Title: "Strange Love": The Question of Innotescence in John Donne's Holy Sonnets
Abstract: Miserable distemper! not see God in the light, and see him in the darke: not see him at noon, and see him fearfully at midnight: not see, where we all see him, in the Congregation, and see him with terror, in the Suburbs of despaire, in the solitary chamber.John Donne, Sermons 4:169The Protestant poetics that Barbara Lewalski and William Halewood championed in the 1970s removed the slightest tincture of residual Roman Catholicism Donne's writings. Compelling subsequent scholarship has demonstrated the pressure of Protestant, especially Calvinist, thought on Donne's poetry. John Stachniewksi, for example, makes case for a strong Calvinist on Donne's Holy Sonnets and argues that the poems' engagement with Calvinism explains why their dominant mood fear, resentment, and despair (677). More recently, Paul Cefalu has also suggested that the consternation and godly fear prevailing in the Holy Sonnets consistent with Reformed theology. Cefalu proposes that the speaker of the sonnets is in doubt about his ability maintain the status of his sanctification that has followed from his justification (72). Lewalski and Halewood's precedent for reading Donne's devotional lyrics remains influential. Their hermeneutic implicit, for example, in Donne's most recent biography, the self-confessedly titled The Reformed Soul, in which John Stubbs tidily dispenses with Donne's Catholic early years.1My purpose give more credit and attention the influence of Donne's Catholic heritage than much Donne scholarship has been prepared grant. I allow for greater tension between the old religion and the new religion within the poet-divine, that is, borrow Evelyn Waugh's famous expression, for Donne's nagging sense of twitch upon the thread. In particular, I aim extend scholarly discussion on the complex theological mixture evident in John Donne's Holy Sonnets and show how many of the lyrics constitute creative response Donne's experience of having shifted his allegiance from the Roman the English Church. More precisely, I propose that the Holy Sonnets show that Donne's shift in loyalties resulted in anxiety about what Donne elsewhere refers as innotescence. The word innotescence occurs twice in Donne's sermons and Donne's neologism, deriving from the inceptive Latin verb innotescere, to become known.2 Divine innotescence describes the shape that God's manifestation humanity takes. Donne preaches that, the heighth of the mercy of God, this innotescence, this manifestation of himselfe us (Sermons 10:107). What at work in the Holy Sonnets, I will argue, problem of innotescence, series of scenarios in which across the poems the speaker confronts complex of conflicted feelings about coming into the presence of God and coming know God. This problem reflects struggle within Donne between his Roman Catholic roots and his adopted Protestantism. In the Holy Sonnets Donne struggles with the manner in which, in structure of belief where the spiritual helps and means of Catholic doctrine and worship no longer pertained, God might become known. I will progress by reading the Holy Sonnets through Donne's sermons, that is, by offering reading of various images in the Holy Sonnets which I will regularly compare lengthy readings of Donne's sermons. The sermons, I maintain, help shed light upon the conflicts imagined in the Holy Sonnets. Accordingly, in the first section of the essay I review this theological conflict and consider pertinent statements from Donne's sermons and other writings that suggest this struggle. In the second and final section I offer reading of number of Holy Sonnets that depict Donne's speaker encountering or coming know God.The Question of InnotescenceAn important aspect of Donne's life his upbringing within Catholic family, among what Dennis Flynn has called the ancient Catholic nobility, and his eventual tum, in 1615, the reformed English Church take up the cloth as Royal Chaplain and, later, as Dean of St. …
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-11-01
Language: en
Type: article
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