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Donne: Selected Poetry (Poetry Library, Penguin)

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JOHN DONNE : A Selection of His Poetry. Edited by John Hayward. 182 pp. New York : Viking Press, 1986 (Reissue). ISBN 0140585184 (pbk.)

John Hayward is a noted and respected scholar who has here given us an excellent selection of much of Donne's finest poetry. The book includes a generous selection from Donne's 'Songs and Sonets,' along with representative 'Elegies,' 'Epithalamions,' 'Satyres,' 'Verse Letters,' 'Anniversaries,' 'Epicedes and Obsequies,' and 'Divine Poems.' The poems are preceded by a brief and interesting Introduction by Hayward, a Note on the Text, and a Chronological Table, and the book is rounded out with an Index of First Lines.

All in all, Hayward has given us an admirable selection in which those who are already familiar with Donne are going to find most of their favorites. As such, it can be unreservedly recommended to those who already know their Donne, and would be an excellent book, for example, to have along on a trip.

But Donne is a difficult poet, and any newcomer to Donne who takes up this book is going to have problems because of its almost complete lack of annotations. The poems are only lightly footnoted, and the extensive notes a beginner needs are absent.

Newcomers to Donne should try to find a more fully annotated edition, one that will help explain the many knotty points and obscurities that we find in the poems. One good edition that can be recommended is Theodore Redpath's 'The Songs and Sonets [sic] of John Donne' (1976), an edition designed for the general reader which gives detailed and extensive notes and full commentaries.

Donne is a marvelous poet, and it would be a pity if new readers were to be put off his poems by obscurities that can very quickly be resolved by a well-annotated edition. The present edition is more of a reader's edition for those who already know and love the poems.

John Donne's is without a doubt, the best metaphysical writer of the rennaissance and this book captures just that... his greatest works such as "a broken heart" and "the good morrow" can be found here... a great book for someone just starting out with donne...