Letters to Severall Persons of Honour (1651)


Book Description

Contains 128 letters written by Donne between 1600 & 1631, collected & published by his son in 1651, illustrating Donne's character, his relationships with his family, his flattery of his patrons, his religious attitudes, his views of current happenings, & his increasing involvement in public affairs.










The Sermons of John Donne


Book Description




English literary afterlives


Book Description

English Literary Afterlives traces life narratives of early modern authors created for them after their deaths by readers or publishers, who retrospectively tried to make sense of the author’s life and works. In a series of case-studies of the reception history of major poets – Sidney, Spenser, Donne, Herbert, as well as Robert Greene, the first ‘celebrity author’ – within a generation of their deaths, it shows how those authors were posthumously fashioned and refashioned. It argues that during the early modern period there is a gradual movement towards biographical readings that attempt to find the author in the works, which in turn led to the emergence of written lives that consider poets not in terms of their ‘public’ lives but in terms of their poetic activity, i.e. the beginnings of literary biography. Will be of interest to students and scholars of several canonical early modern authors.




A Dictionary of Writers and their Works


Book Description

Over 3,200 entries An essential guide to authors and their works that focuses on the general canon of British literature from the fifteenth century to the present. There is also some coverage of non-fiction such as biographies, memoirs, and science, as well as inclusion of major American and Commonwealth writers. This online-exclusive new edition adds 60,000 new words, including over 50 new entries dealing with authors who have risen to prominence in the last five years, as well as fully updating the entries that currently exist. Each entry provides details of a writer's nationality and birth/death dates, followed by a listing of their titles arranged chronologically by date of publication.




The Disinterred Muse


Book Description

In 1614, just prior to his ordination, John Donne renounced the writing of verse. He was well aware of the widespread opinion that rhyming was an inappropriate avocation for a man of the cloth. Yet, on certain occasions, Donne did write poetry again. In this group of five closely related essays, David Novarr takes a new look at Donne's poems—both secular and divine—written before and after his ordination. He reassesses the validity and utility of widely accepted critical contexts which define our understanding of particular poems, and proposes fresh approaches and interpretations. Novarr's knowledge of Donne's life, his critical insight, and his attention to the details of Donne's texts—all join to make The Disinterred Muse a major contribution to our understanding of Donne and his art.




Poetry and Paternity in Renaissance England


Book Description

Becoming a father was the main way that an individual in the English Renaissance could be treated as a full member of the community. Yet patriarchal identity was by no means as secure as is often assumed: when poets invoke the idea of paternity in love poetry and other forms, they are therefore invoking all the anxieties that a culture with contradictory notions of sexuality imposed. This study takes these anxieties seriously, arguing that writers such as Sidney and Spenser deployed images of childbirth to harmonize public and private spheres, to develop a full sense of selfhood in their verse, and even to come to new accommodations between the sexes. Shakespeare, Donne and Jonson, in turn, saw the appeal of the older poets' aims, but resisted their more radical implications. The result is a fiercely personal yet publicly-committed poetry that wouldn't be seen again until the time of the Romantics.




The Culture of Epistolarity


Book Description

This book is an extensive investigation of letters and letter writing across two centuries, focusing on the sociocultural function and meaning of epistolary writing - letters that were circulated, were intended to circulate, or were perceived to circulate within the culture of epistolarity in early modern England. The study examines how the letter functioned in a variety of social contexts, yet also assesses what the letter meant as idea to early modern letter writers, investigating letters in both manuscript and print contexts. It begins with an overview of the culture of epistolarity, examines the material components of letter exchange, investigates how emotion was persuasively textualized in the letter, considers the transmission of news and intelligence, and examines the publication of letters as propaganda and as collections of moral-didactic, personal, and state letters. Gary Schneider is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Texas-Pan American.




The Material Letter in Early Modern England


Book Description

The first major socio-cultural study of manuscript letters and letter-writing practices in early modern England. Daybell examines a crucial period in the development of the English vernacular letter before Charles I's postal reforms in 1635, one that witnessed a significant extension of letter-writing skills throughout society.