Percy's continental travels in the 1580s may be related to the early travels of Donne and to the plans of Catholic exiles for an invasion of England six years before the defeat of the Armada.

Collected in this volume are Achsah Guibbory’s most important and frequently cited essays on Donne, which, taken together, present her distinctive and evolving vision of the poet. The book includes an original, substantive introduction as well as new essays on the Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, the Songs and Sonnets, and the subject of Donne and toleration. Over the course of her career, Guibbory has asked different questions about Donne but has always been concerned with recovering multiple historical and cultural contexts and locating Donne’s writing in relation to them. In the essays here, she reads Donne within various contexts: the early modern thinking about time and history; religious attitudes towards sexuality; the politics of early modern England; religious conflicts within the church. While her approach has always been historicist, she has also foregrounded Donne’s distinctiveness, showing how (and why) he continues to speak powerfully to us now. Presented together here, with reflections on the trajectory of her engagement with Donne, Achsah Guibbory illuminates Donne’s understanding that erotic, spiritual, and political issues are often intertwined, and reveals how this understanding resonates in our own times.

"This study will also appeal to New Historicists and those interested in alchemy, emblems, or theology."--Jacket.

In this volume, Joshua Eckhardt examines the religious texts and books that surrounded the poems, sermons, and inscriptions of the early modern poet and preacher John Donne. Focusing on the material realities legible in manuscripts and Sammelbände, bookshops and private libraries, Eckhardt uncovers the myriad ways in which Donne’s writings were received and presented, first by his contemporaries, and later by subsequent readers of his work. Eckhardt sheds light on the religious writings with which Donne’s work was linked during its circulation, using a bibliographic approach that also informs our understanding of his work’s reception during the early modern period. He analyzes the religious implications of the placement of Donne’s poem “A Litany” in a library full of Roman Catholic and English prayer books, the relationship and physical proximity of Donne’s writings to figures such as Sir Thomas Egerton and Izaak Walton, and the movements in later centuries of Donne’s work from private owners to the major libraries that have made this study possible. Eckhardt’s detailed research reveals how Donne’s writings have circulated throughout history—and how religious readers, communities, and movements affected the distribution and reception of his body of work. Centered on a place in time when distinct methods of reproduction, preservation, and circulation were used to negotiate a complex and sometimes dangerous world of confessional division, Religion Around John Donne makes an original contribution to Donne studies, religious history, book history, and reception studies.

John Donne: In the Shadow of Religion explores the life of one of the most significant figures of the English Renaissance. The book not only provides an overview of Donne’s life and work, but connects his writing and thinking to the ideas, institutions, and networks that influenced him. The book shows how Donne’s faith underpinned his career, from aspirational courtier to phenomenally successful clergyman and preacher, when he became dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Donne emerges as a figure obsessed with himself, tormented by the fear that his transgressions may have condemned him to eternal damnation. This fine new account uses Donne’s correspondence, writing, and poetry to give a rounded portrait of a bold, experimental thinker, who was never afraid of taking risks that few others would have countenanced.

John Donne's life story is inextricably tied up with the fabric of a society in the throes of religious persecution. In his biography of Donne, John Stubbs chronicles not only a long and bitter sectarian conflict, but also the love story of a young couple who broke the rules of their society, and paid the ultimate price.

The early transition from Catholicism to Protestantism was a complicated journey for England, as individuals sorted out their spiritual beliefs, chose their political allegiances, and confronted an array of religious differences that had sprung forth in their society since the reign of Henry VIII. Inner anxieties often translated into outward violence. Amidst this turmoil the poet and Protestant preacher John Donne (1572-1631) emerged as a central figure, one who encouraged peace among Christians. Raised a Catholic but ordained in 1615 as an Anglican clergyman, Donne publicly identified himself with Protestantism, and yet scholars have long questioned his theological orientation. Drawing upon recent scholarship in church history, the authors of this collection reconsider Donne's relationship to Protestantism and clearly demonstrate the political and theological impact of the Reformation on his life and writings. The collection includes thirteen essays that together place Donne broadly in the context of English and European traditions and explore his divine poetry, his prose work, the Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and his sermons. It becomes clear that in adopting the values of the Reformation, Donne does not completely reject everything from his Catholic background. Rather, the clash of religion erupts in his work in both moving and disconcerting ways. This collection offers a fresh understanding of Donne's hard-won irenicism, which he achieved at great personal and professional risk.