John Donne, Preacher

Plot

When John Donne, on February 25, 1631, ascended into the pulpit of Whitehall Palace, where both he and the illustrious Lancelot Andrewes before him had delivered many sermons, he was to preach for the last time, climaxing a priesthood of sixteen years and a deanship of nine. The effectiveness of Donnes preaching was greatly in creased by his ability to induce his congregation to feel so directly related to his sermon. Given the scholarly and learned quality of his sermons, there is a rare immediacy as he calls upon his congregation to repent and to accept the joy of a godly life. He uses his dramatic talents well as he draws his listener or reader directly into his discourse. A master of diction and image, of rhythm and change of pace, of tone, and of the concrete drawing of a scene, Donne is always an exciting writer. There was probably little enough dozing in his seventeenth century congregation.