John Donne An Annotated Bibliography of Modern Criticism 1968–1978

439 Pages·2009·48.53 MB·English

by  John R. Roberts

DigitalDonne: the Online Variorum
We are pleased to provide here the fi rst electronic access to John R. Roberts’s bibliographies of
modern Donne criticism, which cover the modern Donne revival that began with the publication of
Herbert J. C. Grierson’s two-volume Poems of John Donne (Oxford University Press, 1912). These
bibliographies are widely recognized as among the fi nest of their kind, and they constitute an invalu-
able resource for scholars, including those collaborating in the compilation of the Variorum commen-
tary.
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This volume is intended for individual research purposes only and is made available with the kind
permission of the original publisher, The University of Missouri Press.
J
n nnotated Bibli graph 1 of i lodern Critici.In
196 - 197
John R. Robert
Univcr ityof li ouri Press
Columbia ' London
Copyright © 1982 by
The Curatorsof the Universityof Missouri
LibraryofCongressCatalog Card umber 82- 1849
Universityof Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65211
Printed and bound in the United States of America
All rights reserved
LibraryofCongressCataloging in Publication Data
Roberts, John Richard.
John Donne, an annotated bibliographyof modern
criticism, 1968-1978.
Includes index.
1. Donne, John, 1572-1631-Bibliography.
I. Title.
Z8237·R63 [PR2248] 821'.3 82- 1849
ISBl 0-8262-0364-7 AACR2
To theJ\lemory
l
of
Pauline Elizabeth Roberts
ant nts
Preface
Abbreviation ofTitle ofjournal
Bibliography
11
IndexofAuthors, Editors,
and Translators
411
Subject Index 420
IndexofDonne's Work
lcntioncd in Annotation 432
Preface
The primary purpos'e of this bibliography is to provide students,
scholars, and critics of [ohn Donne with a useful aid to research. This
studyisthefirsttocollect and fullyannotate the vastamount ofcriticism
and scholarship written on Donne during the period 1968- 1978. The
present work isa continuation of my previously published fohn Donne:
All AnnotatedBibliographyo{tvlodem Criticism. 1912- 1967 (Columbia:
UniversityofMissouri Press, 1973)andendsat 1978becausemorerecent
studieswerenotalwaysavailableand becau cbibliographicalsourceswere
oftenincompleteafterthat:date.
In 1931, the tercentenaryof Donne'sdeath, T. S. Eliot announced
in hisessay "Donne in OurTime," in ACarland forfohn Donne, 1631
1931, edited byTheodore Spencer (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard Univer
ityPress), that"Donne'spoetryisaconcernofthe presentand the recent
past rather than of the future" (p. 5). If, by his prophetic utterance of
doom, Eliotintended topredictDonne'simpendingdemiseamongschol
arsandcritics, orifhethoughtthatcriticalinterestinDonne hadreached
anapexin 1931, then historyhasproved him quite mistaken. Forduring
thepatfiftyyearsnofewerthan twothousand books, monographs,essays,
andnoteson Donne have appeared;andtherearenosignsofdiminishing
interest in his poetry and prose. Even a most cursory glance at the
seventeenth-centurysection of recent issues of the annual Modern Lan
guage Association bibliography. which is far from comprehensive. will
reverIthat only Milton exceeds I anne in the number of yearlyentries;
that typically more items on Donne appear each year than on Herbert,
msh<l\\\and Vaughan combined;and that Donne entriesfar exceed those
for I ryden and are roughly twice in number those listed in thc Renais
an c ectionfor idney. In 1931,obviouslyan importantyearfor Donne
tudies because of the tercentenary celebration of Donne's death, only
about fifty items were published. whereas in 1972, the four-hundredth
anniversaryof Donne's birth, approximatelythree timesthat numberap
pc.u d. excluding reviews and doctoral dissertations. Quantity alone, of
U c.I. finallyrathermeaningless,andadmittedlyanynumberofbooks
,ndessays that have appeared are minor efforts at best, and many are
t p Iitivc, derivative. ill-conceived. and misleading. However, as I read
ndannotatedthe nearlyt\vcnty-three hundred itemsincluded in mytwo
1 liographical tuclieson Donne. Iwasstruckagain andagainbythe fact
1 1D nnehasengaged and continuestoengagesome of the bestminds
ofthescholarlyworldandthat manystudiesrepresentmajorcontributions
to our understanding and knowledge not only of Donne but also of the
seventeenth century, of metaphysical poets as a whole, and even of the
verynature ofpoetryitself.
