John Donne 1633 Complete Poems

EBOOK THE POEMS OF JOHN DONNE, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) *** THE POEMS OF JOHN DONNE EDITED FROM THE OLD EDITIONS AND NUMEROUS MANUSCRIPTS, WITH INTRODUCTIONS & COMMENTARY BY HERBERT J. C. GRIERSON M.A. CHALMERS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN VOL. I THE TEXT OF THE POEMS WITH APPENDIXES OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK TORONTO AND MELBOURNE PREFACE The present edition of Donne's poems grew out of my work as a teacher. In the spring of 1907, just after I had published a small volume on the literature of the early seventeenth century, I was lecturing to a class of Honours students on the 'Metaphysical poets'. They found Donne difficult alike to understand and to appreciate, and accordingly I undertook to read with them a selection from his poems with a view to elucidating difficult passages and illustrating the character of his 'metaphysics', the Scholastic and scientific doctrines which underlie his conceits. The only editions which we had at our disposal were the modern editions of Donne's poems by Grosart and Chambers, but I did not anticipate that this would present any obstacle to the task I had undertaken. About the same time the Master of Peterhouse asked me to undertake the chapter on Donne, as poet and prose-artist, for the _Cambridge History of English Lit…