Against the Grain Manuscript 8213 Collecting to the Core — The Works of John Donne Cecile M. Jagodzinski Anne Doherty Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Collecting to the Core — The Works of John Donne by Cecile M. Jagodzinski (British Literature Editor, Resources for College Libraries) <[email protected]> Column Editor: Anne Doherty (Resources for College Libraries Project Editor, CHOICE/ACRL) <[email protected]> Column Editor’s Note: The “Collecting consideration for the order of composition or goals are “to recover and present exactly what to the Core” column highlights monographic the author’s intent). After Donne’s conversion Donne wrote” and “to facilitate the further works that are essential to the academic li- to Anglicanism and appointment as dean of St. understanding of Donne’s poems.”17 Purchase brary within a particular discipline, inspired Paul’s Cathedral, only selected sermons were of these volumes will also undoubtedly please by the Resources for College Libraries bib- published before his death; a meditation, Devo- faculty and graduate students who study Donne liography (online at http://www.rclweb.net). tions Upon Emergent Occasions, written while and the other metaphysical poets. This monu- In each essay, subject specialists introduce Donne thought he was about to die, was also mental scholarly work is also partially available and explain the classic titles and topics that published in 1624.5 For the remainder of the in electronic form as Digital Donne, a boon to continue to remain relevant to the undergrad- seventeenth century, the focus of any further those who wish to trace patterns in Donne’s uate curriculum and library collection. Dis- publications was on the prose, and on the skill poetry and prose and follow the commentary 18 ciplinary trends may shift, but some classics of Dr. Donne, a reputedly brilliant on Donne from Johnson to the present. never go out of style. — AD orator. The eighteenth century is a As for biography and criticism, desert when it comes to new works one’s literary cup overflows with by or about Donne — the result, monographs focused on Don- ometimes a book review is just a book no doubt, of Johnson’s scorn for ne’s life and work: between review — a 100- to 200-word piece of the metaphysicals. During the 1900 and 2018, WorldCat Sfunctional literature that helps librarians nineteenth century, four editions reports over 6,500 works by, decide whether to spend scarce resources of Donne’s poetry were published. or about, or influenced by (whether the budget is $100,000 or one million Following Eliot’s TLS article Donne, in formats ranging dollars) on a particular book. Most of us have on the metaphysical poets, from printed books to scores to read hundreds of book reviews, but rarely has a research on Donne began a periodicals. Though this number book review changed the course of an academic crescendo that continues into may be inflated due to duplication discipline like T. S. Eliot’s review of Herbert the twenty-first century. In the in the WorldCat database, it is still Grierson’s 1921 edition of the poetry of John 1-2 first half of the twentieth centu- an astounding amount of scholarship Donne (1572-1631). Published in The Times ry alone, four scholarly editions devoted to one poet. This also does not Literary Supplement in 1921, Eliot (or his TLS of Donne’s poetry were produced. In the past reflect the many reference works and surveys editors) entitled the piece “The Metaphysical half-century, many more editions of the poetry of the metaphysical poets, where Donne is not Poets.” In the review itself—the lead article intended for classroom use emerged, including the sole focus, but nevertheless holds pride of for that issue, Eliot pronounced Grierson’s annotated editions by John T. Shawcross, A. J. place. A familiar example of the latter is the work, not just a collection of poetry, but “a Smith, Helen Gardner, C. A. Patrides, Ilona essay in the Dictionary of Literary Biography piece of criticism.” Donne had been all but Bell, Robin Robbins, and Donald Dickson.6-12 series, where scholar A. J. Smith outlines ignored since English critic, poet, and lexi- Undergraduate libraries will want to own these Donne’s life and works.19 cographer Samuel Johnson wrote this about latter editions, even though some have fallen Biographies of Donne appeared as early as metaphysical poetry: out of print. Faculty have their preferences for The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked 1670, with Izaak Walton’s collective biogra- use in the classroom, and the library should phy, which was followed nearly two centuries by violence together; nature and art are reflect those preferences. Also published ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, later by Edmund Gosse’s edition of Donne’s between 1953 and 1962 was the ten-volume life and letters.20-21 The definitive biography of and allusions; their learning instructs, series, The Sermons of John Donne, edited by 22 and their subtilty surprises; but the Donne is R. C. Bald’s John Donne: A Life. George R. Potter and Evelyn M. S. Simp- This was followed some years later by John reader commonly thinks his improve- 13 son. This edition has not been superseded, Carey’s John Donne: Life, Mind and Art, ment is dearly bought, and, though he though the new (i.e., in print) Oxford Edition 3 which viewed Donne as an ambitious young sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. of the Sermons of John Donne (three volumes, 14 man struggling with the religious controversies But Eliot demurred; he insisted that “after the to date) is worthy of consideration. While the of the time and his own personal beliefs.23 dissociation, they [the metaphysical poets] put Potter and Simpson edition is not an essential Carey’s work was met with some skepticism; the material together again in a new unity.” purchase for most undergraduate libraries, the Edward W. Tayler’s review notes that “Carey After quoting Donne’s line from “The Relic,” aforementioned Devotions Upon Emergent pursues his demonstration comprehensively, “A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,” and Occasions and Death’s Duell (1632) (the final exactingly, incisively, relentlessly.” Yet, its “telescoping” of two contrasting images, sermon he preached before his death) are despite his misgivings, Tayler admits that Eliot remarks that “A thought to Donne was an mandatory purchases and representative of the “book cannot be ignored, nor should it be experience; it modified his sensibility. When Donne’s prose style. dismissed simply because it sometimes sounds a poet’s mind is perfectly equipped for its This essay has focused till now on the needs like a mean-spirited hiss.”24 Nor has it been work it is constantly amalgamating disparate 4 of undergraduate students. But, just to be con- ignored: Google Books lists over 5,000 titles experience.” Here was high praise for a poet trary (as Donne was in his poetry), I must men- that mention or cite Carey. John Stubbs’s whose work had been passed over for nearly tion The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John John Donne: The Reformed Soul was also two centuries. And it brought back into cur- Donne, edited by Gary Stringer.15 For those met with mixed reviews: John Carey himself rency the term “metaphysical poetry,” though whose specialty is outside the field of literary faulted Stubbs for “combing the poems for even Eliot put the term in quotation marks. criticism, “A variorum edition designates either biographical information,” and being “an inac- Very few of Donne’s poems were published (1) an edition of a work that lists all the textual curate reader of Donne’s poems.”25-26 However, during his lifetime; he was, as was frequently variants in the author’s manuscripts … or (2) Stubbs’s biography was the recipient of the the custom during that era, a “coterie poet” an edition of a text that includes a collection Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award who circulated his poems among friends and of the annotations and commentaries on the for a work-in-progress, and was shortlisted patrons and, some argue, shared them with his text by earlier editors.”16 The Donne variorum for the Costa Award in 2006; even The New wife, Anne. After his death, his son published is a work in progress; the first volumes were York Times Book Review, not usually given to an edition of Donne’s poetry in 1633 (with no published in 1995, and it is still incomplete. Its continued on page 45 44 Against the Grain / December 2018 - January 2019 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> Collecting to the Core Endnotes from page 44 1. Eliot, T. S. “The Metaphysical Poets.” The Times Literary Supplement, October 20, 1921: 669-670. reviewing literary criticism, devoted a full page to the 27 2. Grierson, Herbert J. C. Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: book with a review by novelist Thomas Mallon. Donne to Butler. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921.* Of the strictly critical, non-biographical works about 3. Johnson, Samuel. The Lives of the English Poets, ed. by George Birkbeck Hill. Donne, The Oxford Handbook of John Donne will be of Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.* 28 great interest to undergraduates and their instructors. 4. Eliot, “The Metaphysical Poets.” Robert Fraser, in the TLS, found it hard to think of “a 5. Donne, John. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.