Nearlyallseriousstudentsofliterature now agree that Donne cccu
pies a significant and permanent position in our understanding cf the
development of English poetry and that he is, in his 0\\11 right. a major
pod of continuing and lively interest. At the beginning of this century.
however, many critics were by 110 means willing to offer Donne a seat
among the great poetsofour language. In 1900, and again in 1921. The
Oxford Book of English Verse represented Donne with only eight short
pieces, two ofwhich were notactuallyhisand oneofwhich wasonlythe
firsttwenty linesof"Thc Extasic.' A number ofcritics, illfact, were not
onlyhostile to Donne'spoetryhutwere quite scornfulofthosefewadrnir
ers of his art. Edward Bliss Read, for example, in Elizabethan Lyrical
Poet'}' from ItsOrigins to thePresent Time(New Haven: Yale University
Press; London: Humphrey Milford and Oxford University Press, 1912)
openlycondemned Donne'spoetry forits"unmusical moments," its"im
perfect utterance," and its "morbid strain" and concluded his evaluation
by remarkingthat "TodayDonne'spoemsare neverimitated;theyare not
even widely read, for though he has a circle of devoted admirers, their
number is small"(p. 233). And, aslate as 1917, five yearsafter the pub
lication ofSir IIerbertGrierson's monumental two-volume edition ofthe
poemsand onlyfour yearsbeforeT. S. Eliot'sendorsementofDonne and
the metaphysical poets. George Jackson announced in the Expository Times
that "It must be freelyadmitted that neitheraspoet. preacher. nor letter
writer is Donne ever likely to gain the suffrage of more than a few" and
proceeded to characterize mostof Donne'slove poemsas"fitonlyfor the
dunghill"(pp. 217. 218). Fifty-fiveyearslater, in hispreface toJolinDonne:
Essa)'sin Celebration (London: Methuen & Co., 1972), A. J.Smith ob
served that "As far as records tell this is the first time a centenary of his
[Donne's] birth has been celebrated oras much asremarked"but assures
his readers that "One can't conceive now that a time will come again
when the names of Shakespeare, Milton, Words....orth, Keats are known
but the name ofDonne isnot" (p. vii). Prophecy in literarycriticism isa
dangerousbusinessatbest. aswe haveseen. but Smith wouldseem to be
on verysolid ground in making hisprediction. Duringthe pastdecade or
so approximately one hundred booksand essayshave appeared annually
on Donne.
The present bibliography follows, for the most part. the principles
and guidelinesestablished for myearliervolume.Theannotations in this
Preface 3
bibliographyareessentiallydescriptive, notevaluative, because Ifind that
whatisimportantandlor usefultoone cholari notequallysignificantto
another. I have made the annotation quite detailed and oftcn quote ex
tensivelyfrom the item in order toconveyasen eofitsapproach and the
level of itssophistication. Therefore, the reader should be able to judge
for himself whether a particular bookor essaywill be useful for his pur
pocs. Likewise, Ihave listedeach item chronologically. in part 0 that by
glancing over the ariousentrie the reader will be able toobtain a sense
ofthe various shifts, directions, and developmentsthat have occurred in
Donnecriticismduringthe eleven-yearperiod. Bymeansofthreedetailed
indexes(author, subject, and work of Donne cited in the annotations),
thereader can ea ilylocate individual studiesthat interest him.
As in mypreviou: volume, Ihaveattempted to make the bibliogra
phy as complete and as comprehensive as possible, yet even from the
beginning, itwasnecessary to imposecertain limitations. Thebasic guid
ingprinciplehasbeen toincludeallbooks,monographs,essays. andnotes
pecificallyon Donne written between 1968and 19 8;but, inaddition. I
have also tried to include discussionsof Donne that appear in works not
centrallyconcerned with him. Ofcourse, nearlyall booksand manyar
ticleson metaphysical poetry oron individualmetaphysicalpoet contain
ornecomment on or reference to Donne, but to have included all items
thatmention Donne in relation to Herbert. era.haw Vaughan, 1 larvell,
Traherne, etal., wouldhaveextended thepre entbibliographyfarbeyond
manageable bounds. Since my primary intention is to list and annotate
Donne criticism, Ihave not included all edition of his poetryand prose
norallanthologiesthat contain electionsfrom hiswork,although I have
tried to include editions that contain critical discussions and/or notes or
that. forone reason or another, seem to have some special significance,
uch as certain privately printed editions, limited editions, and transla
tion. intoforeignlanguages, which indicatethepopularityandavailability
o Donne to those \ ho do not read English. Reprints of editions and
workspublished before 1968 havebeen excluded. ln referring to Donne's
poems[have followed Sir HerbertGrierson's text(1929), except in those
f winstanceswhen itwasnecessaryto usctitlesfromothereditions,allof
which are indicated in the annotations. By doing so, Ido not intend to
indi atea preference for Criersons text but simply hope to avoid confu-
ion. Publications are listed according to the date of publication that I
ued in preparing the bibliographic entry; reprints, revisions, and new
edition of works first published between 1968 and 1978 have been re
rdd when knox n. Book review have been excludedsince it i irnpos
iblc: to locate them alland to listonly those found would be rni leading
and 1I0t fllltyrepresentative of a given work's reception. Also, brief men
tions of Donne in books and articlesas well as references in literary his
tories, encyclopedias, and anthologies have been omitted, Unpublished
doctoral dissertations have been excluded, since man}'of them arc un
available, especially those in languages other than English, and since a
number have been published, in part or totally, in lateressaysand bunks.
