obscurity seemed poised to engulf him until T. S. Eliot extolled him in the early twentieth century. This initiated a renaissance possibly making Donne more popular than ever, and though the fever pitch has died down somewhat, he remains in the upper echelon of English poets - one of the handful to have truly entered world literature - and shows no sign of moving.
Debate has always centered on Donne's wildly inventive tropes, particularly what became known as metaphysical conceits. Johnson famously condemned them by saying, "the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together," and many have agreed, finding Donne overly flashy and prosaic while lacking high seriousness and beauty. However, at least as many have thought the opposite, finding him brilliantly creative, ever-inventive, and resoundingly fresh. Donne is indeed one of the most original poets in modern times. His metaphors are certainly attention-grabbing, highly imaginative, and - against all odds - superbly executed, but they are hardly his only brilliant yet controversial feature. For instance, he is also notable for choppy rhythms closely approximating everyday speech. This truly made him stand out in an era when formal classical models were the norm and even prompted contemporary Ben Jonson to quip that he deserved hanging. However, it possibly makes him stand out even more now - partly because centuries of poets have followed his lead but also because he reads nothing like his contemporaries. His verse has a living, breathing quality that is distinctly modern; far from seeming old or stuffy, it is hard to believe his work is nearly as old as it is. To think he wrote when Shakespeare did is truly mind-boggling. As all this suggests, he has had a profound influence on later poets from the next generation until today - not least because he was among the first to introduces satires and elegies into English. He remains the gold standard for poets striving for wit as well as puns, inversions, and other forms of wordplay; even his greatest detractors admit that, for what it is worth, Donne is unequaled here.
Notable and influential as Donne has been with form, his content is at least as remarkable. He was one of the era's leading playboys in youth, and it shows; his early poems deal almost exclusively with love and are often daringly erotic. Some of his boldest metaphors come into play here, many of which - such as comparing the exploration of a naked woman to finding America - are still widely discussed. Considering these poems were written more than four hundred years ago, the sheer audacity is amazing, and we begin to see why they were not published. Many are also humorous, and nearly all are memorable. However, not all the love poems are light-hearted; indeed, few have written so widely and movingly of love as Donne. Many poems deal with love's dark side, including infidelity and other forms of betrayal; others are philosophical with varying conclusions. The most notable and striking feature of all the love poems, though, is their highly emotional nature and compelling immediacy. It is easy to see that Donne wrote the poems for intimates, as they seem to almost leap off the page as very few poems - much less ones of such vintage - can. Among other things, he was the undisputed master of English dramatic monologues before Robert Browning. Very few writers have written so diversely yet with such consistency about love, and Donne would be a great writer if he wrote nothing else.
Yet he wrote far more. The love poems consist mostly of what became known as his Songs and Sonnets as well as many of the Elegies, but he also used this last to explore other issues, most notably theology. In addition, he wrote a Heroic Epistle in Sappho's voice that was even more audaciously erotic, reveling in things then absolutely unmentionable such as lesbianism, masturbation, and ejaculation. Donne also composed many Epigrams which, though short, show some of his keenest wit. Not least influentially, his several Satires popularized a form that has since led to some of the most enduring English verse. Many of his subjects were then conventional - the court, merchants, lawyers, bad poets, etc. -, but he also used the form to explore the kind of deeper issues, again including theology, that few are willing or able to pursue in the form. Donne's versatility even extended to verse letters, the source for many of his wittiest and most famous lines. He wrote in other miscellaneous genres - from marriage songs to funeral elegies to epitaphs - as well as several translations, all of which are worthy and interesting.
However, love songs aside, Donne's most famous poetic works are his Divine Poems, including the nineteen legendary Holy Sonnets. This may seem strange, even paradoxical, from one who had been such a rake, but when Donne finally settled down, he did it for real - not only marrying and staying faithful to his wife but embracing another kind of faith. He came from a strong Catholic family in a time when Catholicism was literally illegal and caused severe social stigma. He remained with the religion through much adversity but eventually converted to Anglicanism and even became a priest. His life's central pivot, this has long been a contentious biographical debate. Some cynically say he turned to the priesthood only as a last resort, but many - including contemporary and biographer Izaak Walton - claim that, however wild his youth, his conversion was sincere. What is certain is that he quickly rose in the Church, soon becoming Dean of London's St. Paul's Cathedral, and turned into one of the era's most powerful and popular preachers.
