Donne's

But Donne always wore masks and played with the persona of the "I": are you, as a biographer, in danger of a biographically reductive reading of Donne's art?

The Biographical Fallacy 2009

MT: You mostly seem to read Donne's poems biographically.

The Biographical Fallacy 2009

It's a small slip, but hardly a minor one, since the point of quoting Donne's labouring lines is that the metre requires of a reader the kind of struggle counselled by the words, just as Stevens requires of his difficult verse that it strain towards an essential truth while holding open the possibility that such truths might remain out of reach.

What Ever Happened to Modernism? by Gabriel Josipovici James Purdon 2010

I don't say that Stubbs has done this in his biography, although Colin Burrow's conclusion that it, too, focuses excessively on "evidence and symptom" -- whereby Donne's poems are read back into his life -- doesn't give me that much confidence that he hasn't.

The Biographical Fallacy 2009

If Donne's poems are great art (and I think they are), they are so even if we do lose touch with his "historical reality."

The Biographical Fallacy 2009

I don't want to be pompous but I remember thinking about Donne's 'quintessence of nothingness'.

Sam Willetts: A season in hell Susanna Rustin 2010

I watched him continue to recite Donne's words and thought: eventually he will look up and notice that my eyes are glossing over and he has lost my heart.

Ruth Andrew Ellenson: The Moment I Knew Ruth Andrew Ellenson 2011

Seldom do John Donne's words -- "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." -- ring so true.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh: The Death Penalty Is Political Sport At Its Most Barbarous Sister Mary Ann Walsh 2011

I watched him continue to recite Donne's words and thought: eventually he will look up and notice that my eyes are glossing over and he has lost my heart.

Ruth Andrew Ellenson: The Moment I Knew Ruth Andrew Ellenson 2011

But Stubbs's claims for the necessity of biographical/historical analysis of Donne's poetry do otherwise seem relatively unexceptional -- mostly because they don't really get us that far.

The Biographical Fallacy 2009