Bulstrode, John Donne, patroness, kinswoman, Bedford, death, deferential, discourse, correspondents
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219
It is an especially unfitting and insensitive memorial to the life of the kinswoman of his patroness. However, when Bulstrode’s participation in the game ‘News’ is remembered, it might even be speculated that Donne initiates such a game with his patroness as a means of paying tribute to her kinswoman. I suggest again the possibility that Donne might be adopting a stance of well-intentioned misguidedness and that he leaves Bedford to put Death back in his place intentionally. Thus, Donne can defer to Bedford in his counterresponse and so, in the words of the poem next to be considered, he becomes her “foyle” in his first poem, and her “eccho” and “Ape” in his counter-response, ‘Holy Sonnet X’. The question remains as to whether or not this pattern was premeditated by Donne.
If the postulated ordering of both groups is accepted, however, then it seems plausible that Donne may have used similarly provocative rhetorical strategies in both opening poems in order to elicit corrective responses from his correspondents. The similarities between the dynamics of these two groups are in keeping with the poetic identity Donne cultivates for himself as being dependent upon his correspondents’ intervention for the rectification of his own well-intentioned misguidedness. In both, Donne initiates the discourse with what appears ostensibly to be an unintentionally provocative and naïve verse that is answered by a sagacious, corrective verse. In turn, he aligns himself with his auditor in a counter-response, implying that he has been enlightened and that this heuristic experience has brought him closer to his addressee. It may seem like an audacious, even rude, strategy of writing, but Donne turns it to complimentary, deferential ends and it can be speculated that there existed some degree of mutual understanding with his correspondents as to his final objective.
If the evidence offered thus far is not fully convincing, Donne, on at least one occasion, does conceive explicitly of a three-part sequence of poetic discourse that might be construed as beginning with his own defective verse, followed by his correspondent’s
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