In this volume, Joshua Eckhardt examines the religious texts and books that surrounded the poems, sermons, and inscriptions of the early modern poet and preacher John Donne. Focusing on the material realities legible in manuscripts and Sammelbande, bookshops and private libraries, Eckhardt uncovers the myriad ways in which Donne's writings were received and presented, first by his contemporaries, and later by subsequent readers of his work.

Eckhardt sheds light on the religious writings with which Donne's work was linked during its circulation, using a bibliographic approach that also informs our understanding of his work's reception during the early modern period. He analyzes the religious implications of the placement of Donne's poem "A Litany" in a library full of Roman Catholic and English prayer books, the relationship and physical proximity of Donne's writings to figures such as Sir Thomas Egerton and Izaak Walton, and the movements in later centuries of Donne's work from private owners to the major libraries that have made this study possible. Eckhardt's detailed research reveals how Donne's writings have circulated throughout history-and how religious readers, communities, and movements affected the distribution and reception of his body of work.

Centered on a place in time when distinct methods of reproduction, preservation, and circulation were used to negotiate a complex and sometimes dangerous world of confessional division, Religion Around John Donne makes an original contribution to Donne studies, religious history, book history, and reception studies.

About the Author

Joshua Eckhardt is Associate Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Reviews

"Religion Around John Donne traces the context for all these titles in Donne's reading, with a careful scholarship that also serves to highlight the fact that he could be very, very funny. And this, too, is a kind of renewal. Eckhardt makes good on his introduction's promise to write 'a book history [that] can demonstrate plenty about broad social contexts' in uniting manuscript copies of Donne with printed versions, other books held side by side in contemporary libraries, and variora from Donne's contemporaries."

-Times Literary Supplement

"Professor Eckhardt is to be congratulated for the excellent approach which he takes to setting Donne in a religious context."

-Peter Davidson Heythrop Journal

"An invaluable study for grappling anew with the highly charged and polemical divides in early modern England and the sophisticated nuance of Donne's and his contemporaries' responses to and critiques of those issues."

-Jeffrey Johnson Journal of British Studies

"Eckhardt makes a persuasive case for the ways that Henry Constable's controversial sonnet of Mariolatry, often attributed to Donne until the late nineteenth century, changes how readers would interpret Donne's religious verse."

-Ryan Netzley SEL: Studies in English Literature

"This volume is informative, deftly written, and clearly deeply knowledgeable."

-Elizabeth Hodgson Renaissance Quarterly

"In its thorough approach to neglected but fruitful aspects of Donne's oeuvre, it recommends itself both as an entry point into Donne's universe and also as a complement for readers already familiar with it."

-Philipp Reisner Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"Interpreting his brief to survey the religion around Donne literally, Eckhardt sets out to examine the religion which surrounded Donne's works in manuscript collections, Sammelbande (composite volumes of printed texts), private libraries, and bookshops. The result is a triumph: an innovative study which puts religion and book history into conversation with each other, showing 'religious contexts through bibliographic ones.' The reader is taken on a riveting journey through a series of libraries and archives, which opens up new perspectives both on Donne (as book-buyer, book-owner, book-binder, and reader) and on the way in which contemporaries and future generations shaped his religious identity in manuscript and print."

-Emma Rhatigan Modern Language Review (Slavonic & East European)

"It is sometimes easy to forget the mental and physical footwork that is required to construct even one sentence of bibliographical research, and Eckhardt is to be commended for his excellent and committed collation of information from a vast number of sources in what is an exemplary addition to each of the disciplines he contributes to in his book."

-Alice Capstick Script & Print

"A tour de force. Weaving together close reading, reception study, and book history, this volume sheds new light on Donne's writing, its readers, and the complex landscape of early modern religious belief and practice. Expertly navigating archival sources, Eckhardt follows Donne's works as they travel through a world of religious communion and division, generating and participating in conversations that are as compelling now as they were in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."

-David Colclough,author of John Donne's Professional Lives

"Besides providing new insights into the life and works of John Donne in the context of the religious disputes of his time, Religion Around John Donne shows how book history can be written in a scholarly and engaging way. Joshua Eckhardt provides absorbing and exemplary readings of material features in a rich variety of books connected to Donne."

-H. R. Woudhuysen,author of Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts, 1558-1640

"This study of the consummate poet and preacher of the late English Renaissance recovers a religious and literary culture profoundly embodied in the physical labors of scribes, printers, and bibliophile collectors. Here we encounter an intimate history of the material circumstances of knowledge in the premodern world-of paper, ink, and pen-down to the miracles of book preservation and the odds-breaking power of historic library collections to hold the Renaissance together in snapshot form."

-Earle Havens,Nancy H. Hall Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University

"Religion Around John Donne brilliantly realizes the potential of its bibliographical approach. Its focus on the religious texts, in manuscript and print, that Donne and his contemporaries made, collected, and preserved yields fascinating new insights into the role played by religion in Donne's life and writing. Vividly written, perfectly paced, and beautifully clear, Religion Around John Donne will be of great interest and value to beginners and experts alike."

-Hugh Adlington,author of John Donne's Books: Reading, Writing and the Uses of Knowledge

Book Information
ISBN 9780271083377
Author Joshua Eckhardt
Format Hardback
Page Count 208
Imprint Pennsylvania State University Press
Publisher Pennsylvania State University Press
Weight(grams) 408g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 216mm