Picturing Divinity in John Donne's Writings,

Author

Stirling; Kirsten

Year

2024

Publisher

Boydell & Brewer

Language

English

Pages

ISBN

978-1-80543-247-0

Link

Last Update

20-Aug-2025

Keywords

Language & Literature ; British Studies ; European Studies ; Art & Art History

Description

The opening of Donne’s Epistle prefacing his Metempsychosis, in the epigraph above, both declares an interest in portraits and expresses some doubts about what they can “deliver”. The “picture” he is accustomed to set at the entrance to his “buildings”, seems to refer to the convention of the portrait frontispiece of a printed book.² The Epistle was placed first in the 1633 edition of his Poems, even though that edition had no frontispiece, and in 1635 it faces the Marshall engraving of the poet – oddly, in this case, separated from the rest of Metempsychosis and functioning as a preface to...