John Donne's Strategies for Discreet Preaching

This article argues that Donne forges a middle ground between pragmatics of service and opportunities to voice individual will in combining fulsome praise with forthright criticism. Contemporary usage of the word "discretion" shows sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thinkers to have imagined it as a middle ground between cowardice and foolishly rash action; this paper argues that Donne negotiates the challenges of seeking patronage through a "rhetoric of discretion." Donne's sermons provide a particularly rich arena for examining this rhetoric as the court preacher both discusses and enacts how best to negotiate the frequent disparity between secular pressure and sacred word.