Same-Sex Love in John Donne's Poetry: Renaissance & Baroque Literature Analysis | LGBTQ+ Studies & Historical Context

Although a bit wild in his youth, John Donne went on to become Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral and the most influential preacher of his time. His sermons are among the most celebrated in the English language. The received image of Donne as a man whose love life involved only women, progressing from lesser to greater respectability, has now been detonated by George Klawitter, who makes a strong case that male love lies at the heart of some of his greatest love poems.In almost half of Donne's love poems, both narrator and love-object are genderless. To use Klawitter's apt word, the genders of the characters in the poems, and the narrator's own proclivities, are "enigmatic". Once a reader is fully aware of this, he recognises unmistakable passages of all-male love.Klawitter has rescued some of the greatest love poems in English from the academic dullards, who have persisted in giving heterosexual readings to poems which give not the slightest hint of a female presence. Freed from the previously obligatory heterosexual paradigm, Donne's poems come to life -- warmer, wittier, and even campy.My long review of _The Enigmatic Narrator_ was published in the _James White Review_ some years ago. This review is now online. Search for "Donne Klawitter Lauritsen".