The Oxford Handbook of John Donne (review)

With a mix of long-time contributors to the John Donne Variorum and voices fresh to Donne scholarship, The Oxford Handbook of John Donne offers an introduction to Donne studies for both teachers and advanced students of English literature, as well as for interested, well-read individuals. The editors have collected essays that demonstrate how Donne has impacted the development of literary genres, how he and his works reflected and shaped the spirit of his times, and how his writings continue to present key textual and critical questions for scholars. The unifying vision provided by the editors shapes the articles of The Handbook into both a practical reference tool and a snapshot of the field of Donne studies.

The volume begins with seven articles that model various ways of approaching the study of Donne’s work, including attention to audience, archival research, critical editions, and the dialogue within the larger scholarly community. Gary Stringer points out that Donne’s practice of correcting his work between published versions makes it difficult to identify authentic texts; thus consulting multiple early versions is necessary. For similar reasons, Lara Crowley and Richard Todd both assert that serious scholars must study the multiple versions of Donne’s poetry and prose found in print and manuscript form. Ernest Sullivan and Richard Todd evaluate the relative merits of various critical editions available to students who may not have regular access to archives. In another article, Sullivan argues that attention must be given to Donne’s readership because that readership extends beyond the intellectual coterie to which previous scholars have limited it. Donald Dickson discusses the relative value of various tools such as digital editions, bibliographies, and concordances. Hugh Adlington reminds the reader that Donne should be studied within the discourse of the international intellectual community which ranges from the United States and Great Britain to China and Japan.

The second section models how genre may be used as an entry point to Donne’s work. Each essay in this section defines a particular genre and elucidates its history before considering Donne’s creative use of the genre. M. Thomas Hester describes how Donne pushes the boundaries of epigrammatic form through unexpected twists in the endings of the epigram that create more questions than answers. Hester briefly traces the memorial roots of the epigram and then locates Donne within both the classical and the early modern epigrammatic tradition. Hester then considers various examples in which Donne uses word play to undermine expectations set up at the beginning of the poem. Similarly, in his discussion of Donne’s use of the problem genre, Price notes that Donne modifies the genre in order to provide critique of contemporary political issues. Price briefly traces the development of the genre before describing how Donne used the problem genre to render a new definition for ancient royal privilege. According to this new definition, those privileges were based on lust and error and not on truth. Donne is able to veil his critique of government in the problem genre. The remaining essays in this part of The Handbook demonstrate how Donne creatively stretches genres to address the status of religion in early modern England or the political activities at court.

The third section provides the reader with biographical and historical context in a series of tandem essays that alternately treat Donne’s life and the context of early modern England. In the first essay, Collinson suggests a new interpretation of the political and religious climate during the reigns of English monarchs from Henry VII through Elizabeth I. He notes that religious affiliation cannot be reduced into simple categories of Catholic and Protestant. He argues that Catholics used a range of strategies to cope with a political status that changed from monarch to monarch. Within the same family one might have a recusant, a person paying lip service to the Protestant church, and a convert to Protestantism. Collinson argues for a more nuanced understanding of religious and...