A New Language: Apophatic Discourse in John Donne's "Devotions"

Farris, Jessica M

Publication:
A New Language: Apophatic Discourse in John Donne's "Devotions"

dc.contributor.advisor	Joseph Black
dc.contributor.advisor	Jane Degenhardt
dc.contributor.advisor	David Toomey
dc.contributor.author	Farris, Jessica M
dc.contributor.department	University of Massachusetts Amherst
dc.contributor.department	English
dc.date	2023-11-02T21:40:07.000
dc.date.accessioned	2024-04-26T18:12:50Z
dc.date.available	2024-04-26T18:12:50Z
dc.date.submitted	May
dc.date.submitted	2023
dc.description.abstract	Not much ink has been spilled over John Donne’s relationship to negative, or apophatic, theology. A few scholars have written about apophatic discourse in Donne’s poetry and sermons, but, in general, the subject continues to be overlooked. This thesis seeks to (re)start the conversation by shedding light on Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, a text which has yet to be linked to the negative tradition despite its clear engagement in apophatic discourse. Indeed, throughout Devotions, Donne wields several apophatic strategies when speaking of God including via negativa, predicates of action, linguistic regress, paradox, and a consistent reliance upon metaphorical language. Each of these strategies uphold the two guiding principles of negative theology: the epistemic thesis which asserts that God is incomprehensible, and the semantic thesis which asserts that God is unspeakable therefore can only stand as the subject term in negative propositions. Significantly, my objective is not merely to qualify Devotions as an example of apophatic discourse; I also intend to contemplate the implications of qualifying it as such, namely how Devotions challenges the long-held assumption that apophasis requires the user to relinquish the body. Across the text, Donne’s apophasis does not lead him to un-body; on the contrary, the body gains new importance as Donne imagines the risen body, the interpersonal body, the body that cannot be lost because it is an inextricable facet of selfhood. Again, my hope is that this thesis will (re)start or (re)energize the conversation around Donne’s relationship to negative theology, a relationship that is much richer and more extensive than current scholarship suggests.
dc.description.degree	Master of Arts (M.A.)
dc.identifier.doi	https://doi.org/10.7275/35660101
dc.identifier.orcid	https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7145-255X
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/33001
dc.relation.url	https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2393&context=masters_theses_2&unstamped=1
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.source.status	published
dc.subject	John Donne
dc.subject	apophatic theology
dc.subject	negative theology
dc.subject	apophatic discourse
dc.subject	Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
dc.subject	Renaissance
dc.subject	English Language and Literature
dc.subject	Renaissance Studies
dc.title	A New Language: Apophatic Discourse in John Donne's "Devotions"
dc.type	openaccess
dc.type	article
dc.type	thesis
digcom.contributor.author	isAuthorOfPublication\|email:jessemfarris@gmail.com\|institution:University of Massachusetts Amherst\|Farris, Jessica M
digcom.identifier	masters_theses_2/1313
digcom.identifier.contextkey	35660101
digcom.identifier.submissionpath	masters_theses_2/1313
dspace.entity.type	Publication