'So all
retirings', he says in a letter to Goodyere, 'into a shadowy life are
alike from all causes, and alike subject to the barbarousnesse and
insipid dulnesse of the Country.
retirings', he says in a letter to Goodyere, 'into a shadowy life are
alike from all causes, and alike subject to the barbarousnesse and
insipid dulnesse of the Country.
John Donne
He does
so in the next line: 'a chast fallownesse'. Again: 'Beloved, it is not
enough to awake out of an ill sleepe of sinne, or of ignorance, or out
of a good sleep, _out of a retirednesse_, and take some profession, if
you winke, or hide your selves, when you are awake. ' _Sermons_ 50.
11. 90. 'It is not that he shall have no adversary, nor that that
adversary shall be able to doe him no harm, but that he should have a
refreshing, a respiration, _In velamento alarum_, under the shadow
of Gods wings. ' _Sermons_ 80. 66. 670--where also we find 'an
extraordinary sadnesse, a predominant melancholy, a faintnesse of
heart, a chearlessnesse, a joylessnesse of spirit' (Ibid. 672). Donne
does not mean to say that he is 'tied to retirednesse', a recluse. The
letter was not written after he was in orders, but probably, like the
preceding, when he was at Pyrford or Mitcham (1602-8). He is tied to
a degree of retirednesse (compared with his early life) or a period of
retiredness. He does not compare himself to a Nun but to a widow.
Even a third widowhood is not necessarily a final state.
'So all
retirings', he says in a letter to Goodyere, 'into a shadowy life are
alike from all causes, and alike subject to the barbarousnesse and
insipid dulnesse of the Country. ' _Letters_, p. 63. But the phrase
here applies primarily to the Nun and the widow.
l. 3. _fallownesse_; I have changed the full stop of _1633-54_ to a
semicolon here because I take the next three lines to be an adverbial
clause giving the reason why Donne's muse 'affects . . . a chast
fallownesse'. The full stop disguises this, and Chambers, by keeping
the full stop here but changing that after 'sown' (l. 6), has thrown
the reference of the clause forward to 'Omissions of good, ill, as ill
deeds bee. '--not a happy arrangement.
ll. 16-18. _There is no Vertue, &c.
so in the next line: 'a chast fallownesse'. Again: 'Beloved, it is not
enough to awake out of an ill sleepe of sinne, or of ignorance, or out
of a good sleep, _out of a retirednesse_, and take some profession, if
you winke, or hide your selves, when you are awake. ' _Sermons_ 50.
11. 90. 'It is not that he shall have no adversary, nor that that
adversary shall be able to doe him no harm, but that he should have a
refreshing, a respiration, _In velamento alarum_, under the shadow
of Gods wings. ' _Sermons_ 80. 66. 670--where also we find 'an
extraordinary sadnesse, a predominant melancholy, a faintnesse of
heart, a chearlessnesse, a joylessnesse of spirit' (Ibid. 672). Donne
does not mean to say that he is 'tied to retirednesse', a recluse. The
letter was not written after he was in orders, but probably, like the
preceding, when he was at Pyrford or Mitcham (1602-8). He is tied to
a degree of retirednesse (compared with his early life) or a period of
retiredness. He does not compare himself to a Nun but to a widow.
Even a third widowhood is not necessarily a final state.
'So all
retirings', he says in a letter to Goodyere, 'into a shadowy life are
alike from all causes, and alike subject to the barbarousnesse and
insipid dulnesse of the Country. ' _Letters_, p. 63. But the phrase
here applies primarily to the Nun and the widow.
l. 3. _fallownesse_; I have changed the full stop of _1633-54_ to a
semicolon here because I take the next three lines to be an adverbial
clause giving the reason why Donne's muse 'affects . . . a chast
fallownesse'. The full stop disguises this, and Chambers, by keeping
the full stop here but changing that after 'sown' (l. 6), has thrown
the reference of the clause forward to 'Omissions of good, ill, as ill
deeds bee. '--not a happy arrangement.
ll. 16-18. _There is no Vertue, &c.
