John Donne's "Songs and Sonnets" as Poetic Essays

<p>The primary purpose of this study is to determine whether or not John Donne's "Songs and Sonnets" may be considered within the realm of the essay; that is, are they essays in poetry? To give validity to this question we must first offer the evidence upon which the question is based. We began with this problem in this chapter in our discussion of similarities in their lives and interests between Montaigne and Donne. From these we proceeded to examine the qualities of Montaigne's Essays and the characteristics of style and structure they possess. We concluded with the likely probability that Donne knew Montaigne's work. In Chapter II we will discuss the suggested relationship between the facts of Donne's life and the love-lyrics. In Chapter III we will examine the essay form in some detail and then make a close analysis of five of Donne's lyrics to bring out possible relations between the essay form and the love lyrics. In conclusion we will offer our tentative answer to the question: Are Donne's "Songs and Sonnets" poetic essays?</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Humanities

Year

1974

Author dc:creator

• Wolf, Carol

• Humanities
• Arts and Humanities

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.dominican.edu/humanities-print-theses/162

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.dominican.edu:humanities-print-theses-1161