Okay, this will probably be my last post about The Cambridge Companion to John Donne, but seriously, this book is awesome. I just read a chapter called “Done as preacher” by Peter McCullough. The chapter was mostly an examination of the rhetorical devices and conventions that Donne regularly employed, and it also offered a contextual look at the ideals and perceptions of preaching in Early Modern England.
McCullough begins by pointing out that at the time of Donne’s death, he was renowned for his sermons rather than for his poetry, but that today his sermons are often only read as extra materials to illuminate biographical details about Donne for the purpose of contextualizing his poetry. McCullough observes that Donne’s sermon style is something almost entirely foreign to us today, as they generally lasted over an hour, and were constructed, in accordance with a neoclassical aesthetic, as classical orations. In an effort to better contextualize Donne’s sermons, McCullough examines the classical conventions of public speeches, and examines how Donne is employing, and in some cases altering, these conventions.
Something that I found particularly interesting was the idea that Donne, as a preacher, was in indirect competition with other oral performances, particularly courtly masques and the theatre. This chapter may be helpful to people who are looking at masques and/or theatre, to provide a contextual counterpoint to those performances. (Let me know if you want more details about this angle, or if you want to borrow the book!)
Guibbory, Achsah. The Cambridge Companion to John Donne. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print.
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