ABSTRACT
Sinclair’s way of countering the familiar detractions of Donne is to quote copiously from Donne’s poems, with commendatory linking comments. He gives stanza 1 of ‘The Good Morrow’, remarking that it is Very characteristic of Donne’s originality’. The Song, ‘Go, and Catch a Falling Star’, given entire, ‘shows him in his lightest mood’. Stanza 4 of ‘The Canonisation’ is one of ‘several charming verses’ in this poem. Lines 15-28 of ‘Love’s Growth’ make up ‘two exquisite stanzas’. Stanzas 1-3 and 7 of ‘The Bait’ contain ‘a pretty conceit’. Lines 1-8 of ‘The Primrose’ present a ‘picture from Nature’ which ‘could hardly be surpassed’; and the first stanza of the Epithalamion ‘Hail Bishop Valentine’ is likewise ‘full of vivid observations of Nature’. Holy Sonnet 1, ‘Thou Hast Made Me’, given entire, is ‘one of a great number [of sonnets] of remarkable beauty’. Stanza 23 of ‘A Litany’ affords a taste of this ‘noble poem’. Two passages from The Second Anniversary (lines 33-44 and 65-81) present ‘a fine example of one of his finest poems’. Lines 1-24 of Satire 1 exemplify the vigour of Donne’s Satires.
