Note 1 — POEMS

A commentator on Donne is, therefore, not called on to trace literary echoes in his poetry as Bishop Newton and others have done in Milton's poems. It is reading of another kind, though a kind also traceable in Milton, that he has to note. Donne was steeped in Scholastic Philosophy and Theology. Often under his most playful conceits lurk Scholastic definitions and distinctions. The question of the influence of Plato on the poets of the Renaissance has been discussed of recent years, but generally without a sufficient preliminary inquiry as to the Scholastic inheritance of these poets. Doctrines that derive ultimately, it may be, from Plato and Aristotle were familiar to Donne and others in the first place from Aquinas and the theology of the Schools, and, as Professor Picavet has insisted (Esquisse d'une histoire générale et comparée des philosophies médiévales. Paris, 1907), they entered the Scholastic Philosophy through Plotinus and were modified in the passage.1 The present editor is in no way a specialist in Scholasticism, and such notes and extracts as are given here concern passages where some inquiry was necessary to fix the text and to elucidate the meaning. They are intended simply to do this as far as possible, and to suggest the direction which further investigation must follow. An expert will doubtless note many allusions that have escaped notice. Whenever possible I have endeavoured to start from Donne's own sermons and prose works.