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John Donne's Poetry (Critical Edition)

by John Donne, Donald R. Dickson (Editor)

4.1 of 5 stars 4.10 · rating details · 3,987 ratings · 53 reviews

The texts reprinted in this new Norton Critical Edition have been scrupulously edited and are from the Westmoreland manuscript where possible, collated against the most important families of Donne manuscripts the Cambridge Belam, the Dublin Trinity, and the O Flahertie and compared with all seven seventeenth-century printed editions of the poems as well as all major twenti...more

Paperback, 464 pages

Published November 19th 2006 by W.W. Norton (first published 1634)

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Dec 13, 2007 Keely rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry, reviewed

What is it that infects the iconoclasts? What is it unrelenting that they cannot be the same?

John Donne was a man who straddled the channel. To be English and Catholic was to never have an identity. Sometimes it troubled him, but to be no one man became his greatest gift. There are those who are never forced to look beyond their place and their lives. That place itself may be challanged, and success is never assured, but to strive to become someone out of being so strongly no-one is another type...more What is it that infects the iconoclasts? What is it unrelenting that they cannot be the same?

John Donne was a man who straddled the channel. To be English and Catholic was to never have an identity. Sometimes it troubled him, but to be no one man became his greatest gift. There are those who are never forced to look beyond their place and their lives. That place itself may be challanged, and success is never assured, but to strive to become someone out of being so strongly no-one is another type of success.

It taught him joy in the world. It taught him of the simplicity of joy: that it is always a small thing and turns about and about on a single word. It stretched him out along a continuum with two opposing sides that could never be opposite concepts, and only found their conflict in the blood and flesh of men.

I might say it is no wonder that he was the man who tried to imagine a speck of dust that spans the universe. I might say it, but it would not be true: Donne is a wonder; and he is a wonderer. In that sense, he creates himself. He may be this, or he may be its opposite. That he was born a Catholic and died the Anglican Priest of St. Paul's Cathedral is not the showing of a change of identity, but rather a simple turn of phrase.

Why shouldn't a poet's life be a poem? We might ask what mark could stand betwixt the caesura of a man's change of heart. The mark is Metaphysics, which has doggedly followed him ever since.

There is a Shakespearean accessibility to Donne, in that he never places himself squarely behind any particular idea. Indeed, he is defined by his ability to question more than answer. He also bears some resemblance to the bard in his use of low humor, which combines with his holy works to span most of human experience.

However, there is often little accessible about his conceits, which are complex, intellectual, and many-layered. Unlike Shakespeare, Donne tends to challenge the reader (though the argument of medium may stand here). Like Pope, there is the sense that Donne is sharing a joke with you, and there is satisfaction in it. However, it is often less likely to be (entirely) a joke as a conceptual and philosophical exploration.

Taking his cues from the consummate Petrarch, Donne builds a language and a world of poetry like the crafting of a philosophy. However, finding himself too uninhibited to match the singular drive and form of Petrarch, Donne leaves us instead an open book, where every confirmation undermines itself, and to withhold becomes, itself, a passion.(less)

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May 30, 2010 Kira rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

Джон Донн «Блоха» («The Flea») перевод Бродского

Узри в блохе, что мирно льнет к стене,
В сколь малом ты отказываешь мне.
Кровь поровну пила она из нас:
Твоя с моей в ней смешаны сейчас.
Но этого ведь мы не назовем
Грехом, потерей девственности, злом.
Блоха, от крови смешанной пьяна,
Пред вечным сном насытилась сполна;
Достигла больше нашего она.

Узри же в ней три жизни и почти
Ее вниманьем. Ибо в ней почти,
Нет, больше чем женаты ты и я.
И ложе нам, и храм блоха сия.
Нас связывают крепче алтаря
Живые стены...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Shannon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-for-school

Read #1
Started on July 9, 2012
Finished on July 11, 2012

Didn't read all of his poetry, but my English class this summer went through a bunch of Donne's stuff and I have to say, he was my one of my favorite poets out of the ones we studied.

Holy Sonnet X was probably the one I enjoyed most:

"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, whi...more

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Nov 29, 2007 Sean rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jack the Rake's poems get me hotter than the kitchen oven, but then I turn to the end of the book and I'm broken, blown (?!) burned, and made new again by some serious holiness.

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Feb 23, 2010 Derek rated it 5 of 5 stars

Let me start by saying I enjoyed John Donne’s Holy Sonnets as much as his sexy romps, and I hope to discuss both (as well as the less interesting verse letters and songs) with equal fervency and attention, but for now I want to talk just about the sexy romps.

