Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61717 in Books
• Published on: 1976-10-28
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 688 pages

Synopsis
No poet has been more wilfully contradictory than John Donne, whose works forge unforgettable connections between extremes of passion and mental energy. From satire to tender elegy, from sacred devotion to lust, he conveys an astonishing range of emotions and poetic moods. Constant in his work, however, is an intensity of feeling and expression and complexity of argument that is as evident in religious meditations such as 'Good Friday 1613. Riding Westward' as it is in secular love poems such as 'The Sun Rising' or 'The Flea'. 'The intricacy and subtlety of his imagination are the length and depth of the furrow made by his passion,' wrote Yeats, pinpointing the unique genius of a poet who combined ardour and intellect in equal measure.

Customer Reviews

Good poetry, mediocre edition
The Poetry of John Donne - yes, yes, yes. I can't get enough of it.

Producing an edition of Donne is, however, a rather more difficult task than the platonist critic tends to believe; though first printed in 1633 (I think), these poem circulated widely in manuscript form before they were ever set in the press. Donne never saw his works printed - so how can we be sure of what is the most "authoritative text"? we can't, not really, and perhaps Randall McLeod's forthcoming edition of "On his Mistress Going to Bed" - a typeset version of the poem, plus 68 manuscript facsimiles - indicates this better than anything else.

Get Donne, but don't get this edition, which consistently favours the printed text, forcing the MS variations into the footnotes. I'm not sure what to reccomend in its place, unfortunately, but I imagine the Norton critical text wouldn't be too bad.

The difficult with producing an edition of Donne is the ori

NB that I am referring to the AJ Smith edition of Donne's poetry, first published 1976.