Artistic Features Of John Donne's Sermons

John Donne(1572—1631)contributed a lot of brilliant sermons to English literature. His sermons have the distinguished personality of Donne just as his poems are different from others. As a result, the thesis endeavors to make a study of the artistic features of his sermons.This thesis is divided into three chapters, followed by a conclusion.Chapter One explores the thematic features of Donne's sermons. While preaching, he closely related his sermons to the Bible, himself and the current events. His sermons were always based on a divisio, a division of the text taken from the Bible into small sections each of which will be expounded. The great effect of Donne's preaching is also due to his great involvement of himself. Meanwhile, Donne is a great master good at dealing with the current events of his time.Chapter Two traces the functional features of Donne's sermons which are mainly displayed in three aspects: utterance in meditation, expression of emotion and teaching to the public. The first aspect deals with the utterance in meditation, from which one can explore the great pains that Donne took before preaching. The second aspect is the expression of emotion, by which Donne clearly sets out his attitude as a preacher towards religion and individual. The third aspect is about the teaching to the public and attributes to Donne's particular grace, his sermons bear a profound persuasive function towards his hearers even the readers today.Chapter Three examines the inner heart of John Donne who is full of paradoxical attitudes towards God, death and sin. Ever since his particular religious conversion from Roman Catholic Church to Church of England, Donne had borne great pressure from his heart and the society. Therefore, paradoxical features abounded everywhere in his works, especially in his sermons.