Donne's Religious Writing: A Discourse of Feigned Devotion.

P. M. Oliver, London: Longman, 1997. viii + 292 pp. $54 (cl). ISBN: 0-582-25018. $22.75(pbk). ISBN:0-582-25017-X.

In Confirming to the Word: Herbert, Donne, and the English Church before Laud, Daniel W. Doerksen seeks to correct several mistaken attitudes regarding the theological makeup and historical import of the English Church under James I, attitudes deriving, in part, from an "incorrect charting of the via media before Laud" (21). The English church "did walk a middle way," Doerksen argues, "but a clearly Protestant one, marked off on the right by the Roman church and on the left not by Calvinism or puritanism" (21) but by Anabaptists and other Separatists, who sought refuge in the Low Countries. Thus the Jacobean via media, as Doerksen interprets it, lay not between Rome and Geneva but, rather, between Rome and Amsterdam, and this revised map serves to move puritanism closer to the theological center of the pre-Laudian English Church. Actually, Doerksen seeks more than to renew interest in Jacobean religious policies; hardly bashful about his own theological alignments and seminary training, Doerksen aims to prove that Calvinist theology - whose essential feature is its emphasis on preaching rather than predestination - "is more centrally Christian than is often recognized" (17).

As expressed in Article 19 - which defines "the visible church as 'a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance'" (26) - the English Church officially balanced (Puritan) sermon with (Laudian) sacramental ritual. But whereas the Jacobean via media sought to embrace both aspects of public worship, Doerksen contends that a majority of James's bishops (not to mention local clergy) were non-Laudian and only "moderately conformist" in following the Prayer Book liturgy and prescribed ritual. "English Calvinist conformists like George Herbert and John Donne certainly believed in outward compliance to their church's rites and forms," Doerksen admits, though he adds, "what we must notice is that they cared even more about conforming to the Word" (27).

It may surprise to hear both Herbert and Donne referred to as "Old Conformist, harking back to the church views of Elizabethan (and . . . Jacobean times), and contrasting with the New Conformity of the Laudians" (70). For evidence, Doerksen turns to the historical records of actual parish churches "in which Herbert worshiped throughout his life, including his own church at Bemerton" (48); all these, he argues, are demonstrably non-Laudian, adding that "it would perhaps be tedious and unnecessary to present the same kind of evidence for Donne" (48). (Whether or not such evidence would be "tedious," the same kind of local historical evidence does seem necessary to complete his case.) Concentrating on the church records of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Doerksen characterizes the Herbert family's London parish as "a moderately conforming" church (55), a "good home" to "moderate puritans" (56) and one served by "educated and dedicated preachers" (59). Given these facts, Doerksen extrapolates a religious upbringing for George Herbert that is firmly Calvinist in its word-centered theology and non-Laudian - though "moderately conforming" - in its "attitude toward liturgical variations" (70).

Doerksen quotes extensively from The Temple, not so much to interpret Herbert's poems as to point out Calvinist allusions and influences. By admission more the historian than critic, Doerksen has outlined a historical, theological (and, presumably, biographical) backdrop against which subsequent critics might test their own readings of Herbert. Far from a definitive interpretation of The Temple- and hardly intended as such - Doerksen's book offers rather to clarify the theological premises from which any historically-accurate reading of Herbert should proceed. As a study of Donne's theology and writings, however, the book is less successful, mainly because this second poet receives far less attention. Doerksen's claims regarding Donne, then, remain interesting hypotheses rather than proven points.

In Donne's Religious Writing: A Discourse of Feigned Devotion, P. M. Oliver argues quite the opposite position: whereas Doerksen treats Herbert's and (again, to a lesser extent) Donne's writings as coherent, public confessions of personal belief, Oliver asserts the sheerly literary aspect of Donne's religious writings, which renders them unreliable as personal, autobiographical, or public expressions of sincere devotion. "The manner of the Holy Sonnets," Oliver notes, is "very much that of the secular poems (the satires and elegies as well as the later lyrics) with their introspection, inconsistencies and, most importantly, use of role-play" (150). Indeed, noting that "Donne's poems put us in touch with voices" (91), Oliver raises the possibility of ironic readings of the religious poetry, the Holy Sonnets especially. Thus he accounts for Donne's conflicting theologies by positing a range of personae, none of which can be identified autobiographically with the poet himself. Given, too, their "histrionic element" (266) - an effect that Oliver discovers throughout Donne's religious writings - the Holy Sonnets offer "displays of devotion . . . not the real thing" (171).