Mostly, Donne is a hoot, a dirty dawg. In Elegy 4, the narrator decides he will be more moral by refusing sex with a married woman in her husband’s bed and instead – here’s a great improvement – finding a different bed in a different house i...more Let me start by saying I enjoyed John Donne’s Holy Sonnets as much as his sexy romps, and I hope to discuss both (as well as the less interesting verse letters and songs) with equal fervency and attention, but for now I want to talk just about the sexy romps.

Mostly, Donne is a hoot, a dirty dawg. In Elegy 4, the narrator decides he will be more moral by refusing sex with a married woman in her husband’s bed and instead – here’s a great improvement – finding a different bed in a different house in which to sleep with her. In Elegy 6, the narrator basically tells a virgin woman, “If we have sex now it won’t hurt so much with your husband later on, whenever he comes along.” (33). In Elegy 7, the narrator says he will serve his country better by staying home and having sex with his wife than going off to war. Elegy 8 is all kink, snuff, and keepin’ it rough, a veritable striptease, if you will; the man on the bed with the school-girl fetish gives the woman before him both elevator eyes (up and down) and X-ray eyes (in and out) and does so through the lens of sexual colonialism, the woman’s body a land to be conquered. If I asked my secondary students to translate any one of Donne’s elegies into contemporary language, as I have asked them to do with Romeo & Juliet in the past, I would first close-read my district’s curriculum guide and my union contract.

The poetry is definitely explicit. This is not to say it isn’t or can’t be romantic. In Elegy 14, Donne writes, “So we her airs contemplate, words and heart / And virtues; but we love the centric part… / Her swelling lips, to which when we are come / We anchor there, and think ourselves at home… / And sailing towards her India, in that way / Shall at her fair Atlantic navel stay” (43). Romantic, right? I thought so, but then the dawg ruins the romance (or rather, transforms it into bar talk) with an OMG-did-he-say-that-about-a-woman? punch: “Thou shalt upon another forest set / Where some do shipwreck, and no further get. / When thou art there, consider what this chase / Misspent by thy beginning at the face” (43). That’s right: Why waste time lingering on a woman’s face? For this narrator’s voyage, true north is the southern part of the body. The woman’s brain and eyes and mouth are not body parts worth visiting. Odysseus longed for Penelope because he wanted to copulate, not converse.

Donne has a knack for being explicit on one page and then ethereal on another. On page seven he writes of the goal “To out-swive dildos, and out-usure Jews”; two pages later he’s analyzing the syntax of the Bible: “Each day his beads, but having left those laws / Adds to Christ’s prayer, the power and glory clause.” When he describes the boils of venereal disease (26), it is clear he can write with utter familiarity about the grime and grit of life, and about genital itching, but he’s not exempt from good ol’ sentimental moralizing: “but oh, we allow / Good works as good, but out of fashion now” (9). Which was actually a good point. Has anything changed over time? The more I read, I didn’t really think so.

Example 1: Donne writes, “By thee the greatest stain to man’s estate / Falls on us, to be call’d effeminate” (29), and from what I hear in the hallways at my school, it’s true: When men insult other men, they call them female.

Example 2: Donne writes, “Or let me creep to some dread conjurer / Which with fantastic schemes fulfills much paper / Which hath divided heaven in tenements” (25), describing a shady character who prays on others. A salesperson with a safari hat and walkie-talkie selling time-shares in Mexico, perhaps? Or maybe a luxury waterfront penthouse suite at the Edgewater Hotel?

Example 3: Donne writes, in a showcase of dirty wit: “Like sun-parch’d quarters on the city gate / Such is thy tann’d skin’s lamentable state. / And like a bunch of ragged carrots stand / The short swoll’n fingers of thy gouty hand… / Are not your kisses then as filthy, and more / As a worm sucking an envenom’d sore?... / Leave her, and I will leave comparing thus / She and comparisons are odious” (27), a kind of one-ups-manship characteristic of a string of Yo’ Momma jokes, but from only one man. This dirty dawg doesn’t need competition. He’ll compete with himself. Ten pages later, he writes, “Though all her parts be not in th’usual place / She’hath yet an anagram of a good face” (37).(less)

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Mar 14, 2008 Xio rated it 5 of 5 stars

SONG.
by John Donne

SWEETEST love, I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me ;
But since that I
At the last must part, 'tis best,
Thus to use myself in jest
By feigned deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here to-day ;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way ;
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power,
That if good fortune fall,
Cann...more

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May 23, 2012 Hannah rated it 5 of 5 stars

The flea....perfection. Maybe that's cliche, but it's one of my all time favorites. Analyzing great poems is one of my favorite things in the world...this is a great poem with so much to give, but I like his poetry after his wife died and he became a clergyman just as well.

