Sex and the Disjunctive Syllogism

Abstract

Abstract This chapter investigates the applications of logical terms and processes in the poetry of John Donne. After an analysis of logic teaching at Oxford, where Donne attended university in the 1580s, the chapter addresses three different aspects of logic use in Donne’s works. It focuses on the role of logical disputation in the Holy Sonnets, of the Aristotelian categories in the verse letters, and of the hypothetical syllogism in the Songs and Sonets. In the three literary examples discussed in the chapter, Donne’s speakers invoke the formal mechanisms of logic to impose control on threatening or confusing feelings. Sometimes this process is presented as a moral necessity; at other times, however, Donne is careful to draw attention to the limitations of this strategy, while also acknowledging the temptations of managing complex emotions through comfortingly predictable structures.