Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #109422 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-07
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Jonathan Bate, Sunday Telegraph
`One of the best literary biographies I have ever read'

Daily Telegraph
`Magnificent . . . remarkable'

Andrew Motion, Guardian
`Highly readable, dashing as well as detailed'

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable with some reservations
This is a well-researched and enjoyable book. I am glad to have it as Donne is my favourite poet. However, I will agree with the other reviewers that Stubbs seems to speculate a little too much; for example a detailed description of crossing the Alps in Donne's lifetime without clear evidence that Donne travelled this way. Couldn't he have sailed to Italy? But that is very minor in the context of the whole. Essential for anyone with an interest in English literature and also useful if you are interested in the origins of the English Civil War.

Plus ca change
Please, please read this book. It describes Donne's long journey from a catholic childhood to Dean of St Pauls.It shows the fragility of human life at the time but more importantly it demonstates the true value of history.

For Muslims in the early twenty first century read Roman Catholics in the early seventeenth. The extremes of both religions saw loyalty to their country as subordinate to their faith. Donne warns against the extremist Catholics who were prepared to sacrifice young mens' lives to advance thier faith -- his brother Henry died in prions having been caught up in a plot -- and counsels that nuances in religion were not worth the loss of a single life. He urges the Catholics to reconsider the more fossilised elements of their religion in the light of the changed and changing times. Who said history cannot teach us anything?

The only downside of the book is that it was written by a thirty year old!! As someone in their mid sixties, I wonder what I have done with my life!!

Donne

John Stubbs's book on Donne, is a superb picture of a world which seems so distant from our own, and yet isn't that different. For the torture and killing by religious fanatics, seems to be so contemporary. In the 16 and 17 century it was Catholics, who were being slaughtered for their religious beliefs. Today it is Christians and Muslims.

John Stubbs brings all of his historical skills to bear when he describes how Donne as a Roman Catholic, was forced to reconcile himself to the new Protestant religion in order to advance at court. He is particularly good on Donne's clandestine marriage, and how this affected his life.

Secondly he also makes much of the seedy underbelly of 16 century London, the vice and the squalor. How many people for example would have known that just outside the Inns of Court lay London's red light zone?

It's this attention to detail that makes this books such a fascinating read. If you only ever read one book on Donne, read this