ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book proposes three main culturally significant and historically problematical areas which bear on John Donne's writings: the scientific discourse, which troubles secular historicity itself; the sociocultural, in which woman raises certain defences in this male poet; and the aesthetic, in which mimetic writing itself becomes fraught with difficulty. The study proceeds towards an examination of theological and secular criminality, showing Donne's texts to be, in a sense, 'failed' confessions. Undoing Donne expands the concerns of these texts, obscures and mystifies them and makes them available for re-reading. Donne's crime and its relation to secrecy are important for a properly theoretical understanding of his poems. 'Criticism', 'crime' and 'secrecy' are linked by more than mere etymology. In Donne's own historical case, it was precisely the revelation of a secret which constituted him as a criminal.
