super infinite the transformations of john donne katherine rundell

Find out more via their website at speak to their friendly team on 01223 841055. This episode is sponsored by ACE Cultural Tours, the oldest and most experienced provider of study tours and cultural travel in the United Kingdom. She has written for, amongst others, the London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times: mostly about books, though sometimes about night climbing, tightrope walking, and animals. Her bestselling books for children have been translated into more than thirty languages and have won multiple awards. Katherine Rundell is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. That’s why she has written a sparkling new biography of the poet: Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne. And in the view of our guest today, Katherine Rundell, Donne should be considered alongside William Shakespeare as one of the finest wordsmiths this country has ever produced. However Donne’s poetry isn’t defeatist – he was famous in his time for his unusual, intelligent and imaginative work, which used fleas to talk about sex and violence to talk about God. In particular, the tragic death of his younger brother who, aged just nineteen, was thrown into prison for hiding a Jesuit priest and subsequently caught the plague. Born into a grand Catholic family who had suffered persecution under Protestant monarchs, he was intimately acquainted with the cruelty of sixteenth-century England. John Donne led many lives, from a young rake in his early years to archdeacon of St Paul’s in his old age. From the standout scholar Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite presents a sparkling and very modern biography of John Donne: the poet of love, sex, and death. We visit playhouses, bear-fighting pits and the poet’s marital bed to better understand Donne’s life and work.

This week we head back to Renaissance England to immerse ourselves in the world of John Donne, one of Britain’s most ingenious poets.

Super infinite the transformations of john donne katherine rundell