The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne

This research project undertakes a complete reassessment of the sermons of John Donne (1576-1631), and will produce a new critical edition of those sermons, with introductions and explanatory notes for a new generation of readers. Donne is one of the most celebrated authors of the English Renaissance, whose work is regularly taught in schools and universities. Editorial work on Donne's poetry has not slackened since the 1910s, the most recent example being the Variorum Edition from Indiana U. P (four volumes of which have appeared to date). And Donne's popularity reaches well beyond academia, as witnessed recently by the campaign to purchase for the NPG the 'Lothian Portrait' of Donne, the appearance of a new popular biography by John Stubbs, and Simon Schama's BBC programme on Donne's poetry. However, poetry represents only a fraction of Donne, and in recent years his religion and prose works have been the focus of the most innovative research. This has led to significant advances in the understanding of both Donne's writing and of religious culture in seventeenth-century England. Yet sermons from this period are rarely available in accessible editions, and in contrast to the poetry, Donne's have suffered relative editorial neglect. The 160 extant sermons were edited by George R. Potter and Evelyn Simpson between 1954 and 1962, but no explanatory notes were provided, making the volumes difficult for students and even experts to use. Only a few selections have been published subsequently, and frequently in abridged form. The current project will address several linked questions, including (1) how to facilitate a modern reader's understanding of these sermons, by the provision of introductory materials and notes that identify references to the Bible, allusions to other works (by Donne and others), and engagements with theological, social, and political debates; (2) how close modern readers can get to a sermon as it was originally preached; (3) whether this form, or the latest one produced in the author's lifetime should be the basis of the text we read now; and (4) how such sermons should be arranged - by, for example, the date of their delivery or according to the location in which they were preached. OUP has commissioned the 16-volume edition that will result from this research project, under the General Editorship of Peter McCullough and involving an international team of scholars. The project will concentrate chiefly on addressing and resolving research questions concerning the texts of the sermons, and will fund a research assistant whose primary task will be to compare all available copies of the sermons in print and manuscript in order to establish the most accurate texts possible. As well as providing the texts that will be introduced and annotated by the contributing editors, this work will result in a comprehensive Textual Companion to the edition, which will explain the ways in which Donne's sermons have reached us, outline the principles on which the edition is based, and provide a template for further study and editions of other early modern sermons. This edition has to last a century, and there is no practical way yet of ensuring technical and managerial continuity long-term for a web or CD publication; at present, forms of parallel (print/electronic) publication are the only suitable forms for work of this kind. The project will, therefore, provide an unmatched resource for those interested in Donne's writings (students, teachers, scholars, and the wider public), but it will also be invaluable to students of the history of preaching, religion, the law, the court, and politics in the period.

The impact of any critical scholarly edition will be great, and necessarily felt most by scholars and students in higher education. This is true for the sermons of John Donne. But the interdisciplinary nature (by modern standards) and content of Donne's preaching mean that the edition's impact need not only reach several academic disciplines (English, History, Theology), but also connect with wider concerns of perennial importance in any society at any time, and in non-academic ways. In particular, Donne's sermons, as testaments to his culture's engagement with religious debates over conformity, issues of in- and exclusivity, and varieties extremism, are also available for the wider community in our own day as it wrestles with similar questions (and with an urgency that would have been surprising even a decade ago). The role of churches and other faith groups in fostering (or the opposite) social cohesion has been increasingly recognised in British society. Similarly, the modern political sphere has been recently reminded of the great power of political oratory, especially where its roots are in religious traditions of public speaking. (It is perhaps notable that two recent AHRC Funding Initiatives, 'Religion and Society' and 'Beyond Text' address precisely these issues.) And finally, a significant amount of the original research showcased in this edition will have direct applicability to the understanding and public self-presentation (both in 'heritage' terms, and modern mission) of several of the very prominent and influential institutions with which Donne was affiliated as a member and preacher. Although such impacts will always necessarily be secondary for a scholarly edition like that under consideration for funding here, there are very specific ways to call attention to its pertinence for faith groups, teachers and students of public speaking, and several prominent public institutions, and to involve them directly in the project during the funding period and beyond. These are detailed in the appended Impact Plan, which explains plans to involve, at conferences and performances, schoolteachers, clergy, politicians, and members of the legal profession, with particular reference to modern reflection on the legacy and pertinence of Donne to the modern missions to London and the nation of St Paul's Cathedral and Lincoln's Inn.