Abstract

The purpose of the dissertation is to assess Donne's contribution to one of the central controversies of his age: the question of authority. It has been assumed that Donne's position is relatively straightforward. His position changes, however, and is more complicated than is generally accepted. In his preaching, he maintains that ministers must ransack conscience. This insistence fits oddly with the stance he adopts in early works such as "Satire III" and Biathanatos, where he argues that no human authority can overrule conscience. ;In a period when antagonistic factions required oaths of obedience, individuals frequently found themselves in positions where they had to decide for themselves the nature of their duty to civil and ecclesiastical authority. Chapter 1 reviews two of the political and religious perplexities that confronted seventeenth-century England, namely, the recusancy laws and the struggle between kings and bishops over control of the Church. ;Throughout his life, Donne stressed the importance of scio in conscientia. In his sermons, he indicates that there are two kinds of knowledge, dividing the faculty of reason into two functions: ratio, which leads to knowledge of temporal things, and intellectus, which leads to wisdom of the divine. Chapter 2 focuses on the first kind of knowledge and discusses Donne's criticism of individuals who have failed to seek the necessary knowledge for conscientious action. Chapter 2 argues that in "Satire III" and Biathanatos, Donne's disapproval of tying oneself to man's laws, and his assertion that in matters of religious choice individuals must follow the dictates of conscience can be read as a direct comment on contemporary debates over authority. ;Donne's relationship to the power structures of his day has drawn considerable discussion. Chapter 3 analyses several of Donne's court sermons, in order to determine the manner in which he entered into contemporary discussion about royal power. ;Chapter 4 maintains that Donne was particularly concerned with the second kind of knowledge, that is, with helping his parishioners achieve self-knowledge. It is here where Donne's position on authority changes. In placing the Church and the priest at the centre of the redemptive process, and in believing that ministers are called by God to rectify scrupulous and perplexed consciences, Donne discloses the priest's power in order to create a dependency upon that power. ;Works such as "Satire III," Biathanatos, Pseudo-Martyr, and many of Donne's sermons can be read as attempts to come to terms with the all-important subject of authority. The dissertation proposes such as reading