Sex and the Disjunctive Syllogism: The Logic of Love in Donne's Poetry

This article aims to shed new light on John Donne's poetry of argument by placing it in the context of early modern logic. I analyze university curricula and the intellectual practices they prescribed--especially the norms of academic disputation and of syllogistic reasoning--before applying logical categories to a number of religious and secular poems. Donne uses logical terms, concepts, and processes to address questions of selfhood and subjectivity, especially from a gendered perspective; to map horizons of human knowledge and cognition in encounters with mortality; and to encourage reflection on the seductive qualities of logical and poetic form.