Most Popular Books by John Donne

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 edition collects the most significant poems of John Donne, a major figure of the English Renaissance. The collection includes Holy Sonnets, Songs and Sonnets, and other miscellaneous works. The poems are accompanied by a memoir of Donne''s life written by his friend Izaak Walton. Overall, it is a definitive introduction to one of the most influential poets of his time. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

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 1954.

John Donne''s poems on heavenly and earthly love, delight and despair, beauty and betrayal, are rightly regarded as one of the glories of European civilisation, something every school child (and child of every age) should know