John Donne was deeply involved in the theological and ideological debates of his time. In this study, Theresa DiPasquale explores the literary implications of that engagement. She argues that Donne was greatly influenced by his response to the Reformation debate over the sacraments - Baptism and Eucharist - in formulating his understanding of the written word as a visible sign, of the poet as the quasi-divine maker of that sign, and of the reader and its receiver. Structured around close readings of Donne's poems, this work considers poems, especially of a secular nature, that are not usually viewed from that perspective. Throughout this work, DiPasquale draws on other scholarship that acknowledges the insufficiency of talking about "Protestant" against "Catholic" or even "Anglican" against "Puritan" beliefs when talking about 17th-century English culture. Indeed, a multiplicity of theological perspectives were competing in the English church. This study, then, attempts to reconstruct Donne's own, quite nuanced theology of sacrament to provide a guide to his poetics and, in particular, to his conception of the exchange between author and reader. Because the theological ferment of the 17th century so influenced and involved the society as a whole, this study not only shed light on Donne's poems but also on the reading audience of the time and the ways in which they received and responded to these "poetic sacraments".

Author Biography

THERESA M. DIPASQUALE is assistant professor of English at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Her work on John Donne's poetry and religious thought has appeared in several edited volumes as well as a number of journals, including Modern Philology, John Donne Journal and Philological Quarterly. This is her first book-length treatment of the subject.