A study of the songs and sonnets of John Donne as they show his reaction to the Elizabethan tradition

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
D'Orsay White (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
William Mueller

Abstract: This study proposes to treat John Donne as a heretic of approach and idiom. It will show that his reaction against the Elizabethan traditions was sharp and complete. His approach to the theme of love in his Songs and Sonnets, circulated among his private friends, was radically different from the set, traditional treatment of love in the poetry of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This latter type of poetry had lost all traces of originality and freshness; idiom, mood, and often form corresponded to a constant pattern which had become insipid. Set phrases, invocations, and approach had been used too frequently. The Elizabethans preferred the sonnet as a form of expression; and many of the poets composed a series of sonnets in which the theme was most often that of undying, unrequited love.

Additional Information

Publication
Honors Project
Language: English
Date: 1955

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