Date of Award
5-1999
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
Dr. Louis Schwartz
Second Advisor
Dr. Anthony Russell
Third Advisor
Dr. Jo McMurtry
Abstract
The operative figure for describing John Donne's religious poem, La Corona, is not a circle, as it has often been characterized, but a spiral. This figure incorporates the linear narrative and climax of the poem while maintaining the circularity of on-going spiritual experience. Scholars such as Patrick O'Connell and Elizabeth Hodgson are correct in viewing the poem as Donne's "ars poetica sacra" - his apologetic for the religious poet. But such scholars see either a climax and resolution for the speaker of La Corona or an unresolved question of his place as a poet. This paper argues that while the speaker of the poem does reach a spiritual crisis and learns a lesson of faith, that lesson is not finished in the eschatological sense. The linked sonnets of the poem take the reader back to the beginning of the poem with a new understanding and ability to continue the catechism.
Recommended Citation
Knudson, Karen R., "John Donne's sacred aesthetics and protestant eschatology in La Corona" (1999). Master's Theses. 568.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/masters-theses/568