1572–1601

Abstract

There is a standard biography of John Donne, the author of which, R. C. Bald, has drawn together what is known of Donne’s life and has supplemented the facts with his knowledge of the relevant period, while remaining properly aware of what we do not know.¹ John Carey has written what might be called a ‘spiritual biography’, an account of ‘the distinctive structure of Donne’s imaginationi’² which uses cross-references between works and life as well as between one work and another to define that imagination. Other writers have, like Alan Sinfield,³ put less weight upon Donne’s individualism and more upon how he relates to culture and society in his period. Here Carey’s romanticism and liberalism give way to a more materialistic stress.