The Bald John Donne: A Life from the 1970s remains the standard scholarly biography: dusty? yes dry? yes but all the detail we need for studying Donne is here and meticulously referenced. Maybe the very complexity of Donne and his various metamorphoses is too much for a biographer to capture because this is the fourth biography I've read and none of them feel complete. Rundell's vast enthusiasm is almost there in his place, a kind of simulacrum for the man. Rundell's writing is the star of this show: it's sparky and textured, original and alive - if she wrote a novel I'd read it like a shot - but, somehow, Donne the man sort of slips between the floorboards of this biography and never really emerges as a fully-fleshed (ha!) person.
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