The Companion to John Donne

The Companion to John Donne introduces students (undergraduate and graduate) to the range, brilliance, and complexity of John Donne. Sixteen new essays, written by an international array of leading scholars and critics, cover Donne's poetry and his prose (including his Sermons and occasional letters). Providing readings of his texts and also fully situating them in the historical and cultural context of early modern England, these essays offer the most up-to-date scholarship and introduce students to the current thinking and debates about Donne, while providing tools for students to read Donne with greater understanding and enjoyment.

Features

-The first comprehensive companion to Donne's writings

- Covers multiple perspectives, including scholarship by historians

- Includes a meditation on Donne by the contemporary novelist A. S. Byatt

Chronology

1. Donne's life: a sketch Jonathan F. S. Post
2. The text of Donne's writings Ted-Larry Pebworth
3. The social context and nature of Donne's writing: occasional verse and letters Arthur F. Marotti
4. Literary contexts: predecessors and contemporaries Andrew Hadfield
5. Donne's religious world Alison Shell and Arnold Hunt
6. Donne's political world Tom Cain
7. Reading and rereading Donne's poetry Judith Herz
8. Satirical writing: Donne in shadows Annabel Patterson
9. Erotic poetry Achsah Guibbory
10. Devotional writing Helen Wilcox
11. Donne as preacher Peter McCullough
12. Donne's language: the conditions of communication Lynne Magnusson
13. Gender matters: the women in Donne's poems Ilona Bell
14. Facing death Ramie Targoff
15. Donne's afterlife Dayton Haskin
16. Feeling thought: Donne and the embodied mind A. S. Byatt
17. Select bibliography L. E. Semler