Super-Infinite

Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing.
In his myriad lives he was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, a priest, an MP - and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. Along the way he converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was imprisoned for marrying a sixteen-year old girl without her father’s consent; struggled to feed a family of ten children; and was often ill and in pain. He was a man who suffered from black surges of misery, yet expressed in his verse many breathtaking impressions of electric joy and love.

This book by Katherine Rundell oozes the great love and admiration she has for this enthralling book on the life of John Donne, As a graduate of English, I had only touched on this poet in my studies and I am sorry for this. Rundell writes with true passion on her subject and it is infectious. Her narrative flows along and her use of his poems are well placed throughout. I recommend this particularly to English students but interested lay people will also gain from this book. My thanks to Netgalley, the publishers and the Author for an ARC of Super-Infinite. Well worth the read.

Katherine Rundell's "Super-Infinite" tracks the life of that most metaphysical of English poets, John Donne. An academic text as much as one for lay readers, it tracks his life from childhood to death, with trips to prison, court, and St Pauls in between. I personally would have appreciated more intertwining of the text, but Rundell does admirably with the verses she does choose to reflect upon a time or place. Donne remains as vibrant, as divinely human today as he was then.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for review.