Annotated Bibliography Bennett, Joan

Bennett, Joan, Five Metaphysical Poets. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1964. Bennett assumes that the reader will be familiar with and appreciative of the style of nineteenth century romantic poetry, and will, therefore, be resistant to the strangeness of the metaphysical poets. Chapter one is an introduction to the metaphysical poets, while chapters two and three are devoted primarily to Donne and his specific style. The book takes a relatively simplistic look at Donne’s life and poetry.

Brooks, Cleanth. The Well Wrought Urn. San Diego: Harcourt, 1947. Looks at Donne’s poetry with a perspective that was fresh for his time. In the case of “The Canonization,” he brings a new point of view that suggests that the poem might have been about the marriage, or at least related to the history of Donne. Examines several of Donne’s poems in relation to Shakespeare’s MacBeth and Pope’s “The Rape of the Locke.” A well-written, informative book with a useful index and occasional footnotes, but no endnotes.

Carey, John. John Donne Life, Mind and Art. New York: Oxford UP, 1981. Pointing out that Donne was a trendsetter and something of a revolutionary poet in his day, Carey attempts to understand the depth of Donne’s imagination and his unique poetic style. He explores the question of whether Donne, the young rogue, and Donne, the preacher, are one person or two very separate individuals within one aging body. Carey looks at the sermons after Donne’s conversion from Catholicism with a jaded view of his having actually left his Catholic convictions behind him. The levels of the dichotomies explored, as well as the level of the language, lend themselves to an educated audience.

Grierson, H. J. C., ed. Donne’s Poetical Works. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford, 1912. Grierson is considered one of the earliest authorities on Donne. He claims that he created this collection because the only one he had access to as a professor of Renaissance English was a translation that left several of the lines unexplainable to his students. He was doing a chapter on Donne for the Cambridge History of English Literature, so he went back to the 1633 manuscripts and found that the Grosart and Chambers edition he and his students had been working with “had too often abandoned the reading of the 1633 for the sometimes more obvious but generally weaker and often erroneous emendations of the later editions” (iv). The 1912, 2 volume Grierson edition uses the Middle English including the “” for the “s” sound as in “sake” or “course” and then interchanging of “u” and “v.” Several appendixes list poems in translation from Latin or that have been attributed to Donne in print or manuscript. An index of first lines provides quick reference to poems when the title is unknown. A must read for the serious Donne researcher and scholar.

Merrill, Charles Edmund, Jr., ed. Letters to Severall persons of Honour by John Donne. New

York: Sturgis, 1910. This early collection, which claims it owes a debt of gratitude to Edmund Gosse’s ­The Life and Letters of John Donne, contains over 125 letters written by Donne to various persons. Except that they have been numbered along the way, there seems to be little rhyme or reason for the order of the letters within the book. There is no table of contents or index. Although the notes are extensive, they are difficult to use, since they have no points of reference within the text, and the researcher must read several letters and try to assume, based on the note’s information, to which letter it refers. Since dating and placing of the letters is the primary reason for the notes, they are nearly useless in their lack of numerical reference within the letters themselves. A disappointment to one who is looking for Donne’s letters to a certain person or from a specific period of Donne’s life.

Raimondi, Michael. Echoes of John Donne in E. B. White’s “Death of a Pig” or Donne Without

Religion? Thesis. U of Saint Thomas, 2001. Raimondi suggests Donne’s “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions” provides the elevated religious attitude for E. B. White’s “Death of a Pig.” He draws connections between the two. The thesis is interesting, yet lacks sophistication as a source to the serious scholar.

Annotated Bibliography

Bazelmans, Jos. By Weapons Made Worthy. Amsterdam: Amsterdam U P, 1999. This book uses the text Beowulf to discuss the relationship between lord and warrior-follower. It also covers gift-giving and the Christian ideals present in Beowulf. The most useful sections were the first and last which covered the societal structure found in Beowulf.

Chadwick, H. Munro. “The Heroic Age, an Excerpt.” An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism. Ed. Lewis E. Nicholson. Notre Dame: U Notre Dame P, 1963. The major focus of this criticism is the origins of the text and who the author of the poem was. Chadwick states three opinion: 1.) Ion Monks wrote the poem; 2.) A Christian poet alive around the time of Caedmon’s Hymn was written; or 3.) The poem was in existence before the Christian conversion but a Christian poet juxtaposed Christian ideals onto the poem.

“The Wanderer.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 3 vols. Ed. Alfred David. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. “The Wanderer” is an Old English piece that depicts the lifestyle of an outcast warrior. This piece deals with the themes of loneliness, God, war, and nature. The piece is short and would work well as a supplemental text to Beowulf.

“The Wife’s Lament.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 3 vols. Ed. Alfred David. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. “The Wife’s Lament” is an Old English piece that depicts the lifestyle of a woman who has become an outcast due to a rift between her husband and his family. This piece is similar to “The Wanderer” in theme but varies due to the female point of view. The piece is short and would work well as a supplemental text to Beowulf.