New Releases by John Donne

Reproduction of the original: Devotions by John Donne

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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

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.

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.

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."

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.

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

A scholarly edition of works by John Donne. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

John Donne published Pseudo-Martyr in 1610, at a moment of extreme political tension between London and Rome. It was an attempt to convince English Roman Catholics that they could remain loyal to the spiritual authority of Rome and still take the oath of allegiance to the British Crown and avoid persecution. Donne, brought up as a Catholic and trained as a lawyer, argued his case by appealing to precedents from the body of canon and civil law in existence since the beginning of Christian civilization. Pseudo-Martyr is thus a vast survey of relations between church and state from the days of the early church to 1600. Donne also drew detailed historical parallels between crises in medieval and contemporary times and the particular dilemma of Catholics in England to prove that a compromise of loyalties was possible and acceptable.

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, together with Death''s Duel, by John Donne, is a profound collection of meditations and sermons that reflect on the human condition, mortality, and spirituality. Written during a severe illness in 1623, the Devotions are a series of reflections that combine personal anguish with deep theological insights, exploring themes of suffering, divine intervention, and redemption. Death''s Duel, often considered Donne''s final sermon before his death, serves as a poignant and eloquent meditation on the inevitability of death and the promise of eternal life. Together, these works encapsulate Donne''s masterful blending of personal experience with universal spiritual truths, offering readers a timeless contemplation of life, faith, and death.

The Sermons of John Donne, edited by George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson, Volume IV, marks Donne''s establishment as Dean of St. Paul''s and his full entry into the central arena of London''s ecclesiastical and civic life. Preaching now in "Old St. Paul''s," Donne found himself at the heart of England''s capital, addressing not only cathedral congregations but also civic gatherings, court audiences, and public assemblies at Paul''s Cross and the Spittle. The sermons of this volume vividly reflect both the ceremonial rhythm of the Church''s year—Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and Candlemas—and the political turbulence of the 1620s, when the Palatinate crisis, the Spanish marriage negotiations, and King James''s censorship of preaching weighed heavily on the national conscience. Donne''s texts range widely: meditations on Christ as Light and Resurrection, urgent admonitions against Roman "idolatry," defenses of the Crown''s Directions to Preachers, and visionary reflections on England''s colonial project in Virginia. In all, Donne combined theological subtlety with a preacher''s responsiveness to the immediate anxieties of Londoners, who listened to him as both spiritual guide and national voice. The volume also reveals Donne''s deepening imaginative grasp of London itself as symbol and stage. His sermons abound in images drawn from the city''s commerce, courts, and river: ships weathering storms, coins newly minted in Christ''s image, and the Thames as both highway and metaphor of spiritual passage. Donne''s appointment as Dean required him to preach at the great festivals, and his Christmas sermons on John''s Gospel and Easter discourses on resurrection are among his most exalted works, uniting scholastic argument with lyrical metaphor. Yet the same volume includes "sermons upon emergent occasions," crafted to defend the Crown or to rally civic support for church repair or colonial enterprise. Such occasional pieces show Donne negotiating the perils of preaching under James I, balancing fidelity to doctrine with political caution. Together, these sermons embody Donne''s genius for transforming the contingencies of London and the crises of Europe into moments of spiritual encounter, and they establish his voice as the conscience of the city and the Church. This title is part of UC Press''s Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press''s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1959. Many titles in the Voices Revived program are also newly available as ebooks, offered at a discounted price to support wider access to scholarly work.