Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T00:15:24.600Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Reading and rereading Donne’s poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2006

Achsah Guibbory
Affiliation:
Barnard College, New York
Get access

Summary

Reporter to Bob Dylan: ''What are your songs about?'' Dylan: ''Some of my songs are about four minutes, some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about 11 or 12.'' ''Pedantique wretch,'' he might have called the reporter had he been channeling Donne, ''for Godsake hold your tongue.'' For there is a similar defiance, a snarkiness, a catch-me-if-you-can in many Donne utterances, both in those that come down on the side of love, of desire made holy, of making the lovers' ''little roome, an every where,'' and in those that flippantly dismiss such possibilities. He may feel himself ''two fooles . . . / For loving, and for saying so / In whining poetry,'' but he persists and dares the reader to determine just what ''draw[ing his] paines / through Rimes vexation'' is all ''about.'' (''Vexation'' is an interesting word for both writer and reader). ''The triple Foole'' from which these lines come is hardly a complex poem, but its playful self-consciousness strikes a note that one will hear in a number of Donne poems, both the serious and the silly. Can grief be real and its expression truthful if ''he tames it, that fetters it in verse?''

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×