John Donne, best known as a metaphysical poet, started writing poetry in the 1590 s – during the late Renaissance. Echoes of the Renaissance are discernible even in his late religious poetry. Undoubtedly, he is a bright representative of the English Baroque, but not of that “pure” religious baroque, to which his followers – poets George Herbert and Richard Crashaw – belong. There is no such natural, passionate love for God in his poetry as in the poetry of Crashaw; there is no such chastity and piety as that of Herbert. Rather, there is a palpable desire to realize the horrors of sin, evil and feel the mercy of God. The specificity of his work was determined by the fact that between his life and medieval tradition lay the whole era of the English Renaissance as well as his youth with its joys and adventures.
English literature of the 17th century; metaphysical poetry; John Donne; late English Renaissance; aesthetics and poetics of baroque.
Krasаvchenko, T.N. “John Donne in the Interior of His Time”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 4(58), 2022, pp. 9–27. (In Russ.)