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Jul 12, 2012 Patrick B rated it 4 of 5 stars

His Holy Sonnets are amazing, and classic for anyone whose heard of John Donne, but his other works are greatly over looked. A man who respects religion, but seeks his own path to the truth, as evidenced in his poetry. Beautiful poetry

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Jul 28, 2011 Sian Taylor added it

Amazing, amazing. Loved these when studying them for A level English...'Busy old fool, unruly sunne, why dost thou thus thru windows and thru curtains call on us'...not bad recall after 20 years, so he must have made an impression.

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Feb 25, 2009 Lenaya added it

I am muddling through Donne and while I find him to be a very powerful poet, my interpretations are weak. He is on my reading list so if anybody has any helpful insight, I would greatly appreciate it.

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Jan 04, 2013 Corbin rated it 5 of 5 stars

I can't really call this one completely read, considering it's in a constant state of being read by me. Reading Donne completely changed me as a person - "Woman's Constancy" had a particularly strong effect.

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Dec 10, 2011 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had the opportunity to take a class with the editor of this particular book, and it aided me in learning how to interpret and appreciate John Donne. Overall, I enjoyed this collection of poems.

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Mar 28, 2009 Anthony rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, theology, classic-fiction, poetry

If for no other reason (and there are many), this edition is wonderful for it's correct punctuation at the end of Donne's famous masterpiece Holly sonnet 10 "Death be not proud"

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Mar 31, 2011 Linda rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the love sonnets and poetry especially. This edition could have ventured into the poet's life and given some of his pertinent background.

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Nov 11, 2012 Gabriel Lugo rated it 5 of 5 stars

Favorite poet. Love his on the edge poems, the ones he wrote before he became completely devoted. My favorite poem was "Death be not proud"

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Jun 16, 2010 Toni rated it 5 of 5 stars

"thou art the best of me"

My favorite poems are "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning", "The Flea", "Song", and "Woman's Constancy"

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Apr 12, 2013 Anna Marie rated it 2 of 5 stars

He's not my cup of tea, but he is brilliant with clever usage of "conceits" as I said perhaps a little vulgar for my taste.

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Nov 15, 2010 hannah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: for-school, poetry

Read selected poems, and really need to go back and read more. He's fabulous, though I prefer his less religious works.

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Apr 12, 2012 Tammy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an enjoyable collection of Donne's work, with some very good essays, but I have found that a few of the footnotes are misleading.

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Oct 07, 2012 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry, early-modern

Very different to his contemporaries and I found it complex at first reading.

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Apr 01, 2012 Eric Zimmerman rated it 5 of 5 stars

Donne is a bad motherfucker, and I think pretty accessible.

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Jan 04, 2012 Lisa Spangenberg rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, seventeenth, norton-critical

Probably the best collection of Donne's poetry currently in print.

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Jan 09, 2013 Zunaira Afzal rated it 5 of 5 stars

A good read. I think everyone should read these poems.

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Mar 09, 2013 Duntay rated it 5 of 5 stars

The stars are for Donne, not particularly for this edition. But if you just like reading the poems, the edition does not really matter.

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Oct 17, 2009 Clif Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars

A marvelous mind for prose and poetry.

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Apr 06, 2013 Ruby rated it 4 of 5 stars

... I think that says enough.

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Jun 12, 2010 Kristin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reignited my love for Donne.

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May 23, 2013 Ally rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: junior_12-13

for school

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May 04, 2009 Daniel rated it 4 of 5 stars

stop, drop, and read.

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Oct 23, 2007 Mark Desrosiers rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

One of the greatest and weirdest poets in English. He was a dirty tomcat trickster at his best, and even his metaphysical "conceits" or whatever were pretty comical (cf. for example "The Flea" to prove both points). Simultaneously dirty and sublime, how often do you come across that?

Also, he commissioned a painting of what he would probably look like when he rises in the apocalypse, so keep your eyes peeled.

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About John Donne

John Donne was an English poet, preacher and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works are notable for their realistic and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially as compared to that of...more

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“Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.” — 746 people liked it

“That thou remember them, some claim as debt; I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.” — 10 people liked it

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