Abstract
This encyclopedia entry provides information about the life, heritage and rupture with tradition, and innovative and original aspects of metaphysical poet John Donne. Its purpose is to inform readers of how Donne, a Roman Catholic living in a time when his religion was considered “illegal,” used his poetry to express how he attempted to live justly in an unjust society. While only his later works explicitly discuss the topic of religion, references and allusions to religion can be found even in his love poems. His belief in God was central to who he was as a person, and his fear of being persecuted for worshipping the same God, but in the outlawed branch of Christianity, permeated through this writing.
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References
Eckhardt, Joshua. 2019. Religion around John Donne. University Park: Penn State University Press.
Schoenfeldt, Michael Carl, ed. 2019. John Donne in context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Primary Literature
Donne, John. 2007. John Donne’s poetry: Authoritative texts, criticism. Edited by Donald R. Dickson. New York: W. W. Norton.
Donne, John. 2015. John Donne. Edited by Janel M. Mueller. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Secondary Literature
Crowley, Lara M. 2018. Manuscript matters: Reading John Donne’s poetry and prose in early modern England. New York: Oxford University Press.
Papazian, Mary Arshagouni, ed. 2003. John Donne and the Protestant Reformation: New perspectives. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Stubbs, John. 2007. John Donne: The reformed soul. New York: W. W. Norton.
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Craft, P. (2020). Donne, John. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1152-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1152-1
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