Sex and the Disjunctive Syllogism: The Logic of Love in Donne's Poetry
Accepted version
Peer-reviewed
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Authors
Ettenhuber, Katrin
Abstract
This article aims to shed new light on Donne’s poetry of argument by placing it in the context of early modern logic. I analyse university curricula and the intellectual practices they prescribed – especially the norms of academic disputation and of syllogistic reasoning – before applying logical categories to a number of religious and secular poems. Donne uses logical terms, concepts and processes to address questions of selfhood and subjectivity, especially from a gendered perspective; to map horizons of human knowledge and cognition in encounters with mortality, and to encourage reflection on the seductive qualities of logical and poetic form.
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Keywords
47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4705 Literary Studies
Journal Title
ELH: English Literary History
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
0013-8304
1080-6547
1080-6547
Volume Title
86
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press
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All rights reserved