Donne Sex and God

Here's a thing. How could John Donne, one of our greatest poets, be equally, and often simultaneously, obsessed with those two radical three-letter words and things, Sex and God? This book addresses the whole of Donne's life and works, from the early Songs and Sonnets to the late Sermons, in the form of a critical conversation, to tease out the relationship between Jack Donne, Monarch of Wit, and Dr Donne, Dean of St Pauls. Central to this study is a close analysis of the poet's Third Satire, Donne's formative essay on religion and doubt. Donne enjoyed the thrills and dangers of doubt. Caught between the categorical imperatives of Sex and God, he made creative use of the obscene and the blasphemous. Relativity and relationship (with the world, the flesh and the devil) were his themes. His visionary discourse is couched in the language of mad love. He interrogates us and pushes us to interrogate our world.