Best Selling Books by John Donne

This authoritative edition was formerly published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Donne''s poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by rarely published letters and extracts from Donne''ssermons - to give the essence of his work and thinking. John Donne (1572-1631) is today celebrated as one of the greatest of the metaphysical poets, whose verse was daringly original and whose use of imagery and conceits marked a new, intellectual approach to poetry. His Satires, Elegies, and Songs and Sonnets, which contain his most famous love poems,were complemented by his religious writing, both verse and prose. He was one of the most renowned preachers of his day, and this volume does equal justice to the full range of his work. In addition to nearly all his English poetry this volume includes over 130 extracts from Donne''s sermons, aswell as the full text of his last sermon, ''Death''s Duel''. A distinguishing feature of the selection is that the works are arranged in the chronological order of their composition.

John Donne (1572-1631) is perhaps the most important poet of the seventeenth century. In his day it seemed to his admirers that Donne had changed the literary universe, and he is now widely regarded as the founder of the metaphysical `school''. Donne''s poetry is highly distinctive and individual, adopting a multitude of rhythms, images, forms, and personae, from irresistible seducer to devout believer. His greatness stems from the subtleties and ambivalences of tone that convey his remarkably modern awareness of the instability of the self. This collection of Donne''s verse is chosen from the Oxford Authors critical edition of his major works. It includes a wide selection from his secular and divine poems, such as the rebellious and libertine satires and love elegies, the virtuoso Songs and Sonnets, and the desperate, passionate Holy Sonnets. John Carey''s introduction and extensive notes provide valuable insights into Donne''s poetic genius.

John Donne''s poetry is marked by a scientific colloquial directness and a complex, even tortured, intelligence. It falls into two classes. There is the early ironic and erotic poetry that contains some of the finest English love poetry and also his later, religious poetry.

This Modern Library edition contains all of John Donne''s great metaphysical love poetry. Here are such well-known songs and sonnets as "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," "The Extasie," and "A Nocturnall Upon S. Lucies Day," along with the love elegies "Jealosie," "His Parting From Her," and "To His Mistris Going to Bed." Presented as well are Donne''s satires, epigrams, verse letters, and holy sonnets, along with his most ambitious and important poems, the Anniversaries. In addition, there is a generous sampling of Donne''s prose, including many of his private letters; Ignatius His Conclave, a satiric onslaught on the Jesuits; excerpts from Biathanatos, his celebrated defense of suicide; and his most famous sermons, concluding with the final "Death''s Duell." "We have only to read [Donne]," wrote Virginia Woolf, "to submit to the sound of that passionate and penetrating voice, and his figure rises again across the waste of the years more erect, more imperious, more inscrutable than any of his time."

John Donne was an English poet and cleric in the Church of England. Donne''s poetry, which included sonnets, elegies, religious and love poems, is noted for its sensual style. Donne is often considered the greatest of the metaphysical poets. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions is a book of prose that discusses topics such as death, rebirth, and sin.

Regarded by many as the greatest of the Metaphysical poets, John Donne (1572-1631) was also among the most intriguing figures of the Elizabethan age. A sensualist who composed erotic and playful love poetry in his youth, he was raised a Catholic but later became one of the most admired Protestant preachers of his time. The Selected Poems reflects this wide diversity, and includes his youthful Songs and Sonnets, epigrams, elegies, letters, satires, and the profoundly moving Divine Poems composed towards the end of his life. From joyful poems such as ''The Flea'', which transforms the image of a louse into something marvellous, to the intimate and intense Holy Sonnets, Donne breathed new vigour into poetry by drawing lucid and often startling metaphors from the world in which he lived. His poems remain among the most passionate, profound and spiritual in the English language.

There may be no finer edition of Donne''s Songs and Sonets than Redpath''s annotated volume. Out of print for a decade, it is reprinted here in its second, revised edition. The book''s twofold origin is evident on every page of commentary: it arises partly from a life of scholarship and partly from Redpath''s experiences as a teacher.

This classic edition of Donne''s Divine Poems contains an extensive and invaluable critical apparatus by Helen Gardner.

"Based on an exhaustive study of the manuscript and print history of Donne''s poetry, this edition presents newly edited critical texts of the poems and a comprehensive digest of the critical-scholarly commentary on them from Donne''s time forward. Textual introductions briefly locate the poems in the context of Donne''s life or poetic development, outline the 17th-century textual history of the poems, and sketch the treatment of the text by modern editors. A detailed textual apparatus presents variants collated from many sources and traces the lines of textual transmission"--Provided by publisher.

