Event Title
'Contraryes meete in one': Lyric Conciliations in John Donne's Holy Sonnets
Location
Diamond 221
Start Date
30-4-2015 10:00 AM
End Date
30-4-2015 10:55 AM
Project Type
Presentation
Description
In her introduction to The Art of Shakespeares Sonnets, Helen Vendler writes that lyric poetry is the genre that directs its mimesis toward the performance of the mind in solitary speech (1-2). This simply articulated statement encompasses arguments about the central issues of poetry criticism: among them, the nature of the lyric speaker, the triangulation of poet-reader-speaker, and the question of address. This project examines these concerns as they occur in six of John Donnes Holy Sonnets, where the speaker finds himself at the crossroads between depraved life and inevitable death. Under these frightening circumstances, lyric poetry serves as his sole recourse to communicate with God and plead for the necessity of salvation and the value of humanity despite sin. Ultimately, the sonnet form provides a literary interface for the human and the divine and permits the speaker to reconcile the different contraryes that permeate his being.
Faculty Sponsor
Laurie Osborne, Elizabeth Sagaser
Sponsoring Department
Colby College. English Dept.
CLAS Field of Study
Humanities
Event Website
http://www.colby.edu/clas
ID
1199
'Contraryes meete in one': Lyric Conciliations in John Donne's Holy Sonnets
Diamond 221
In her introduction to The Art of Shakespeares Sonnets, Helen Vendler writes that lyric poetry is the genre that directs its mimesis toward the performance of the mind in solitary speech (1-2). This simply articulated statement encompasses arguments about the central issues of poetry criticism: among them, the nature of the lyric speaker, the triangulation of poet-reader-speaker, and the question of address. This project examines these concerns as they occur in six of John Donnes Holy Sonnets, where the speaker finds himself at the crossroads between depraved life and inevitable death. Under these frightening circumstances, lyric poetry serves as his sole recourse to communicate with God and plead for the necessity of salvation and the value of humanity despite sin. Ultimately, the sonnet form provides a literary interface for the human and the divine and permits the speaker to reconcile the different contraryes that permeate his being.
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/275