ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia 24 RAOUL GR ANQVIST THE REPUTATION O F JOHN DONNE 1779—1873 UPPSALA 1975 Distributor: Almqvist & Wikseil International Stockholm — Sweden The Reputation of John Donne 1779—1873 Doctoral Dissertation to be publicly examined in Room C 208, HSC, on December 13, 1975, at 10.00 a.m., for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (according to Royal proclamation N o. 327, 1969) by Raoul Granqvist UPPSALA 1975 ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia 24 Donne at the age of 44\ from an engraving by W. Bromley (originally after the painting that is now in the National Portrait Gallery). Reproduced in John Mayor, Walton's Lives (1825) THE REPUTATION OF JOHN DONNE 1779—1873 BY RAOUL GR ANQVIST UPPSALA 1975 Distributor: Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm, Sweden Doctoral dissertation at the University of Uppsala 1975 © 1975 Raoul Granqvist Printed in Sweden by Libertryck, Stockholm 1975 Phototypesetting: TEXTGRUPPEN I UPPSALA AB ISBN 91-554-0331-X ISSN 0562-2719 Contents References and Abbreviations 7 Illustrations 10 Preface 11 Introduction 17 1. Donne in the Seventeenth Century 17 2. Donne in the Eighteenth Century (before Johnson) 20 PART ONE: 1779-1830 I. Johnson on Donne 27 II. Literary Historians and Antiquarians on Donne 35 1. The Heritage of Johnson 35 a. Donne the Prototype of Metaphysical Wit 35 b. Donne the Satirist 39 c. Donne the Prose-Writer 43 2. Donne in the Anthologies 47 a. Donne in Three Standard Anthologies 48 b. Donne in Selections of Songs and Lyrical Poetry 49 c. Donne in Didactic Selections of Poetry and Prose 52 III. Walton's Life of Donne: A Source of Information and Inspiration 54 1. Paraphrases and Editions of the Life 55 2. The Life of Donne: A Moral and Religious Document 60 IV. Donne in the Retrospective Review 67 V. S.T. Coleridge and Some Romantic Essayists on Donne 72 1. Coleridge on Donne's Works 73 a. The Lamb Circle and their Interest in Donne 74 b. Coleridge on Donne's Poetry 77 c. Coleridge on Donne's Prose 87 2. Two Romantic Essayists on Donne 94 a. William Hazlitt on Donne 94 b. Walter Savage Landor on Donne 96 PART TWO: 1830-1873 I. Views on Donne's Prose 103 1. Donne's Sermons 103 a. The Impact of Coleridge 103 b. Donne and the Oxford Movement 103 2. Donne's Other Prose-Works 110 II. Literary Historians and Scholars on Donne's Poetry 115 1. The Orthodox View on Donne's Poetry 115 2. The Ambivalent View on Donners Poetry 119 3. Donne the Satirist 122 4. Donne's Poetry in the Anthologies 124 a. Donne's Sacred Poems 125 b. Donne's Secular Poems 130 c. The Omission of Donne from The Golden Treasury 134 III. Donne's Biography 138 1. Donne the Lover and Husband 139 2. Donne the Model of Virtue 143 3. The Dying Donne 144 IV. Three Victorians on Donne 148 1. Leigh Hunt on Donne 148 2. Coventry Patmore on Donne 151 3. Robert Browning on Donne 155 V. Transcendentalists on Donne 159 1. Emerson and Thoreau on Donne 159 2. Lowell on Donne 167 Conclusion 171 Bibliography I: Primary Sources (arranged chronologically) 175 Bibliography II: Secondary Sources (arranged alphabetically) 189 Index 195 References and Abbreviations The texts of Donne used are taken from the following editions: from the edi­ tions of Helen Gardner, The Divine Poems (Oxford, 1952) and The Elegies, and the Songs and Sonnets (Oxford, 1970); the Verse Letters, the Satires, the Epigrams, and "The Progresse of the Soule" from W. Milgate, The Satires, Epigrams and Verse Letters (Oxford, 1967); and the remainder from H.J.C. Grierson, The Poems of John Donne (2 vols. Oxford, 1968). These are referred to as Gardner, Divine Poems Gardner, Elegies etc. Milgate Grierson Other books, articles and periodicals frequently used and referred to are: Alford Alford, Henry. The Works of John Donne, D.D., Dean of Saint Paul's, 1621—1631. With a Memoir of his Life. 6 vols. London, 1839. Bald, Life Bald, R.C. John Donne: A Life. Oxford, 1970. Botting Botting, Roland B. "The Reputation of John Donne during the Nineteenth Century." In Research Studies of the State College of Washington, IX, no. 3, 1941, 139-88. Bryan Bryan, Robert A. "The Reputation of John Donne in England from 1660 to 1832: A Study in the History of Literary Criti­ cism." Unpublished dissertation at University of Kentucky, 1956. Concordance Combs, Homer Carroll and Zay Rusk Sullens. A Concordance to the English Poems of John Donne. Chicago, 1940. Grosart, Donne Grosart, Alexander B. The Complete Poems of John Donne, D.D. Dean of St. Paul's. Edited with Preface, Essay on Life and Writings, and Notes, by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart. In The Fuller Worthies Library. 