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Summary
‘Donne is perhaps the most intellectual of English poets, and John Carey is perhaps the most intelligent of contemporary English literary critics. The encounter, as one might expect, is fierce and enthralling… This book is sensitive, searching, powerful, exciting, provocative and witty. It is a superb achievement.’ Christopher Hill, TLS
John Donne: Life, Mind and Art is a unique attempt to see Donne whole. Beginning with an account of his life, it takes as its domain not only the whole range of the poetry, but also the sermons, the letters, the spiritual and controversial works, and such highly personal documents as the treatise on suicide.
‘The one book we have needed all along… A magnificent exercise in reappraisal. I have never read a critical work which reaches as deeply inside the mind of its subject.’ Jonathan Raban, Sunday Times
JohnCarey
John Carey was an Emeritus Professor at Oxford University. His books include studies of Donne, Dickens and Thackeray, The Intellectuals and the Masses, What Good Are the Arts? and a life of William Golding. He died in December 2025.
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