From reviews of previous volumes: This variorum edition will be the basis of all future Donne scholarship. —Chronique Academic libraries and specialists in Renaissance and 17th-century studies should feel compelled to own each and every volume of this series. —Seventeenth Century News An occasion for celebration. Among the most ambitious and valuable collaborative scholarly enterprises at the end of the twentieth century. Superb. —Early Modern Literary Studies This latest addition to the Donne variorum, the third to appear in a projected eight-volume series, presents a newly edited critical text of Donne's elegies and a comprehensive variorum commentary. As with previous volumes, Volume 2 is based on a study of all known manuscript sources and significant printed editions of Donne's poetry and on an examination of the criticism and scholarship of the past four centuries.
Author
John Donne was an English poet, preacher and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works are notable for their realistic and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially as compared to that of his contemporaries. Despite his great education and poetic talents, he lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. In 1615 he became an Anglican priest and, in 1621, was appointed the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London.