For this reason, any attempt to discover a singular, coherent, autobiographically-sanctioned theology in Donne's religious poetry is bound to fail. The sonnet, "What if this present," becomes in Oliver's reading Donne's "most developed example of a mock-meditation" (118), making use of Ignatian motifs "in a spirit close to that of parody" (115). And while its "Catholic, Ignatian motifs . . . are made to clash with Protestant, Calvinist ones" (116), the poem - like the Holy Sonnets generally - ultimately refuses to embrace a singular theological position. Rather than articulate a distinctive "Protestant poetics" (which Barbara Lewalski and others have found operant in the genre of Donne's Holy Sonnets), Oliver notes its "lack of a fixed theological viewpoint" (147); Donne turns the sonnet, rather, into "a platform to rehearse different, often mutually hostile, religious positions" (147).

Thus, while Doerksen and other scholars seek typically to identify Donne with a singular, coherent theology, Oliver asserts instead Donne's "refusal to be taken up by any theological party within the church of England" (5), Donne's religious thinking throughout his life being "consistently hybrid in nature" (5). Though the Holy Sonnets perhaps lie at the center of his argument, Oliver in fact surveys the entire Donne canon from a religious perspective, placing strong emphasis on the Satyres (especially "Satyre III") and such relatively neglected works as "A Litany," Pseudo-Martyr, Ignatius His Conclave, and Biathanatos - the last of which Oliver calls "of profound interest for anyone attempting to form an overall estimate of Donne's religious writing" (168), though much the same can be said for all Donne's prose. Particularly compelling is Oliver's reading of "A Litany," whose speaker "finds that he is unable to align himself wholly with a single viewpoint" (92); whether "even-handed" or "indecisive" (Oliver raises both possibilities), the poem "teeters on the brink of an acceptance of Catholicism" in some places, in others "flirt[s] with a Calvinistic outlook" (85). And "since there is good reason," as Oliver notes, "to believe that Donne knew as well as anyone what would likely offend a Catholic or a Protestant" (87), such a poem offers "evidence of his wish to see how far he could go in integrating Anglican and Catholic thinking" (87). In Biathanatos, similarly, Oliver notes "the contradiction between its anti-Catholic stance and the interest in integrating Catholic and Protestant modes of thinking" (168). And while readers might expect the sermons - Donne's last and most extensive religious compositions - to reflect official Anglican (or, as Doerksen would have it, Calvinist) orthodoxy, even these reflect Donne's continued role-playing and the "consistently hybrid" (5) nature of his religious thinking. While numerous sermons attack Calvinist predestination and espouse a more Arminian position - in fact, "the only distinctly Calvinist belief whose truth is not unambiguously impugned by Donne is that of the irresistibility of grace" (25) - Donne also argues forcefully for the importance of preaching, which, Oliver rightly suggests, "marks him as operating quite independently of Arminian preferences" (251). Throughout his career, indeed, "Donne faced both ways" (5). And the reason is obvious: born into an illustrious Catholic family during a time of"Calvinist orthodoxy and Catholic persecution" (31), Donne's "attempt to clarify where he stood in relation to the religion of his childhood" became, as Oliver notes, "a lifetime's occupation" (37).

Appreciative readers of Donne's Holy Sonnets will likely object to several of Oliver's claims - for example, that "their speakers frequently sound as if they are fabricating states of mind" (111), that their "melodramatic posturing" (115) reveals no more than the poet's "sham piety" (119), that "we laugh (or whatever) with the poet, at the speaker" (121) when he "ask[s] for righteousness to be imputed to him" (121), or (to quote more extensively) that "the theatrical flourish with which the speaker produces his Calvinist trump card should alert us to the danger of assuming that Donne himself is doing any more than he does in the Songs and Sonnets, where he makes use of contemporary or recently jettisoned orthodoxies . . . in order to shock and amuse" (122). As "a secular kind of religious poetry" (10), the Holy Sonnets - almost by definition - are no more than representations or fictions of religious devotion. It is impossible, Oliver concludes, for a reader to find in such writings a sincere aid to devotion; and to treat them as actual devotion - as readers since Isaac Walton have done - is to mistake their "sham piety" for "the real thing." Individual readers will need to decide where (and to what extent) Oliver might have overstated his case. Still, Donne's Religious Writing: A Discourse of Feigned Devotion poses a strong challenge to most "orthodox" Donne scholarship. So strong is its challenge, that I would expect it to receive an equally strong response; I certainly hope that its argument is not ignored. Whether or not readers agree with its central premises, such a work deserves careful study.

JAMES S. BAUMLIN Southwest Missouri State University