‘a mixed Parenthesis’: John Donne'sLetters to Severall Persons of Honour

Abstract

This paper is part of the second Literature Compass panel cluster arising from The Texas A&M John Donne Collection: A Symposium and Exhibition. [Correction added after online publication 24 October 2008: ‘This paper introduces the second Literature Compass panel cluster’ changed to ‘This paper is part of the second Literature Compass panel cluster’.] Comprising an introduction by Gary Stringer and three of the papers presented at the symposium, this cluster seeks to examine the current state of Donne Studies and aims to provide a snapshot of the field. The symposium was held April 6–7, 2006. The cluster is made up of the following articles: ‘Introduction to the Second Donne Cluster: Three Papers from The Texas A&M John Donne Collection: A Symposium and Exhibition’, Gary A. Stringer, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00551.x. ‘Donne into Print: The Seventeenth-Century Collected Editions of Donne's Poetry’, Ted-Larry Pebworth, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00552.x. ‘“a mixed Parenthesis”: John Donne's Letters to Severall Persons of Honour’, M. Thomas Hester, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00553.x. ‘What We Think About Donne: A History of Donne Criticism in Twenty Minutes’, Paul A. Parrish, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00554.x. *** This 1651 (rpt. 1654) edition of 129 letters composed by John Donne (1572–1631) presents the witty poet and preacher in many of his most significant styles and roles; ‘conveyors of me to you’, he called them. Despite the ‘tampering’ of many of the letters by its editor or collector, the letters yet maintain an overall impression of the ‘vitality of mind’ and ‘purposeful mental recourse’ for which this Renaissance poet and preacher was known. Attacks on the corruption of the court are balanced in the volume overall by its many meditative considerations; the portrait here of Donne the family man and loving father and husband is set beside the clever writer who declared friendship to be his ‘second religion’; and these revealing insights into his public and private self are balanced by letters affirming his life-long assertion that ‘There is no Vertue, but Religion’. Letters about the ongoing religious conflicts in Europe are followed often by newsless letters he called ‘ghosts’ and ‘apparitions’, both examples of his epistolary art expressed in those dexterous conceits that characterize his vibrant poetry and prose. This varied collection of Donne's letters seems often, that is, to be framed to illustrate his understanding of that ancient and Renaissance adage, Stylus virum arguit: ‘Style argues the man’.