The Jaipur Literature Festival 2023 began today with a talk on 16th century poet John Donne between English writer and academic Katherine Rundell and critic Nandini Das, in which they discussed his writings on love and religion, his relationship with women, and his relentless linguistic experimentations. Rundell, who has penned many critically acclaimed children’s books, deep-dived into Donne’s life and work for a biography, SUPER-INFINITE: The Transformations of John Donne (Farrar, Straus and Giroux ), that was published last year. Rundell said that Donne’s poetry can be both “wild, rakish and misogynistic, often objectifying female bodies” and also run with a streak of “mystic, religious verse… whereby he imagined that love might be the place where you can escape the confines of everything. Love can be an answer to a question that can't be articulated but can be felt.” Das probed Donne’s “arm-wrestling” of language, to which Rundell said language was “a place of possibilities for him.” She added, for Donne, “You'll have to shake language into your own imagination to say what you want to. He would use ‘super’ before so many words - super-eternal, super-dying, words we'd think won't need an intensifier - and keep pushing language to its furthest point. He believed that in the space beyond language, you'll find god or love. For Donne, God can’t be expressed. God can only be gestured towards, outside what we know.” Before wrapping up the session, the pair discussed Donne’s 12 children and his wife, Anne More, dying during a pregnancy, and the difficulties of reconciling his reckless relationships with his “pilgrimage-like” search for truth in his work. “In his most famous line, ‘No man is an island’” said Rundell, “He’s writing about the idea that we are so profoundly connected, that any man’s death on earth impacts him personally.” 📣 For more lifestyle news, follow us on Instagram | Twitter | Facebook and don't miss out on the latest updates!