The reader is encouraged. however, to checkDiseenation Abstractsand
Dissertation Abstracts lntemational for many American ones, most of
which arc more than adequately annotated bytheir authors. ~'1aIlY items
in languages other than English have been included (French, German,
Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, and so
on), but I have no assurance that I located all items in theselanguagesor
in lesser-known ones.
It gives me much pleasure to acknowledge and to thank all those
who have been so generous and kind in assisting me with this project. I
wish to thank, first of all, Melissa Poole. my current research assistant.
who greatly helped me by gathering materials, checking 11\1111erom de
tails,and proofreading. and whose dedication to the bibliographywassec
ond only to mine. I wish also to thank DouglasCollins, Illy former re
search assistant, who wasespecially helpful during the preliminary stages
and who continued to offer valuable help long after he was no longer
directlyinvolved in the project, and William Rossi, who checked nurncr
cus entries and helped me in sundry ways. Iam indebted to Gertian W
vallderBrugge. JamesCurtis, John 1-1.Foley, Iadwiga Maszcwska. Izumi
Matsuo, Dennis Mueller. Edward Mullen. Mary Ricciardi, Robert and
Hirokc Somers. RalfThiede. Steve'Iomka. SisterMotokoTsuchida, and
RussellZguta. who assisted me with foreign-language items, and to jcancicc
Brewerand Marilyn Voegele, librarians, who were most helpful ill locat
ingbooksand articles that were unavailable at the Universityof Missouri
Ellis Library. Many Donne scholars, critics. and friends were most kind
to call my attention to lesser-known materials and/or supplied me' with
offprints, especially Yoshihisa Aizawa, WernerBies. RogerCognard. Eu
gene Cunner, Heather Dubro....; Maureen Farrell, Steven H. Calc, Paul
0. Creen. James Harner. Shonosuki Ishii, R. K. Kaul. Tatyana N. Kra
savchcnko, Friedrich Krey, Edward Le Comte, F. N. Lees. Valentina
Libman, Peter Milward, Wolfgang Muller. \V Ostrowski, Laurence Per
rine, John J. Pollock, Silvia Ruffo-Fiore, Lynn Sadler. John T Shaw
cross, Giuseppe Soldano, CaryA. Stringer, Margaret Wright,and Gilbert
'roumans. l owe much to mycolleagues and studentsat the Universityof
Missouri-Columbia andat the UniversityofManchester in England (where
Iwasa visitingprofessor for the 1980-1981 academic year)for their help-
Preface 5
ful uggestions, insights, and encouragement; and Jwish to acknowledge
theFaculty ResearchCouncilofthe niver ityofMissouri-Columbiafor
everal mall grant . I am also v ry much indebted to Mi ha I Smith,
chiefbibliographer ofthe Modern Hurnanitic Research s ociation, for
opening his file to me, and I wish to thank membersof the staf[~ of nu
rncrous libraries. all of whom were most gracious with their lime and
advice, c pcciallythc Universif of 'Iissouri EllisLibrary, the niversity
of Illinois Library. the Carnbridg niversity Library. the Bodleian Li
brary the John Rylands Univcrsitv ibrary; and the British Library Ishould
31 0 liketoexpressmyappreciation to the ational Portrait allcry, lon
don. for permission touse thc portraitofDonne thatappear. on the jacket.
\11lI. to my wife. Lorraine. l owe a pecial note of thanks for having
gcnerou I)'supported me with her love and advice throughout the years
thatthisbibliographywasin preparation.
J. R. R.
Columbia. Missouri
1 'ebmary 19 2