- [UNTITLED]
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- List of Maps
- Contributors
- Note to Readers
- General Introduction
- Introduction
- The composition and dissemination of Donne's writings
- John Donne's seventeenth-century readers
- Archival research
- Editing Donne's poetry: From John Marriot to the Donne <i>Variorum</i>
- Editing Donne's poetry: the Donne <i>Variorum</i> and beyond
- Modern scholarly editions of the prose of John Donne
- Research tools and their pitfalls for Donne studies
- Collaboration and the international scholarly community
- Introduction
- The epigram
- The formal verse satire
- The elegy
- The paradox
- The paradox: <i>Biathanatos</i>
- Menippean Donne
- The love lyric [Songs and Sonets]
- The verse letter
- The religious sonnet
- Liturgical poetry
- The problem
- The controversial treatise
- The essay
- The anniversary poem
- The epicede and obsequy
- The epithalamion
- The devotion
- The sermon
- The prose letter
- Introduction
- The English Reformation in the mid-Elizabethan period
- Donne's family background, birth, and early years
- Education as a courtier
- Donne's education
- Donne's military career
- The Earl of Essex and English expeditionary Forces
- Donne and Egerton: the court and courtship
- Donne and Late Elizabethan Court Politics
- Donne's Wedding and The Pyrford Years
- New Horizons in The Early Jacobean Period
- The Death of Robert Cecil: End of An Era
- Donne's Travels and Earliest Publications
- Donne's Decision to Take Orders
- The Rise of The Howards At Court
- Donne and Court Chaplaincy
- The Hazards of The Jacobean Court
- Donne's Readership At Lincoln's Inn and The Doncaster Embassy
- International Politics and Jacobean Statecraft
- Donne: The Final Period
- Donne, The Patriot Cause, and War, 1620–1629
- The English nation in 1631
- The death of Donne
- Introduction
- Donne and apostasy
- Donne, women, and the spectre of misogyny
- Donne's Absolutism
- Style, Wit, Prosody in The Poetry of John Donne
- Do Donne's writings express his desperate ambition?
- ‘By Parting Have Joyn’d Here’: The Story of The Two (Or More) Donnes
- Danger and discourse
- Bibliography
- Index 1: Conceptual Tools
- Index 2: Personal Names
- Index 3: Place names
- Index 4: Individual works discussed
Abstract and Keywords
This article starts by stating that the paradox had a reputation in the Renaissance as a witty but somewhat trivial genre. Donne, however, managed to employ the use of the concept of the paradox and turn it into a controversial, intellectually serious, and extended analysis of the ethical, legal, and theological implications of suicide in his Biathanatos which was published posthumously. The article goes on to analyse the reception of Biathanatos, Donne’s intention in writing it, and the subsequent critical analysis it received.
Keywords: Renaissance, paradox, suicide, genre, Biathanatos
Ernest W. Sullivan, II is the Edward S. Diggs Endowed Chair in English at Virginia Tech. He has authored The Influence of John Donne: His Uncollected Seventeenth-Century Printed Verse; edited Biathanatos by John Donne, The First and Second Dalhousie Manuscripts: Poems and Prose by John Donne and Others, The Harmony of the Muses; and co-edited Puzzles in Paper: Concepts in Historical Watermarks; vols. 2, 6, 7, and 8 of The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne; vols. 1 and 2 of The Complete Works of Abraham Cowley. He is co-proprietor of The Thomas L. Gravell Watermark Archive: An Online Database of Watermarks from the 15th-19th Centuries. He is a senior textual editor for The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne, general textual editor for The Complete Works of Abraham Cowley, and a past president of the John Donne Society.
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- [UNTITLED]
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- List of Maps
- Contributors
- Note to Readers
- General Introduction
- Introduction
- The composition and dissemination of Donne's writings
- John Donne's seventeenth-century readers
- Archival research
- Editing Donne's poetry: From John Marriot to the Donne <i>Variorum</i>
- Editing Donne's poetry: the Donne <i>Variorum</i> and beyond
- Modern scholarly editions of the prose of John Donne
- Research tools and their pitfalls for Donne studies
- Collaboration and the international scholarly community
- Introduction
- The epigram
- The formal verse satire
- The elegy
- The paradox
- The paradox: <i>Biathanatos</i>
- Menippean Donne
- The love lyric [Songs and Sonets]
- The verse letter
- The religious sonnet
- Liturgical poetry
- The problem
- The controversial treatise
- The essay
- The anniversary poem
- The epicede and obsequy
- The epithalamion
- The devotion
- The sermon
- The prose letter
- Introduction
- The English Reformation in the mid-Elizabethan period
- Donne's family background, birth, and early years
- Education as a courtier
- Donne's education
- Donne's military career
- The Earl of Essex and English expeditionary Forces
- Donne and Egerton: the court and courtship
- Donne and Late Elizabethan Court Politics
- Donne's Wedding and The Pyrford Years
- New Horizons in The Early Jacobean Period
- The Death of Robert Cecil: End of An Era
- Donne's Travels and Earliest Publications
- Donne's Decision to Take Orders
- The Rise of The Howards At Court
- Donne and Court Chaplaincy
- The Hazards of The Jacobean Court
- Donne's Readership At Lincoln's Inn and The Doncaster Embassy
- International Politics and Jacobean Statecraft
- Donne: The Final Period
- Donne, The Patriot Cause, and War, 1620–1629
- The English nation in 1631
- The death of Donne
- Introduction
- Donne and apostasy
- Donne, women, and the spectre of misogyny
- Donne's Absolutism
- Style, Wit, Prosody in The Poetry of John Donne
- Do Donne's writings express his desperate ambition?
- ‘By Parting Have Joyn’d Here’: The Story of The Two (Or More) Donnes
- Danger and discourse
- Bibliography
- Index 1: Conceptual Tools
- Index 2: Personal Names
- Index 3: Place names
- Index 4: Individual works discussed
