Anonymous. The New Oxford Book of Sixteenth-Century Verse. Ed. Emrys Jones. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2002. pp 154 - 156
This is the Anthology where I found the poem A Dialogue between Death and Youth
Benet, D. T. (2001). "Witness this Booke, (thy Emblem)": Donne's Holy Sonnets and Biography. Early Modern Literary Studies. R. G. S. a. L. Hopkins. New York. http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/si-07/benet.htm
Benet’s ambition here is to provide a superior understanding of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets and other divine works by applying Donne’s biography as a background which, though successful, does not aid me in the work and material that I am putting into this website. Benet states, “I propose to read the Holy Sonnets as Walton and Donne’s other elegists did, as emblems of the author (Benet).” One of his main arguments is that these sonnets should be studied from the perspective of its original audience, which Benet believes to be Donne’s coterie. This is an excellent source for a unique strategy for reading Donne’s Holy Sonnets.
Chalmers, A. (1969). Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary. John Donne. New York, Ams Press, Inc. 12: 247 - 262.
This is a very lengthy biography of John Donne that becomes almost a chore to read. It goes through the life of John Donne from birth to death trying to outline every detail of his life that is known and thought to be known through educated guesses. Chalmers labours to inform his readers about all the intricacies, dilemmas, and difficulties of Donne’s life. Given time and motivation, this is a recommended source for most information related to John Donne.
Wolfe, R. F. (1967). "Rime And Idea In Donne's Holy Sonnet X." American Notes and Queries 5: 116 – 117 http://www.jstor.org/browse/00268232/ap020374? frame=noframe&userID=83a2919e@acadiau.ca/01cce4403500501809376&dpi=3&config=jstor
Ralph Wolfe’s very short article focuses mainly on the last rhyming couplet in John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X. He finds the rhyming structure paradoxical because ‘eternally’ both rhymes and does not rhyme with ‘die.’ The alternative way of pronouncing causes these two lines, especially the last, to be striking thus giving the conclusion of the poem greater emphasis. Wolf also notes how this poem does not follow the traditional divine poem’s imagery, focusing more so on Death rather than God and transcendence rather than the other way around. Wolf concludes that it is the structure of the last two lines that has allowed Donne to place greater emphasis on eternal life rather than death, without even making it compete for it. The down fall of this article is its brevity which doesn’t allow much room to express and promote a better understanding of the poem.
Hertford, S. (2000). John Donne. Hertford College. http://www.hertford.ox.ac.uk/alumni/donne.htm
This is another general biography on John Donne which is quite extensive. This biography actually focuses more on Donne’s poetry rather than the many uninteresting details of Donne’s life. The reader can get a good sense of when Donne wrote certain works and what were the major events going on at that time in his life. This essay concludes with a commentary on the popularity of Donne’s poetry which is an extension not liberally used by other biographers.
Jokinen, A. (1996). John Donne (1572 - 1631). http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/index.html
Review web source evaluation.Oliver, A. S. (1999). Views of Death in Donne’s Poetry. Luminarium. 2000. http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/oliver.htm
Antonio S. Oliver exclusively studies perspectives of Death in John Donne’s poetry which in many circumstances creates opposing views. Oliver asserts that Donne was unable to settle his own particular views on death and was very much intrigued with suicide and the afterlife. In some of Donne’s poems, as Oliver points out, death plays an insignificant role while in others it is the main focus. Donne’s wife’s death is also shown to have had an incredible impact in his poetry especially on the subject of death and the afterlife. For the purposes of my essay, this source reveals some insight into Donne’s views of death with the poem Holy Sonnet X given as evidence. This material should be useful in distinguishing the views of death and mortality in this era.Rev. Canon Augustus Jessopp, D. D. (1908). Donne, John (1573 - 1631). Dictionary of National Biography. L. S. a. S. Lee. London, Smith, Elder, & Co. V: 1128 - 1139.
This is yet another source for biographical information on John Donne. This biography is interesting because it spends extra time on Donne’s childhood and his upbringing which is later used to help the reader better understand the religious conflicts, and persecutions that he endured. Most biographies tell of how Donne enters University at the young age of 11 but this is the only one that I had come across that offered a reason why and added that Donne’s younger brother did the same, (thus taking the uniqueness and genius out of the facts). This source endeavors to be as explicatory as it can, trying to give reasons for all Donne’s actions. Overall this is an excellent biography.
Tromly, F. B. (1983). "Milton Responds to Donne: 'On Time' and 'Death Be Not Proud'." Modern Philology: A Journal Devoted to Research in Medieval and Modern 80(4): 390 - 393.
By studying 16th century poetry a reader might observe poems that closely resemble others in that era. Poets occasionally wrote responses to other poet’s poems that were structured similar to the original poet’s poem. Tromly argues that Milton’s ‘On Time’ is a response to Donne’s ‘Death Be Not Proud.’ Tromly states that “Both poems are highly rhetorical, declamatory credos which invoke and proceed to confute a personified metaphysical antagonist.” Though the focus is on Milton and how his poem compares to Donne’s, I believe that this source will be an excellent reference acting as the first precedence as a comparison between the themes in ‘Death Be Not Proud’ and another poem that I have found.
Unknown (1997). John Donne. Poetry exibits, The Academy of American Poets. http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm? 45442B7C000C04010E
This web source offers a very short biography on John Donne which is essentially useless if the user has already studied more extensive biographies on Donne. Two merits this site does have is that it outlines Donne’s title as a Metaphysical Poet and gives a brief account of the social unrest, both political and theological, that England and France were going through during Donne’s life. These two matters are not always covered by other biographies on Donne. However, this site is not useful for my purposes dealing with my website.
Unknown (2000). John Donne. The Literature Network. http://www.online-literature.com/donne/
Review web source evaluation.Walton, I. The Life of Dr. John Donne. http://www.ccel.org/d/donne/devotions/life.html
Izaak Walton attempts to give a full and detailed account of John Donne’s life. What makes this biography stand out from the rest is the attention that Walton gives to Donne’s Doctor in Divinity degree that he received from the University of Cambridge. This, among other information, is entertained here though often deemed unnecessary for an adequately descriptive biography. This is a rather lengthy web source with a substantial amount of details that the user will probably find useless though at many times interesting.
Campbell, Lily. Divine Poetry and Drama in sixteenth-century England. Gordian Press. 1972.
This source gave me no useful, additional information on Holy Sonnets and focuses mainly on Holy Sonnets related to biblical passages and not to the style that was later used by John Donne.
Schaar, Claes. On the Motif of Death in 16th Century Sonnet Poetry. Lund CWK Gleerup. 1960.
This was a good source to help one better understand the usage of Death in 16th century poetry. The focus however is not entirely on Death but also goes into great detail on how the term death is used to emphasize love in the 16th century. Also, much of the passages that are quoted in this source are quoted in their original languages which makes it difficult for the reader to follow along when the author is referring to a French or Italian poem. This source was insightful but not valuable for my purposes.