Donne's Augustine
Renaissance Cultures of Interpretation
Katrin Ettenhuber
Reviews and Awards
"This excellent study is the first sustained effort "to read Donne's reading of Augustine"; it will prove illuminating for anyone--including critics and historians--concerned with 16th- and 17th-century intellectual culture...Including a full bibliography, this is a necessary resource for institutions where Donne's prose is taught...Essential." --Choice
"Not only a magisterial examination of John Donne's reception and use of Augustine, but also a magisterial examination of his exegetical and hermeneutic practices...One simply cannot say enough about what Ettenhuber has achieved in Donne's Augustine. It is a clearly organized narrative on Donne's growing relationship with one of the most important voices in the whole of Western civilization, but it is so much more...Ettenhuber invites us into the mind of a man who also clearly believed in a spiritual dimension to his being that rested beyond the scope of the mind. Donne's Augustine is acutely aware of that dimension of Donne's life, and with profound scholarly and critical insight, Ettenhuber brings her readers to that part of Donne's life by showing how his love for Augustine reaffirmed the spirit while sharpening the mind. For these reasons, and many more, Donne's Augustine will play a central role in Donne scholarship for decades to come." --Seventeenth-Century News
"Displays an admirable knowledge of Donne's religious prose, of many of hte works of St. Augustine, and of the relationship between the two authors...Ettenhuber has provided a valuable survey of Donne's debt to and interest in St. Augustine." --John Donne Journal
"A triumph of careful and creative scholarship and an exemplary, desk-level account of how Donne and his contemporaries read, thought, and wrote." --Modern Philology