Devotions upon Emergent Occasions [Paperback]

John Donne (Author), Anthony Raspa (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 16, 1987

One of Donne's most important and haunting works in prose, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions was composed in less than a month, during an illness that nearly cost the writer his life. Donne divided the book into twenty-three sections, each corresponding to a stage of his illness and each consisting of a meditation, an expostulation, and a prayer. Filled with powerful images of mortality and immortality that have moved readers throughout the centuries, it provides a coherent spiritual message relevant not only to Donne's life but to the lives of all people.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The editing is an exemplory piece of scholarship."--Jim Kerbaugh, Illinois College

"[This edition] adds something to our real wealth. The text that Raspa has established must be as close to finality as anything can be, the bibliographical history of the work is minute and exhaustive, the notes packed with scholarly information, the erudition of the introduction scarcely to be surpassed."--Times Literary Supplement

"[This edition] adds something to our real wealth. The text that Raspa has established must be as close to finality as anything can be, the bibliographical history of the work is minute and exhaustive, the notes packed with scholarly information, the erudition of the introduction scarcely to be surpassed."--Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

John Donne (1572-1631) was a Jacobean poet and preacher, the representative of the so-called metaphysical poets of the period, though the term itself came after his death. His works include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, and sermons. Anthony Raspa is at Universite de Quebec, Chicoutimi.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (April 16, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195041739
• ISBN-13: 978-0195041736
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,652,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reflections on illness, April 8, 1998

By 

David Graham (Shell, Ecuador) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Devotions: Upon Emergent Occasions, Together with Death's Duel (Ann Arbor Paperbacks) (Paperback)

First published in 1624, this series of meditations on illness were published following John Donne's sickness during late November and early December of 1623 (when he either had typhus or relapsing fever). Each of his ruminations are recorded in groups of three: meditation, expostulation, and prayer. Donne's insights about the "variable, therefore miserable condition of man" will always be pertinent as long as humans continue to fall prey to disease. The reading is a little slow at times, but there are some fine pieces in this book, including his famous meditation XVII, "No man is an island", that Hemingway quoted when he wrote FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. Even if you don't read all of the essays, this book is worth obtaining just to pore over meditation XVII.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a dynamic relapse expostulation, May 25, 2011

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (Paperback)

These devotions have many quotations of scriptures. The Expostulation numbered 23 is on relapse into spiritual sickness. John Donne compares himself to the "glorious nation of Israel; and yet how often, how often did they fall into relapses?" Donne mentions "embracing the Idolatries of their neighbours." The dynamic started with murmuring:

Thy people were fearful examples of that:
for, how often did their murmuring against thy Ministers,
end in a departing from Thee?
when they would have other officers,
they would have other gods;
and still to daies murmuring,
was to morrowes Idolatrie;
As their murmuring induced Idolatrie,
and they relapsed often into both,
I have found in my selfe, O God,
(O my God, thou hast found it in me,
and thy finding it, hast shewed it to me)
such a transmigration of sinne,
as makes me afraid of relapsing too. . . .

Why, O my God,
is a relapse so odious to thee?
Not so much their murmuring,
and their Idolatry,
as their relapsing into those sinnes,
seems to affect thee,
in thy disobedient people.

American society would rather be blind to its past than allow religion publicly to declare:

know for a certainty,
God will no more drive out any of these Nations
from before you;
but they shall be snares,
and traps unto you,
and scourges in your sides,
and thornes in your eies,
till ye perish. (Joshua 23:12).

The prayer which follows mentions that "Thy holy Apostle, Saint Paul, was shipwrecked thrice, and yet still saved" but I think the Romans kept him locked up until they were really mad at the Christians.