John Donne's Poetry: Authoritative Texts, Criticism

The present volume, by presenting a large selection of the most significant poetry of John Donne, affords all the materials for a close study of this major poet. The Songs and Sonnets are complete; they are followed by a generous selection of the Elegies, the Verse Letters to Several Personages, and the Divine Poems, together with such other important works as The First AnniversaryThe First Anniversary. The text for each poem is based upon its first edition. Accidentals of spelling, capitalization and punctuation have been carefully updated. Full textual notes are provided.

The essays in criticism range from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century, from sharply critical accounts to highly favorable evaluations, from general consideration of Donne and metaphysical poetry to close analyses of individual poems. There follows a list of the critics represented: on "Donne and Metaphysical Poetry," Ben Jonson, Thomas Carew, John Dryden, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Herbert Grierson, T. S. Eliot, J. B. Leishman, Joseph Anthony Mazzeo; on "Donne's Love Poetry," C. S. Lewis, Joan BEnnett, Cleanth Brooks, Clay Hunt, Theodore Redpath, R. A. Durr; on "Donne's Divine Poems and the Anniversaries," Helen Gardner, Louis L. Martz, Stanley Archer, J. C. Levenson, George Herman, George Knox, A. L. Clements, John E. Parish, Frank Manley.

THE EDITOR, A. L. CLEMENTS
Professor of English, State University of New York at Binghamton; Ph.D., Syracuse University. He held a research fellowship and grant-in-aid from the Research Foundation of the State University of New York to complete his critical study, The Mystical Poetry of Thomas TraherneThe Mystical Poetry of Thomas Traherne, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for Humanities for a study of George Herbert.