John Donne’s Physics
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John Donne’s Physics
A reimagining of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions as an original treatment of human life shaped by innovations in seventeenth-century science and medicine.
In 1624, poet and preacher John Donne published Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, a book that recorded his near-death experience during a deadly epidemic in London. Four hundred years later, in the aftermath of our own pandemic, Harvey and Harrison show how Devotions crystalizes the power, beauty, and enduring strangeness of Donne’s thinking. Arguing that Donne saw human life in light of emergent ideas in the study of nature (physics) and the study of the body (physick), John Donne’s Physics reveals Devotions as a culminating achievement, a radically new literary form that uses poetic techniques to depict Donne’s encounter with death in a world transformed by new discoveries and knowledge systems.
In 1624, poet and preacher John Donne published Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, a book that recorded his near-death experience during a deadly epidemic in London. Four hundred years later, in the aftermath of our own pandemic, Harvey and Harrison show how Devotions crystalizes the power, beauty, and enduring strangeness of Donne’s thinking. Arguing that Donne saw human life in light of emergent ideas in the study of nature (physics) and the study of the body (physick), John Donne’s Physics reveals Devotions as a culminating achievement, a radically new literary form that uses poetic techniques to depict Donne’s encounter with death in a world transformed by new discoveries and knowledge systems.
256 pages | 6 halftones | 6 x 9 | © 2024
Literature and Literary Criticism: British and Irish Literature
Reviews
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: Threshold Physics
1. Donne’s Experience
2. The Time of the Body
3. Changing Genres
4. The History of Words
5. The Physician Calls
6. Translating the Soul
Coda
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: Threshold Physics
1. Donne’s Experience
2. The Time of the Body
3. Changing Genres
4. The History of Words
5. The Physician Calls
6. Translating the Soul
Coda
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index
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