THE GREAT POETS: JOHN DONNE

The best readers of poetry don't recite it; they enact it, taking on the character of the narrator. The poetry of Metaphysical poet John Donne—once ranked with the works of Shakespeare and Milton—has at least two facets, so it’s fitting that this production has two narrators. Geoffrey Whitehead brings out the passion of Donne's religious poetry, particularly the selections from the Holy Sonnets, and Will Keen specializes in the poems about love and sensuality. The two voices are very different, echoing the dualism that is one of Donne's hallmarks. Both men remind us of the intense feeling that underlies the formalism of seventeenth-century English poetry at its best. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2011]