John Donne
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the extraordinary life and work of one of England's finest love poets and, as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, most remarkable preachers.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Donne (1573-1631), known now as one of England鈥檚 finest poets of love and notable in his own time as an astonishing preacher. He was born a Catholic in a Protestant country and, when he married Anne More without her father's knowledge, Donne lost his job in the government circle and fell into a poverty that only ended once he became a priest in the Church of England. As Dean of St Paul鈥檚 Cathedral, his sermons were celebrated, perhaps none more than his final one in 1631 when he was plainly in his dying days, as if preaching at his own funeral.
The image above is from a miniature in the Royal Collection and was painted in 1616 by Isaac Oliver (1565-1617)
With
Mary Ann Lund
Associate Professor in Renaissance English Literature at the University of Leicester
Sue Wiseman
Professor of Seventeenth Century Literature at Birkbeck, University of London
And
Hugh Adlington
Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham
Last on
More episodes
Previous
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
READING LIST
R. C. Bald, John Donne: A Life (Clarendon Press, 1970)
John Carey, John Donne: Life, Mind and Art (Faber and Faber, 1990)
David Colclough (ed.), John Donne's Professional Lives (D. S. Brewer, 2003)
Julie Crawford, Mediatrix: Women, Politics and Literary Production in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2014), especially '"His Factor for our loves": The Countess of Bedford and John Donne'
John Donne (ed. John Carey), The Major Works (Oxford World鈥檚 Classics, 2008)
John Donne (ed. Robin Robbins), The Complete Poems of John Donne (Pearson Longman, 2010)
John Donne (ed. Timothy Healy), Ignatius His Conclave (Clarendon Press, 1969)
John Donne (ed. Anthony Raspa), Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (McGill-Queen鈥檚 University Press, 1975)
John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Together with Death's Duel (University of Michigan, 1959)
John Donne (ed. Evelyn Simpson), Sermons on the Psalms and Gospels (University of California Press, 1963, repr. 2003)
Katrin Ettenhuber, Donne鈥檚 Augustine: Renaissance Cultures of Interpretation (Oxford University Press, 2011)
Achsah Guibbory (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to John Donne (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
Mary Ann Lund, 鈥楧onne鈥檚 Convalescence鈥� (Renaissance Studies 31, 2017)
Arthur Marotti, John Donne, Coterie Poet (University of Wisconsin Press, 1986)
Peter McCullough (ed.), The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne (16 vols, Oxford University Press, 2013 onwards)
George Potter and Evelyn Simpson (eds.), The Sermons of John Donne (10 vols, University of California Press, 1953鈥�1962)
John R. Roberts (ed.), John Donne: An Annotated Bibliography of Modern Criticism, 1912鈥�2008 (4 vols, University of Missouri Press, 1973-2018)
Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (Faber and Faber, 2022)
Jeanne Shami, Dennis Flynn, and M. Thomas Hester (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of John Donne (Oxford University Press, 2011)
A.聽J. Smith (ed.), John Donne: The Critical Heritage (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975)
Gary Stringer, Jeffrey Johnson et al. (eds.), The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne (8 vols, Indiana University Press, 1995 onwards)
John Stubbs, Donne: The Reformed Soul (Penguin, 2007)
Ramie Targoff, John Donne: Body and Soul (University of Chicago Press, 2008)
M. Thomas Hester (ed.), John Donne鈥檚 鈥淒esire of More鈥�: The Subject of Anne More Donne in His Poetry (University of Delaware Press, 1996)
RELATED LINKS
Broadcasts
- Thu 12 Jan 2023 09:0091热爆 Radio 4
- Thu 12 Jan 2023 21:3091热爆 Radio 4
Featured in...
![]()
17th Century—In Our Time
Browse the 17th Century era within the In Our Time archive.
![]()
Renaissance—In Our Time
Browse the Renaissance era within the In Our Time archive.
![]()
Religion—In Our Time
Discussion of religious movements and the theories and individuals behind them.
![]()
Culture—In Our Time
Popular culture, poetry, music and visual arts and the roles they play in our society.
In Our Time podcasts
Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive.
The In Our Time Listeners' Top 10
If you鈥檙e new to In Our Time, this is a good place to start.
Arts and Ideas podcast
Download the best of Radio 3's Free Thinking programme.
Podcast
-
![]()
In Our Time
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.
