This study argues that there is an essential unity to John Donne's poems and sermons. Chapter One is a survey of Donne criticism: Ilona Bell suggests Donne "seeks communion, but is continually prepared to recognize disjunction." It is argued that Bell's notion is validated in both genres where Donne renders concrete a movement of thought or emotion through figurative language. Chapter Two examines how the sermons move between the literal sense of scripture, and its multiform spiritual significance. Chapter Three examines the writerly tradition of the Church Fathers in relation to some of Donne's poetry. Augustine read the bible as a unified entity, The Word, and yet understood it through manifold meanings. Donne writes of the union of lovers' souls, yet weaves in the theme of inconstancy and separation. In sum, this study discusses how Donne's creation of figurative meaning produces both his literary intensity, and some parallels of spiritual discovery in his poems and sermons.

Thesis (Ph.D) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

No description available.

Criticism on Donne???s Holy Sonnets has traditionally been concerned with trying to find an explanation for the doubt, anxiety, and despair that is often expressed by the speaker of those poems. In recent decades, critics have increasingly made recourse to Calvinist theology in an effort to explain these melancholy states of mind. The accounts that such critics provide of ???Calvinism,??? however, have been varied and largely inadequate, mainly because they fail to engage with Calvin???s work at the level it requires. My thesis seeks to correct such deficiencies by providing a detailed reading of Calvin???s view on salvation and the way in which it is received. Calvin argues that we obtain salvation through a firm and certain faith, a faith that is nevertheless attacked by the unbelief that still resides in the believer. In other words, there is a division between the flesh and the spirit within the soul of the believer, which means that he or she is never free (until death) from the sinful temptations of this life. This division, which Calvin invokes to reconcile the uncertainties of the Christian life with the assurance of faith, is dramatised in the Holy Sonnets. In the five poems that I analyse, the speaker is torn between a desire for righteousness and an inclination toward evil, a division that is also represented in the structural qualities of the text. The various temptations which the speaker registers and confronts (and often falls to) are, I believe, a demonstration of Calvin???s view that the regenerate person is in continuous warfare against the remnants of the flesh.

Thesis Ph. D.--Comparative literature--Edmonton--University of Alberta, 2004. / Bibliogr. p. 165-170.

No description available.

This thesis traces a stylistic development from the dichotomy of plainness and eloquence in Elizabethan style, through the stylistic innovations of Ben Jonson and John Donne to the ultimate synthesis of the two styles in George Herbert's poetry. To accomplish this, the thesis reads a selection of their works closely, paying particular attention to the effects of style on the reader's reception of a poem's content. A progression is observed, in which Jonson demonstrates that ornamental language does not necessarily obscure truth; Donne uses that eloquence for didactic purposes, to illuminate paradoxical truth; and Herbert enlists delightful language within a plain style in his effort to communicate persuasively in his devotional lyrics. Thus the development of the “metaphysical” style is read not as an adoption of classical or continental style, but as a response to the problems of style inherited from the Elizabethan dichotomy between plainness and eloquence.

Criticism on Donne???s Holy Sonnets has traditionally been concerned with trying to find an explanation for the doubt, anxiety, and despair that is often expressed by the speaker of those poems. In recent decades, critics have increasingly made recourse to Calvinist theology in an effort to explain these melancholy states of mind. The accounts that such critics provide of ???Calvinism,??? however, have been varied and largely inadequate, mainly because they fail to engage with Calvin???s work at the level it requires. My thesis seeks to correct such deficiencies by providing a detailed reading of Calvin???s view on salvation and the way in which it is received. Calvin argues that we obtain salvation through a firm and certain faith, a faith that is nevertheless attacked by the unbelief that still resides in the believer. In other words, there is a division between the flesh and the spirit within the soul of the believer, which means that he or she is never free (until death) from the sinful temptations of this life. This division, which Calvin invokes to reconcile the uncertainties of the Christian life with the assurance of faith, is dramatised in the Holy Sonnets. In the five poems that I analyse, the speaker is torn between a desire for righteousness and an inclination toward evil, a division that is also represented in the structural qualities of the text. The various temptations which the speaker registers and confronts (and often falls to) are, I believe, a demonstration of Calvin???s view that the regenerate person is in continuous warfare against the remnants of the flesh.

"Submitted to the University of Oxford for the degree of bachelor of letters".--Pref.

Dissertation (D.M.A.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Aug. 12, 2009). Directed by Welborn Young; submitted to the School of Music. Includes bibliographical references (p. 84-87).