2 vols. London, 1872—3. Jessopp, Essays Jessopp, Augustus. Essays in Divinity by John Donne, D.D. Some Time Dean of St. Paul's. London, 1855. Keynes Keynes, Geoffrey. A Bibliography of Dr. John Donne: Dean of Saint Paul's. Fourth edition. Oxford, 1973. Sermons Potter, G.R. and Evelyn M. Simpson. The Sermons of John Donne. 10 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1953—62. Simpson Simpson, Evelyn M. A Study of the Prose Works of John Donne. Second edition. Oxford, 1969. Smith Smith, A.J. John Donne: Essays in Celebration. London, 1972. Tillotson Tillotson, Kathleen. "Donne's Poetry in the Nineteenth Centu­ ry (1800—1872)." In Geoffrey and Kathleen Tillotson, Mid- Victorian Studies. Pp. 278—300. London, 1965. Zouch, Zouch, Thomas. The Lives of Dr. John Donne, etc. By Izaak Walton's Lives Walton. With Notes, and the Life of the Author. First edition. York, 1796. Second edition. York, 1807. AL American Literature ELH A Journal of English Literary History ER Edinburgh Review ES Essays and Studies GM Gentleman's Magazine JEGP Journal of English and Germanic Philology N&Q Notes & Queries MLN Modern Language Notes PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Association of America PQ Philological Quarterly QR Quarterly Review RES Review of English Studies SP Studies in Philology SR Sewanee Review TLS Times Literary Supplement For full bibliographical documentation, see the Bibliography. The Bibliog­ raphy is divided into two sections. Section I includes entries on Donne from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—arranged chronologically. The date of each primary entry (in section I) is consistently (except when it oc­ curs abundantly in the same chapter or is included in the text) printed in bold­ face in the footnote. In many instances only a rough estimate of the date of the reference may be given: if the reference occurs in or after a specific year (the limit being some ten years) it is indicated by a dash after the year, if it occurs before the year, the dash precedes; to imply that a reference occurs around a year, "c." is used. The boldfaced "clue-year" in the notes is a guide to the chronological list of primary sources. This system may be helpful to those only reading one small section of the book. The secondary sources, in Section II of the Bibliography, are arranged al­ phabetically. They are excluded from the treatment described above. Works listed in Section II are included in the Index when they occur in the actual text of the dissertation, but not when they occur in the notes. Illustrations I. Donne at the age of 44; from an engraving by W. Bromley (originally after the painting that is now in the National Portrait Gallery). Reproduced in John Mayor, Walton's Lives (1825) frontispiece II. Vignette to vol. I of Bell's edition (1779); engraved by J. M. Delattre after C. H. Stothard 56 III. Vignette to vol. II of Bell's edition; engraved by Delattre after Stothard 57 IV. Vignette to vol. Ill of Bell's edition; engraved by Delattre after Stothard 58 V. The Vision; engraved by J. M. Wright after C. Heath. Reproduced in John Mayor, Walton's Lives 62 VI. "The Storme"; engraved vignette (by W. Miller after S. Prout) to S. C. Hall's selection of Donne poems in The Book of Gems (1836—38) 132 VII. The effigy of Donne in St. Paul's; engraved for J.P. Malcolm's Londinium Redivivum (1803), copied in The Gentleman's Magazine (1820) 145 Preface Ever since the 1920s and 30s, when Donne's reputation was reaching its height, the history of his literary reputation has engaged critics. One of the ear­ liest and most diligent students of the subject was Professor Arthur N. Nether- cot. In three articles in 1924—25, Nethercot mapped Donne's pre-1800 reputa­ tion.1 Little was then known about the views of Donne in the Romantic and the Victorian ages. As early as 1922, it is true, Nethercot had stated in an article, that the "nineteenth century 'discovered' Donne as a lyric poet" and had enu­ merated a few of Donne's supporters, but the essay failed to catch any notice.2 Scholars and critics at the time were absorbed by what seemed to be more topi­ cal issues, such as questions of Donne's unified sensibility, psychological real­ ism, modernity, etc. Indeed, they found that Donne was their poet, resurrected and re-vitalized. Henri Peyre claimed in 1944 that it was "the scarcity of mate­ rials, the extreme prudence with which every fragment of information should be weighed, and the inadequacy of a purely quantitative method" that thus far had discouraged scholars from writing the history of Donne's reputation. Scholarly interest in various Romantic and Victorian views on Donne was delayed.3 Geoffrey Keynes' Bibliography of Dr.