John Donne and music

Abstract

This thesis explores John Donne’s engagement with music through his life, writing and the setting of his lyrics to music. It argues that Donne was more involved with music than previously thought. Donne’s encounter with music appears to have begun at a young age, fostered at home, nurtured through relationships (family, friends, patrons, peers) and shaped by experiences (listening to music, playing music, and commissioning music when Dean of St. Paul’s). Examples of musical references and figurative language in Donne’s poetry and prose reveal a musically trained mind. Donne’s social and professional connections with the foremost composers and musicians of his time establish his association with key figures in early modern English musical culture. My analysis of the surviving repertoire of seventeenth-century musical settings of Donne’s poetry explores the relationship of those settings to literary and musical genres, and to broader social and cultural contexts in early modern England and Europe. Significant changes in musical style and literary taste in the culture of the period are reflected in the different ways in which Donne’s poems were set to music. The musical settings of Donne’s poetry also show how characteristic features of his verse – rhythmical, thematic, and imagistic counterpoint and even discord – are refashioned and re-presented in musical performance. The considerable number of Donne’s poems that were set to music by composers evince the impact his lyric poetry had on the musical culture of the early to mid-seventeenth century. Based on manuscript and printed evidence, I argue that Donne’s affinity for music is most evident in those of his lyric poems titled, in manuscript and print, as ‘Songes’ or ‘Songs’, melodic lyrics that were meant to be sung as well as read. By situating this group of poems in the context of early seventeenth century English musical culture and performance, this thesis prompts us to re-evaluate our reading of Donne’s ‘Songes/Songs,’ our view of Donne’s engagement with musical culture, and indeed of his musicality