Super-Infinite: The Tranformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell

This falls under the category of "Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover"--it is so uninspiring to look at, and may put a prospective reader off right away. I picked up the book because it was one of the Wall Street Journal's 10 Best Books of 2022, and I was giving that list a whirl. It is also one of the New York Times Notable Books, so I knew it would be at least good. Donne is a complex man who much has been written about. His holy trinity were sex, death, and God, and he portrayed body and soul as radically, delightfully commingled. He was born in 1572, into a Catholic family at a time of persecution (Elizabeth was queen and it was early enough in the time of the Anglican church that Rome still harbored hopes of recapturing England, religiously, at least); family members were imprisoned and tortured. Donne moved between success and penury, with a stint in law, an unsuccessful foray as an adventurer in Spain, and a period at court that ended when he secretly married Anne More and was thrown in prison by her father. Then there were years as the impoverished, frustrated father of 12 children (six died), a period of grief after his wife’s early death and his final efflorescence, at once unexpected and inevitable, as a clergyman who was swiftly promoted to dean of St Paul’s. This is a love story, yet few of Donne’s love poems were written for his wife. The author characterizes Donne as the swaggering womanizer who in reality had very little sex. She is convincing in her suggestion that Donne wrote his most satisfying erotic poems not for his lovers but for an audience of male friends. He was a complex and brilliant man, and this is not so much a biography but rather an exploration of how all his talents came to coalesce. Short and sweet.