But all this is really aftermath, as many - probably even most - of the religious poems precede his priesthood, including the Holy Sonnets. These works' theological reach is remarkable, seemingly exploring nearly every aspect of religion - from theodicy and doubt to eschatology to the proper forms of devotion. Fervent sincerity comes across, but so do deep yearning and genuine questioning; the poems are almost as immediate as those dealing with love. Nor is this the only similarity; just as the love poems had surprising religious imagery - e.g., comparing lovers to saints -, these often use images of love and even eroticism. As this suggests, they are often far from orthodox, and it is possible to see Donne struggling against former ways - not least in the famous poem beginning "Batter my heart, three person'd God." The love for elastic metaphors and subtle wordplay also remains. In short, the poems are compelling enough in both form and content to interest and even enthrall those of any religion.
It need hardly be said that anyone who likes poetry must read Donne. Not all will like him; some will even loathe him, as detractors usually think him one of the most overrated poets - perhaps even the most. However, all must find out for themselves. His quality and diversity are so great that a collected edition is not only ideal but essential - and all the easier in that he was not that prolific, his complete poems coming to about 300 pages. Many complete editions exist, and this is about midrange in terms of price and supplemental material. Unlike many editions, though, it also has much prose. Donne wrote more prose than poetry, practically ceasing the latter after becoming a priest. Though not nearly as revered as his poetry, much of it is excellent, some has even become famous, and almost all is readable. That said, not everyone who likes the poems will like the prose. They certainly share many characteristics, including love of elaborate language, but reactions will vary greatly. Like nearly everyone, I bought this book for the poetry; I had read little of the prose and really did not know what to expect but was pleasantly surprised. The prose has not aged as well as the poems but is almost never dull and often very interesting. As in the poems, there is substantial diversity, but there is more quality variation. Also, though the majority of Donne's prose is here - more than half the book is in fact prose -, not all works are given in full. I thus offer a rundown.
There are more than a dozen extracts, totaling about twenty pages, from the early book Juvenilia; or Certain Paradoxes and Problems. These are light-hearted - really no more than an excuse to exercise wit - and though entertaining and often humorous, are quite minor. Much the same can be said for the handful of pages excerpted from Characters, Essay, and Conceited News.
Far more interesting is Biathanatos, a theological suicide defense written was at Donne's lowest ebb - near-penniless with a growing family. Sadly, practically nothing is included but a few pages of prefaces, which leads one to seek the full work but seems unfairly tantalizing and is above all puzzling.
There is a slightly more substantial excerpt from Pseudo-Martyr, a work written shortly after Donne's conversion and seemingly almost entirely to win King James' much-needed favor. The work is remarkable in that it defends the requirement that Catholics take the Oath of Allegiance - the very Oath Donne had suffered under, even being denied university degrees because of it! It is of great interest biographically as a very public Catholicism renunciation; he could not go back, and it probably made his priesthood inevitable. However, though well...Read more›
Click Here to see more reviews about:
The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne (Modern Library Classics)This Modern Library edition contains all of John Donne's great metaphysical love poetry. Here are such well-known songs and sonnets as "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," "The Extasie," and "A Nocturnall Upon S. Lucies Day," along with the love elegies "Jealosie," "His Parting From Her," and "To His Mistris Going to Bed." Presented as well are Donne's satires, epigrams, verse letters, and holy sonnets, along with his most ambitious and important poems, the Anniversaries. In addition, there is a generous sampling of Donne's prose, including many of his private letters; Ignatius His Conclave, a satiric onslaught on the Jesuits; excerpts from Biathanatos, his celebrated defense of suicide; and his most famous sermons, concluding with the final "Death's Duell." "We have only to read [Donne]," wrote Virginia Woolf, "to submit to the sound of that passionate and penetrating voice, and his figure rises again across the waste of the years more erect, more imperious, more inscrutable than any of his time."
Click here for more information about The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne (Modern Library Classics)
