Pseudo-Martyr.

John Donne. Ed. Anthony Raspa. Montreal, Kingston, London, and Buffalo: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993. lxxxx + 430 pp. $65.

Pseudo-Martyr is perhaps John Donne's least agreeable work. The author's argument is tortuous and often dubious, and his motives are suspect. The material is complex and obscure, emerging from the tangled undergrowth of canon law and doctrinal controversy. The book is, nevertheless, of great interest to students of Donne and his age, and Anthony Raspa has made a valuable contribution to scholarship with this fine edition.

Designed to convince English Catholics that they could and should take the oath of Allegiance to King James I without violating their consciences, Pseudo-Martyr was in 1610, as Donne's first significant publication, a rather surprising debut. At this time he would have been known as a man who had, some nine years before, dashed a promising courtly career by eloping with the niece of his employer, Sir Thomas Egerton. Donne's chief prior literary accomplishment comprised collections of politically dangerous satires and witty, sometimes graphic, erotic poems, which prudently remained in manuscript throughout his life. Finally, there was Donne's family background: related on his mother's side to Sir Thomas More, the most famous Tudor Catholic martyr, and to a pair of prominent Jesuits in the English mission, Donne's younger brother Henry had died in prison less than twenty years before after having been caught hiding a Catholic priest in his Oxford chambers. Such a man must have seemed an odd champion for the ecclesiastical authority of the King.

It is just this anomalous status that makes Pseudo-Martyr such an interesting manifestation of Donne's divided mind. It is harsh towards the Jesuits and the papacy, but largely sympathetic towards Catholics in general and Catholic traditions. Thus even this work of anti-Catholic polemics suggests that Donne was seeking an ecclesiastical middle ground. While Pseudo-Martyr is, in Raspa's words, "an important piece of journalism" (xiii) on a critical public issue of international debate, it is also, because of Donne's peculiar personal history, a work of deep personal significance, containing "an implicit suggestion that Donne is still trying to convince himself that his religious convictions are settled" (xl). Clearly, the lack of a modern critical edition of this work has been a large lacuna in Donne scholarship.

Anthony Raspa has successfully handled the three principal tasks of an editor of Pseudo-Martyr. First, he has provided a readable, accurate text that corresponds to Donne's intentions so far as they are ascertainable. Since the 1610 edition was the only one issued during Donne's lifetime, establishing the text poses comparatively few problems. Professor Raspa has adhered to clearly stated, generally conservative editorial norms and produced a version that scholars can rely on for years to come. Second, his introduction does an admirable job of locating Pseudo-Martyr in the religious and political context of the English Reformation. Especially effective are the descriptions of the tension between the papacy and the English monarchy, which had been building since Pope Pius V had excommunicated Queen Elizabeth in 1572, and of the immediate background of the Oath of Allegiance, which was the actual occasion of Donne's book. Professor Raspa also clarifies how Donne uses confrontations between the papacy and Catholic rulers in Germany, Venice, and Sicily to argue for the ecclesiastical authority of English sovereigns. Finally, there is the 150-page commentary, which addresses the formidable task of checking Donne's myriad citations and hunting down uncited sources. Professor Raspa has attacked this daunting task with admirable thoroughness.