“Trying to Walk on Logs in Water”: John Donne, Religion, and the Critical Tradition

Abstract

<jats:p>Cet article examine la religion de John Donne du point de vue historique ainsi que littéraire, en mettant en valeur ses rapports avec les branches catholique et réformée de l’église anglicane en début de l’époque des Stuart. Ses écrits révèlent les fêlures de cette église et illuminent les versions plus extrêmes et moins sophistiquées des conflits qu’il incarnait lui-même. En particulier, la poétique sacramentelle de Donne, sa rénovation de termes réfutés et ses formulations rhétoriques paradoxales témoignent des accommodations avec le Catholicisme qui marquent sa via media comme variable et instable et qui servent de preuve exemplaire des efforts de l’église anglaise de rester unie.</jats:p>

What’s Wrong with Mis-devotion? A John Donne Enigma

“…3 Lucid and persuasive articles by Gregory Kneidel (on Donne's so-called conversion), Paul Stevens (on the pressure of nationhood on Donne's religion), Lukas Erne (on the location of "Show me dear Christ thy spouse so bright and clear" in the Donne canon), and Arthur Marotti (on Donne's troubled anti-Catholic rhetoric) have not settled the debate so much as shown why and how it matters. 4 Jeanne Shami has addressed these questions, 5 and has pointed out some of the errors of anachronism we are likely to promote if we carry out this task without historical awareness. 6 Relying on her compendious knowledge of the religious commitments Donne was willing to make in his sermons, Shami points out that the public ground he claimed for "our Church" was a moderate middle between opposite extremes: idolatry on the one hand, separatism on the other.…”