John Donne's Professional Lives

During his life, John Donne occupied a range of professional positions, in all of which he produced writings considered by his contemporaries to be worthy of interest, collection and annotation. Donne's lifetime also coincided with the period during which the notion of the profession became increasingly significant. This volume makes a strong argument for the importance of Donne's professional writings to our understanding of his oeuvre and of the culture of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. Studying in depth his remarkable use of a wide range of terms and even whole vocabularies - legal, theological, and medical, among others - it shows how Donne moulded his identity as a professional intellectual with the languages that were at hand. A tightly focussed series of essays by scholars of international reputation and younger experts in the field, John Donne's Professional Lives contains new discoveries and fresh interpretations. It offers a revisionist interpretation of Donne's career and makes a polemical case for studying the full range of his writings.Contributors: JAMES CANNON, DAVID CUNNINGTON, LOUIS A. KNAFLA, PETER MCCULLOUGH, JESSICA MARTIN, JEREMY MAULE, MARY MORRISSEY, STEPHEN PENDER, JEANNE SHAMI, ALISON SHELL, JOHANN P. SOMMERVILLE.DAVID COLCLOUGH is a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London.

Reviews

This is an intriguing collection of essays, lucidly introduced by David Colclough. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW

Details

First Published: 01 May 2003
13 Digit ISBN: 9780859917759
Pages: 286
Size: 23.4 x 15.6
Binding: Hardback
Imprint: D.S.Brewer
Series: Studies in Renaissance Literature
Subject: English & American Literature
BIC Class: DS

Details updated on 04 Feb 2012

Contents

• 1  Introduction
• 2  Donne and the words of the law
• 3  Mr Secretary Donne: the years with Sir Thomas Egerton
• 4  John Donne the controversialist: the poet as political thinker
• 5  The profession of friendship in Donne's amatory verse letters
• 6  Donne and Sir Edward Hoby: Evidence for an unrecorded collaboration
• 7  Labels, controversy, and the language of inclusion in Donne's Sermons
• 8  Donne as a conventional Paul's Cross preacher
• 9  Donne as preacher at Court: precarious 'Inthronization'
• 10  Reverent Donne: The Double Quickening of Lincoln's Inn Chapel
• 11  Essaying the Body: Donne, affliction, and medicine
• 12  Izaak Walton and the 'Re-inanimation' of Dr Donne