"We prove mysterious by this love'
pp. 207-234
in: Paul Cefalu, Gary Kuchar, Bryan Reynolds (eds), The return of theory in early modern English studies II, Berlin, Springer, 2014Abstract
That John Donne is deeply concerned with bodies is without question. Displacement of courtly distance by sensuality consummation, and even a post-coital tone place the body at the center of his love poetry.1 From classic arguments like Helen Gardner's reading of Platonism and Aristotelianism in "The Extasie/' to John Carey's account of Donne as a visceral cartographer, the history of Donne criticism has always validated Blaise Greteman's assertion that his "engagement with bodies forms a consistent creative thread."2 The most recent turn in this inter- pretative history has historicized a specifically early modern body: one set within an ecology of membranes and humors. It is more permeable and fluid than the enclosed locus of physical se If-identity assumed by later centuries.3 Building on the pioneering work of critics like Michael Schoenfeldt and Gail Kern Paster, the complexity and flexibility of the humoral scheme; the role of diet, exercise and regulation; and the flesh's porosity to the outside are all now familiar concepts.4 Nancy Sellek made an early gesture in applying this kind of body to Donne's poetry, arguing that a flux-like corporeality was no pathology, but a datum for an early modern embodiment that expressed high degrees of interpénétration and interdependence. As she suggests, "humoral theory can ... suggest a field-based identity: who you are is determined by your physical context as well as by the unstable content of your body, and changes as a result of that involvement with context'.5