This volume of John Donne''s writings begins with a biography of John Donne''s life, as told by Donne''s writer friend, Izaak Walton. Walton gives readers a close look at Donne''s past, which was plagued with the loss of many close family members. This biographical information helps readers to make better sense of the somber devotions contained in this volume. In his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, Donne concentrates on the miserable condition of man and the inevitability of death. The devotions are all structured the same, each beginning with a meditation followed by an expostulation and a prayer. These devotions serve as a preview for Donne''s "Death''s Duel Sermon," written near his death in 1631 as his funeral sermon. While "Death''s Duel" paints a grave picture of earthly life tormented by pain and death, it hopes for a bright future in God''s love through Christ''s resurrection and ascension. -Emmalon Davis, CCEL Staff Writer

Reprint of the original, first published in 1839.

JOHN DONNE: SELECTED POEMS A selection of the finest poems by British poet John Donne. John Donne was, Robert Graves said, a Muse poet, a poet who wrote passionately of the Muse. It is easy to see Donne as a love poet, in the tradition of love poets such as Bernard de Ventadour, Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarch and Torquato Tasso. Donne has written his fair share of love poems. There are the bawdy allusions to the phallus in The Flea, while The Comparison parodies the adoration poem, with references to the sweat drops of my mistress breast . Like William Shakespeare in his parody sonnet my mistress eyes are nothing like the sun, Donne sends up the Petrarchan and courtly love genre with gross comparisons ( Like spermatic issue of ripe menstruous boils ). In The Bait, there is the archetypal Renaissance opening line Come live with me, and be my love, as used by Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, among others. And there is the complex, ambivalent eroticism of The Extasie, a much celebrated love poem, and the 19th Elegy, where features Donne s famous couplet: Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below. The Songs and Sonnets of John Donne celebrate the many emotions of love, feelings that are so familiar in love poetry from Sappho to Adrienne Rich. Donne does not quite cover every emotion of love, but a good deal of them. In The Canonization, we find the age-old Neo-platonic belief that two can become as one ( we two being one, or we shall/ Be one, he writes in Lovers Infiniteness ), a common belief in love poetry. John Donne s love poetry, like (nearly) all love poetry, self-reflexive. Although he would ne er parted be, as he writes in Song: Sweetest love, I do not go, he knows that love poetry comes out of loss. The beloved woman is not there, so art takes her place. The Songs and Sonnets arise from loss, loss of love; they take the place of love. For, if he were clasping his beloved in those feverish embraces as described in The Extasie and Elegy, he would not, obviously, bother with poetry. Love poetry has this ambivalent, difficult relationship with love. The poem is not love, and is no real substitute for it. And writing of love exacerbates the pain and the insecurity of the experience of love. "

In this new edition of Donne''s Essayes in Divinity Anthony Raspa demonstrates how Donne reconciles the destiny of Christians, who arose out of divine creation, with the turbulent state of the Renaissance world. Raspa argues that the purpose of Donne''s work is to explain how Genesis and Exodus capture the essence of existence for a person who must deal with life as both an individual and a member of a community. Completed late in 1614, Essayes, Donne''s only theological and philosophical treatise, casts considerable light on his ideas about his own future. Donne entered the Anglican priesthood soon after completing it and Raspa reveals that, particularly because of its treatment of time and destiny, Essayes is crucial to our understanding of the development of Donne''s ideas about the turbulent religio-political state of the Renaissance world and how he came to see his own life within it. Raspa contends that Essayes is a peculiarly modern work and that Donne, as a Renaissance humanist, was profoundly shaken by the development of empirical thinking and the seemingly endless political conflicts among Christian denominations. He shows that Donne drew on the entirety of Renaissance humanist learning in an attempt to reconcile the state of contemporary knowledge with the destiny of humanity prophesied in the bible.

In addition to the writer''s 1624 collection of meditations, debates with God, and prayers on the human condition-particularly earthly physical sickness and health-this volume contains the 1631 work "Death''s Duel," a sermon said to be his own funeral oration, which he preached shortly before his own death. Readers of 17th-century literature, religious devotionals, and ponderers of human mortality are sure to find something profound in this fascinating, famous work. British metaphysical poet JOHN DONNE (1572-1631), renowned for his satires on English society, wrote this prose work in the latter part of his life, after he became an Anglican priest.

John Donne (1572-1631) was an English Jacobean poet, preacher and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works are notable for their realistic and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially as compared to those of his contemporaries. It suggests a healthy appetite for life and its pleasures, while also expressing deep emotion. He did this through the use of conceits, wit and intellect - as seen in the poems The Sunne Rising and Batter My Heart. Some scholars believe that Donne''s literary works reflect the changing trends of his life, with love poetry and satires from his youth and religious sermons during his later years. Despite his great education and poetic talents he lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. In 1615 he became an Anglican priest and, in 1621, was appointed the Dean of St Paul''s Cathedral in London.