NancyGene
2022-04-17 21:03:44 UTC
"Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne" by Katherine Rundell (September 6, 2022)
https://www.amazon.com/Super-Infinite-Transformations-Donne-Katherine-Rundell/dp/0374607400
There is an informative article about the book at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/15/plague-poems-defiant-wit-and-penis-puns-why-john-donne-is-a-poet-for-our-times
We found this passage to be worth thinking about:
"Donne is often said to be a difficult poet. But if he is difficult, it is the difficulty of someone who wants you to read harder, to pay better attention. And when you have read and reread them, the poems open – they salute you. The pleasures of Donne are akin to the pleasures of cracking a safe: there is gold inside. And besides, why should it be easy? Very little that is worth having is easy. We are not, he told us, easy: we are both a miracle and a disaster; our lives deserve pity and wonder, careful loving attention, the full untrammeled exuberance of our imagination. When you have known vast horror, and still found glory, you do not compare loves to doves. You write: “Taste whole joys.”
We would like to unleash the "full untrammeled exuberance of our imagination," but not through the hardships that Dunne had to experience.
https://www.amazon.com/Super-Infinite-Transformations-Donne-Katherine-Rundell/dp/0374607400
There is an informative article about the book at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/15/plague-poems-defiant-wit-and-penis-puns-why-john-donne-is-a-poet-for-our-times
We found this passage to be worth thinking about:
"Donne is often said to be a difficult poet. But if he is difficult, it is the difficulty of someone who wants you to read harder, to pay better attention. And when you have read and reread them, the poems open – they salute you. The pleasures of Donne are akin to the pleasures of cracking a safe: there is gold inside. And besides, why should it be easy? Very little that is worth having is easy. We are not, he told us, easy: we are both a miracle and a disaster; our lives deserve pity and wonder, careful loving attention, the full untrammeled exuberance of our imagination. When you have known vast horror, and still found glory, you do not compare loves to doves. You write: “Taste whole joys.”
We would like to unleash the "full untrammeled exuberance of our imagination," but not through the hardships that Dunne had to experience.