Donne's Essays in Divinity

[py3ak]

I recently finished John Donne's Essays in Divinity, and was wondering if anyone here was familiar with them. There are many good things in them, but the whole method and approach was very curious and opaque to me, and I was wondering if someone would be able to elaborate on the genre that Donne is employing, or in some way elucidate the oddity of method, where he brings in all sorts of learning from all quarters and often seems to make quite irrelevant remarks. Here is a little sample:

Of the time when Moses writ this book there are two opinions which have good guides and good followers. I, because to me it seems reasonable and clear that no divine work preceded the Decalogue, have therefore engaged myself to accompany Chemnitius, who is persuaded by Theodoret, Bede, and reason (because here is intimation of a Sabbath and distinction of clean and unclean in beasts), that this book was written after the law; and leave Pererius, whom Eusebius hath won to think this book was written in Midian, induced only by Moses' forty years' leisure there; and a likelihood that this story might well conduce to his end of reclining the Jews from Egypt.
And thus much necessarily, or conveniently, or pardonably, may have been said before my entrance, without disproportioning the whole work. For even in Solomon's magnificent temple, the porch to the temple had the proportion of twenty cubits to sixty Our next step is upon the threshold itself, In the beginning, &c.

 

[py3ak]

Bump.

 

[py3ak]

Perhaps the question was obscure? Why does Donne feel it necessary/appropriate to make little remarks that seem quite irrelevant, like that about the dimensions of Solomon's Temple as a justification of his own approach?

 

[yeutter]

I find Donne a difficult read; but if you struggle through him you will find gems in his writings. John Donne may be obscure because of his literary style. He is not even baroque; but actually sould be characterized as a representative of a late Renaissance literary/artistic period called Mannerism.

 

[py3ak]

I've found that a lot of times what seems obscure to me is because I don't grasp something about the conventions of the style. Even bizarre features have an explanation: there is a reason why we make possessives with 's, for instance, and once you know the reason it makes sense. That's what I'm driving at here: I don't think Donne was obscure because of authorial incompetence, and his orthography, vocabulary and diction don't bother me; but the rationale for the style eludes me.