John Donne in Context Literature in Context Series

John Donne was a writer of dazzling extremes. He was a notorious rake and eloquent preacher; he wrote poems of tender intimacy, and lyrics of gross misogyny. This book offers a comprehensive account of early modern life and culture as it relates to Donne's richly varied body of work. Short, lively, and accessible chapters written by leading experts in early modern studies shed light on Donne's literary career, language and works as well as exploring the social and intellectual contexts of his writing and its reception from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. These chapters provide the depth of interpretation that Donne demands, and the range of knowledge that his prodigiously learned works elicit. Supported by a chronology of Donne's life and works and a comprehensive bibliography, this volume is a major new contribution to the study and criticism on the age of Donne and his writing.

List of illustrations; Notes on contributors; Chronology Kentston Bauman; Abbreviations; Introduction Michael Schoenfeldt; 1. Donne's literary career Patrick Cheney; 2. Donne's texts and materials Piers Brown; 3. Donne and print Katherine Rundell; 4. Language Douglas Trevor; 5. Donne's poetics of obstruction Kimberly Johnson; 6. Elegies and satires Melissa E. Sanchez; 7. The unity of the Songs and Sonnets Richard Strier; 8. Divine poems David Marno; 9. Letters James Daybell; 10. Orality and performance Ilona Bell; 11. Reading and interpretation Katrin Ettenhuber; 12. Education Adrew Wallace; 13. Law Gregory Kneidel; 14. Donne's prisons Molly Murray; 15. Donne and the natural world Rebecca Bushnell; 16. Money David Landreth; 17. Sexuality Catherine Bates; 18. Donne and the passions Christopher Tilmouth; 19. Pain Joseph Campana; 20. Medicine Stephen Pender; 21. Science, alchemy, and the new philosophy Margaret Healy; 22. Donne and skepticism Anita Gilman Sherman; 23. The metaphysics of the metaphysicals Gordon Teskey; 24. Controversial prose Andrew Hadfield; 25. Devotional prose Brooke Conti; 26. The sermons Lori Anne Ferrell; 27. The self Nancy Selleck; 28. Portraits Sarah Howe; 29. Donne in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Nicholas D. Nace; 30. Donne in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries James Longenbach; 31. Donne in the twenty-first century: thinking feeling Linda Gregerson; Further reading; Index.

Michael Schoenfeldt is John R. Knott, Jr Collegiate Professor of English at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His previous publications include Bodies and Selves in Early Modern England: Physiology and Inwardness in Spenser, Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton (Cambridge, 2000), and The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's Poetry (Cambridge, 2010); and as editor, A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets (2006).