Emblem and Icon in John Donne's Poetry and Prose

Few literary lives have navigated the perimeters of success and misfortune as boldly as did that of John Donne. The tensions within his work are sometimes viewed as the outcomes of shifting directions in his personal circumstances and beliefs. In addressing Donne's supposedly radical idiosyncrasies, commentators have often either omitted or underplayed discussion of the ambiguities inherent in the art and literature of early modern culture itself. The tensile, even contradictory, qualities of Donne's writing may have reflected as much the ambiguous texture of the artistic society around him as they did the tumult of his own psyche. This book explores the correspondences between the iconic and emblematic currents of the age and Donne's poetry and prose. Through close readings of Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Carolean signs and sign systems, coupled with a cogent attention to historical context, Clayton G. MacKenzie seeks to demonstrate the quality and intention of some of Donne's literary designs.

Auteur

The Author: Clayton G. MacKenzie is Associate Professor in the English Department at Hong Kong Baptist University. A published novelist and performed playwright, he is also the author of Emblems of Mortality, a groundbreaking study of artistic influences on Shakespeare's theatre, and has written widely on Renaissance literature and culture. His other publications include essays on Thomas Carlyle, Ama Ata Aidoo, Chinua Achebe, British community theatre, contemporary Asian drama, children's writing, missionary literatures, and pedagogy. Before coming to the Far East, he taught at Christ Church University College in Canterbury and at St. Mary's University College (Strawberry Hill) in London.