Издания и произведения

Donne created new forms of lyric, satire, elegiac and religious verse, and his independence of view, compact manner of expression encompassing conflicting moods, impassioned paradox, outbreaks of cynicism and wry humour make his work particularly appealing to the twentieth-century mind. His poetry reflects every stage of his development from the piratical Jack Donne who sailed with Ralegh against the Spaniards and spent riotous nights in the London streets, to the penitent John Donne who became Dean of St Paul’s and the most celebrated preacher of his age. This edition, compiled and introduced by C. A. Patrides, is recognized as the…

Yet it is only this century that Donne has been indisputably established as a great poet—and even, many feel, the greatest love poet of them all. Jonson went on to remark that ‘That Donne, for not keeping of an accent, deserved hanging’, yet Donne’s rhythms, once thought ‘unmusical’ are now recognized as the natural rhythms of the speaking voice; his ‘eccentricity’ as a complex self-doubt; his ‘obscurity’ the reflection of a brilliantly learned and allusive mind. Poets such as Eliot and Empson have found Donne’s poetry profoundly attuned to our modern age, while Yeats’ glowing comment will always be true: ‘the intricacy and subtlety of his…