ABSTRACT
Perhaps of all the figures discussed in this study, John Donne requires the least explanation. Donne is no stranger to narratives about skepticism, though typically the touchstone for his particular brand of questioning is “Satire III” where his advocacy of individual conscience over and above political authority is pithily expressed in his famous exhortation to “doubt wisely” in matters of religion. Much of the critical discussion on Donne has attempted to reconcile this early skepticism, the skepticism of the satires, love poetry, and his anniversaries, with his later commitment to authority and orthodoxy.1 Debora Shuger, for example, notes that in his sermons Donne “seems curiously eager to point out the uncertainties of biblical interpretation, to bring up textual and interpretive problems without resolving them.” Such an emphasis on the differences and contradictions in commentaries ultimately “erode[s] belief in a single, accessible, meaning of the holy text.”2 The purpose of this destabilization of biblical hermeneutics, Shuger argues, is to “disclose the power of the priest and … create a dependency on that power.”3 In other words, Donne uses his skepticism about reading to replace the moral authority of the individual conscience with the moral authority of the church. Finding more congruity between Donne the satirist and Donne the minister, Joshua Scodel suggests ways in which Donne’s later religious works-in particular, a sermon from 1627-reflect the skepticism of his youth. According to Scodel, Donne’s later version of skepticism is “far less radical” than that of the early satires. As a minister, Donne believed “that the individual believer must neither wholly rely upon his judgment nor wholly abdicate it … but rather must be ready to ‘receive … satisfaction’ from those in authority, that is, be open to persuasion by the authorities’ rational arguments.”4
