John Donne

Description

This volume in the 21st Century Oxford Authors series offers students an authoritative, comprehensive selection of the work of John Donne (1572-1631). The edition presents Donne's texts in chronological order, and includes an Introduction, Chronology, and full commentary notes.

• Introduces students to the life and work of John Donne, the great English poet
• Donne's work is presented in chronological order, allowing students to study his development and growth as a poet
• Includes a separate Chronology at the opening of the volume, which provides details of Donne's life, and the composition and publication of his works
• The poems and writings are presented free of annotation on the page, allowing students to encounter the original texts afresh
• Explanatory notes and commentary are located at the end of the book, providing students with a wealth of additional material and information that will enhance the understanding and enjoyment of these works
• An essential teaching resource, representing Donne's work in all its variety

About the Author(s)

Edited by Janel Mueller, William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor Emerita, The University of Chicago

Janel Mueller is the William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor Emerita, Department of English and the College, The University of Chicago. She is the former editor of Modern Philology and the former dean of the Division of the Humanities at Chicago. She has published on a range of subjects in English Reformation and Renaissance literature, focusing particularly on the writings of Elizabeth I and Katherine Parr.

Table of Contents

Introduction
A Note on Editorial Practices
A Selective Chronology of Donne's Life
FROM THE WESTMORELAND MANUSCRIPT, PRE-1599 COMPOSITIONS
Satires (Satyra)
Elegies (Elegia)
Epithalamium
Verse Letters to Male Friends
Paradoxes
Epigrams
To a Jet ring sent to me
FROM THE BURLEY MANUSCRIPT, LETTERS CONCERNING HIS MARRIAGE (1602)
THE FIRST AND SECOND ANNIVERSARIES (FIRST EDITION, 1612)
To the Praise of the Dead, and the Anatomy
The First Anniversary. An Anatomie of the World
A Funerall Elegie
The Harbinger to the Progres
The Second Anniversarie. Of the Progres of the Soule
FROM THE DOWDEN MANUSCRIPT, POEMS COMPOSED BEFORE THE END OF 1614
Elegies
The Calme
Verse Letters to Male Friends
Verse Letters to Noble Ladies
La Corona
Holy Sonnets
The Crosse
The Annuntiation
The Litanye
Goodfriday. 1613. Riding towards Wales
Songs and Sonnets
An Epithalamion or Maryage Song, on the Lady Elisabeth, and Frederick Count
Palatine, beeing maryed on Saint Valentines day
Eclogue. 1613. December 26
Epithalamion
Obsequies to the Lord Harrington, Brother to the Countesse of Bedford
FROM THE WESTMORELAND MANUSCRIPT, RELIGIOUS LYRICS (1607-1620)
DEVOTIONS UPON EMERGENT OCCASIONS (FIRST EDITION, 1624)

Reviews

"Janel Mueller's excellent edition is at once an accessible opening up of Donne's verse and prose for the modern reader, and a rich exploration of the material forms in which Donne's writing originally circulated. Mueller's generous notes, and a lightly modernised text, help readers with questions of genre, historical context, and biography, while facsimiles of manuscripts and printed editions, and discussions of early readers and later editorial responses, convey some of the latest research on the history of reading and of the material text." - Adam Smyth, Balliol College, Oxford

"The textual histories of Donne's writings are as complex and paradoxical as his famous verse. Here Janel Mueller presents for the first time, in a format accessible to students, the rich experience of encountering Donne not in texts conflated by modern scholars, but as his first admirers did in early print editions and bespoke manuscript collections. Impeccably edited and annotated, this is a must-have for any student of Donne. " - Peter McCullough, Lincoln College, Oxford