A portrait of John Donne: notes on the encomiastic genre - doi: 10.4025/actascilangcult.v34i1.6338

Abstract

John Donne, English poet and preacher, acquired fame during his lifetime as the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, in London, and as a protégé of Anglican King James I. In 1640, seven years after his death, a ‘Life of Dr. John Donne’, by Izaac Walton, was published as an introduction to a collection of his sermons. This essay examines the rhetorical configuration of this ‘Life’ of Donne, examining its loci of invention in agreement with its genre. Considering Walton’s text as a ‘portrait’, belonging to the encomiastic genre, this essay puts forward a poetical-rhetorical analysis of the text's structure and elements with an approach that historicizes the uses, functions and purposes of a ‘portrait’ in the European courts of the 17^th century. As a result, it points to a notorious distinction in the structure, historical understanding and normative usage of the ‘portrait’ as compared to the modern ‘biography’. As a conclusion, it shows that the semantic and temporal gap determines adjustments to the critical reading, such as the awareness of rhetorical elements in the structure and composition of the text in agreement to the necessities and requirements of its genre, current at the time of its production.