John Donne Critical Quotes

Question 1

C.S Lewis: “ Donne never long…

Answer 1

…forgets a medieval sense of the sinfulness of sexuality”.

Question 2

Ian Mackean: “ Donne’s view that spiritual love could…

Answer 2

… be attained through physical love ties with the contemporary theory of the great chain of being.”

Question 3

Stubbs: “He could be misogynistic…

Answer 3

…but this was only one among innumerable attitudes he adopted and explored through his writing.”

Question 4

Ian Mackean: “Donne expresses an enormously wide range of feelings…

Answer 4

…in his songs and sonnets, all relating to the experience of love, but varying from the heights of ecstasy to the depths of despair.”n

Question 5

Joe Nutt: “The briefest images…

Answer 5

…can blossom into the most complex thoughts”.

Question 6

Katherine Rundell: “Donne’s poems are not…

Answer 6

…riddles to be solved, but invitations to think.”

Question 7

John Stubbs: “Donne’s idea of the woman’s…

Answer 7

body as a colony was arrogantly imperious.”

Question 8

Katherine Rundell: “His poetry sliced through…

Answer 8

…the gender divide and left it gasping on the floor.”

Question 9

Steven Burt: “Donne’s interest in…

Answer 9

… science gave him metaphors.”

Question 10

Ilona Bell: “Donne’s poetry was not intended for…

Answer 10

…the general public, but rather a small exclusive audience of friends, lovers,”

Question 11

Guibbory: “In Donne’s treatment of love in the elegies…

Answer 11

…the public world of politics and the intimacies of the private world are often inseparable.”

Question 12

Ilona Bell: “his attitudes towards women…

Answer 12

…shift so quickly, sometimes within a single poem or line.”