Wilbur Sanders

In this 1975 text, Dr Sanders approaches John Donne, beginnings with his arresting voice; individual and often puzzling. He asks of the live poetry and religious poetry alike, where is Donne speaking his own voice, when is he adopting a persona, what is the effect of his irony? And, he goes on, what affects us as true and fine when is Donne the prey of his own manner and self-irony; when is he conventionally amorous, cynical or pious? From this consideration Dr Sanders returns with a central body of poems which he considers great and unique. Many readers of Donne ask themselves uncomfortably whether their admiration is merely fashionable, or their dissatisfaction merely a reaction against fashion. Dr Sanders's calm examination proceeds from a disinterested wish to to find what is admirable, but not to lose sight of common-sense judgements exemplified in the past by Johnson.

The field of Shakespearean studies is cluttered with the fossils of past discussion, and somehow we have to pick our way around them. In the opening scene to this unusual book, these obstructive entities are brought to life and engage in lively argument. Four essays on Hamlet, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus follow, all of which freshen the air: unfamiliar, unspecialised, free-ranging and openly argumentative, but tied at all points to the original text. Shakespeare wrote out of, and about, a common humanity, and it is with humanity, common and uncommon, that we must read or watch him. This book is accordingly addressed to the academic or the new student.