Wikipedia:Peer review/John Donne/archive1

John Donne

I think that the sections on his style and literary career are the ones that need the most work. I'm interested in hearing ideas for how to proceed with developing the article and any general ideas for improving its current content (e.g., prose, grammar, etc.). Thank you. Galanskov 13:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

BirgitteSB

• I find the tone to be sometimes inappropriate and not upheld by the references. Tone should less dramtic. If the source reads Donne's first teachers were Jesuits. At the age of 11, Donne and his younger brother Henry were entered at Hart Hall, University of Oxford, where Donne studied for three years; don't talk of his mother ensuring hs education by Jesuits or his profound understanding.
  • Despite the obvious dangers, Donne’s mother ensured he was educated by the Jesuits, from whom he acquired a profound understanding of his faith that equipped him for the ideological religious conflicts of his time.
  • Donne was forced to accept a retired country life in Pyrford, Surrey
  • It is not known how Donne grew to abandon the faith he had been educated to defend
• There is sometimes an inappropriate context as if you are stuck writing about what happened from within his lifetime instead of a general enyclopedia article.
  • These poems were never published although they circulated widely in manuscript form Never?
  • he would become vicar of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West would become?
• The text is needs overall tightening; it is repeats events in different sections and is sometimes even contradictory. It would probably benefit from a complete overhaul in organization where his life and works are dealt with at the same time in chronologically based sections.
  • including the infamous Death’s Duel sermon delivered at the Palace of Whitehall before King Charles I in February 1631
  • Even as he lay dying on Lent in 1631, he rose from his sickbed and delivered what was later described as his own funeral sermon. In case you do not know: Death’s Duel sermon = what was later described as his own funeral sermon'
  • It is not known how Donne grew to abandon the faith he had been educated to defend, but he certainly was in communication with the King, James I of England, and in 1610 and 1611 he wrote two anti-Catholic polemics, Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius his Conclave.[3] Although James was pleased with Donne's work, he refused to reinstate him at court and instead urged him to take holy orders.[2] After a long period of financial uncertainty and difficulty, spent seeking profitable employment, during which he was twice a member of Parliament (1601 and 1614), Donne finally acceded to the King's wishes and was ordained into the Church of England in 1615.[5]
  • Earlier he had valued a skeptical approach to religion, but this now gave way to a firm faith in the traditional teachings of the Bible. Having converted to the Anglican Church, Donne pursued a position as a preacher.