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Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne
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About This Book
From standout scholar Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite presents a sparkling and very modern biography of John Donne: the poet of love, sex, and death. Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing. In his myriad lives he was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, a priest, an MP - and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. Along the way he converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was imprisoned for marrying a sixteen-year old girl without her father's consent; struggled to feed a family of ten children; and was often ill and in pain. He was a man who suffered from black surges of misery, yet expressed in his verse many breathtaking impressions of electric joy and love.
Reviews
"At the heart of Rundell's thrilling reassessment of Donne's oddly hinged career is an argument for transformation rather than rupture ..."
"Katherine Rundell's Super-infinite is a wonderfully Donnean book."
"One of the great achievements of this impressive biography — which rises to the challenge of introducing Donne and his world to the next generation of readers — is that it shows how these two Donnes were always one and the same."
"It's an ingenious way of making his difficulty sound exciting as well as formidable ..."
"Written with verve and panache, this sparkling biography is enjoyable from start to finish."
"It suits her subject, who took delight in combining high learning with bawdy humour ..."
"Her energy, intellect and arresting phrasemaking can keep up with her subject's."
"Super-Infinite almost convinces you they can."
"This comprehensive study is poetic in its own right; scholars, students, and poetry lovers, take note."
"There are quieter moments to relish, however, such as when Rundell assesses the many possible reasons for Donne's conversion to Protestantism ..."
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