Cover of The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose

The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose

by John Donne · 1929

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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."

Genre
literary fictionliterary fictionMore like thisLess of this
Themes
religionreligionMore like thisLess of thisChristianChristianMore like thisLess of this
Setting
17th century17th centuryMore like thisLess of thisRenaissanceRenaissanceMore like thisLess of thisEnglandEnglandMore like thisLess of thisBritishBritishMore like thisLess of thiscollegecollegeMore like thisLess of this
Subject
philosophyphilosophyMore like thisLess of this
Audience
adult
Length
epic · 736 pages
Form
poetrypoetryMore like thisLess of thisessaysessaysMore like thisLess of thisshort storiesshort storiesMore like thisLess of this

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