존 던의 『노래와 소넷』

John Donne’s『Songs and Sonnets』: New historicism.

John Donne wrote almost all of his verse and much of his prose as coterie literature, designing his work for manuscript circulation in a succession of social environments in which he functioned. Donne wrote for an audience of friends, acquaintances, patrons, patronesses, and the woman he married, treating poetry as an avocation, part of a life and career whose main goals, even for some time after his ordination, were social status and advancement. Since Donne's poems were rooted in their biographical and social contexts, it makes sense to discuss them first in relation to their original audiences. It is also useful to relate the poetry to the contemporary prose Donne wrote either for private circulation or for publication, dealing with his choice of different literary forms in terms of his changing sociopolitical circumstances. To read and understand well his poems, it is important to understand the particular biographical and social-political contexts in which they were composed and read when we appreciate Donne's poems.