John Donne's standing as one of the greatest poets in the English language is now thoroughly established, and critics such as T. S. Eliot and F. R. Leavis have found in Donne's poetry qualities profoundly responsive to the modern age. While Donne is famous for his religious poetry, his love poems are among the most beautiful ever written, and this collection brings them together for the first time.

Donne was a man who knew all the many faces of love-- physical passion, jealousy, rapture, grief and parting-- and possessed the genius to distill his experiences into poetry. The potency of his writing has lost none of its effect; Donne's love poetry taps the reservoir of feelings and emotions common to all human beings.

Before Donne was ordained as a priest in 1615, he wrote sonnets (such as "The Dream" and "The Ecstasy"), elegies (such as "To His Mistress Going to Bed" and "Love's Progress"), and wedding songs ("St. Valentine's Day" and "Epithalamion"), all of which glitter with an eroticism that truly marries body and soul.

Charles Fowkes, author of a critically acclaimed biography of Rembrandt and several anthologies of short stories, has gathered those poems in which Donne is most passionate and most lyrical. The result is this lovely volume- the perfect gift for every beloved, a book of poems to press flowers in and to keep by the heart.
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This Modern Library edition contains all of John Donne's great metaphysical love poetry. Here are such well-known songs and sonnets as "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," "The Extasie," and "A Nocturnall Upon S. Lucies Day," along with the love elegies "Jealosie," "His Parting From Her," and "To His Mistris Going to Bed." Presented as well are Donne's satires, epigrams, verse letters, and holy sonnets, along with his most ambitious and important poems, the Anniversaries. In addition, there is a generous sampling of Donne's prose, including many of his private letters; Ignatius His Conclave, a satiric onslaught on the Jesuits; excerpts from Biathanatos, his celebrated defense of suicide; and his most famous sermons, concluding with the final "Death's Duell." "We have only to read [Donne]," wrote Virginia Woolf, "to submit to the sound of that passionate and penetrating voice, and his figure rises again across the waste of the years more erect, more imperious, more inscrutable than any of his time."

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John Donne (1572-1631) is perhaps the most important poet of the seventeenth century, and has often been referred to as the founder of the metaphysical genre. His poetry is highly distinctive and individual, adopting a multitude of tones, images, forms, and personae. This collection of Donne's verse includes a wide selection from both his secular and divine poems, including such well-known poems as "Air and Angels," "The Flea," the "Holy Sonnets", and "The Progress of the Soul." The poems are provided with full Notes and a useful Introduction to Donne's life and poetry....

John Donne (1572-1631) is perhaps the most important poet of the seventeenth century, and has often been referred to as the founder of the metaphysical genre. His poetry is highly distinctive and individual, adopting a multitude of tones, images, forms, and personae. This collection of Donne's verse includes a wide selection from both his secular and divine poems, including such well-known poems as "Air and Angels," "The Flea," the "Holy Sonnets", and "The Progress of the Soul." The poems are provided with full Notes and a useful Introduction to Donne's life and poetry....

“Donald Dickson's John Donne's Poetry is the best text of Donne now available. It is scrupulously edited, and equally useful for students and for scholars.”—Harold Bloom, Yale University The texts reprinted in this new Norton Critical Edition have been scrupulously edited and are from the Westmoreland manuscript where possible, collated against the most important families of Donne manuscripts—the Cambridge Belam, the Dublin Trinity, and the O’Flahertie—and compared with all seven seventeenth-century printed editions of the poems as well as all major twentieth-century editions. “Criticism” is divided into four sections and represents the best criticism and interpretation of Donne’s writing: “Donne and Metaphysical Poetry” includes seven seventeenth-century views by contemporaries of Donne such as Ben Jonson, Thomas Carew, and John Dryden, among others; “Satires, Elegies, and Verse Letters” includes seven selections that offer social and literary context for and insights into Donne’s frequently overlooked early poems; “Songs and Sonnets” features six analyses of Donne’s love poetry; and “Holy Sonnets/Divine Poems” explores Donne’s struggles as a Christian through four authoritative essays. A Chronology of Donne’s life and work, a Selected Bibliography, and an Index of Titles and First Lines are also included. ....

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There is perhaps no superior edition of Donne’s Songs and Sonets than Theodore Redpath’s wonderful annotated volume. Out of print for a decade, the book is reprinted here in its second, revised edition. The book’s twofold origin is evident on every page of Redpath’s limpid commentary: it arises partly out of a life of scholarship and partly from Redpath’s experiences and concerns as a teacher. The volume contains notes “on every point likely to cause difficulty to a reader of average intelligence.”

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