The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne

本研究项目对约翰·多恩（John Donne, 1576-1631）的布道进行了全面的重新评估，并将为新一代读者制作一个新的批判版本，其中包括介绍和解释性注释。多恩是英国文艺复兴时期最著名的作家之一，他的作品经常在学校和大学里教授。自20世纪10年代以来，对多恩诗歌的编辑工作一直没有松懈，最近的例子是印第安纳大学出版的《多恩诗集》（varorum Edition）（迄今为止已经出版了四卷）。多恩的受欢迎程度远远超出了学术界，正如最近为国家pg购买多恩的“洛锡安肖像”的活动所见证的那样，约翰·斯塔布斯（John Stubbs）的新流行传记的出现，以及西蒙·夏玛（Simon Schama）的BBC节目关于多恩的诗歌。然而，诗歌只代表了多恩的一小部分，近年来，他的宗教和散文作品一直是最具创新性的研究焦点。这使得人们对多恩作品和17世纪英国宗教文化的理解取得了重大进展。然而，这一时期的布道很少有通俗易懂的版本，与诗歌相比，多恩的布道在编辑上受到了相对的忽视。现存的160篇布道书是由乔治·r·波特和伊夫林·辛普森在1954年至1962年间编辑的，但没有提供解释性注释，这使得学生甚至专家都很难使用。后来只出版了少数选集，而且往往是节录的形式。当前的项目将解决几个相关的问题，包括(1)如何通过提供介绍性材料和注释来促进现代读者对这些讲道的理解，这些材料和注释指明了对圣经的引用，对其他作品的典故（由多恩和其他人），以及参与神学，社会和政治辩论；(2)现代读者能在多大程度上接近最初的布道；(3)这种形式，或者作者生前最新的形式，是否应该成为我们现在阅读的文本的基础；(4)如何安排讲道，例如按讲道的日期，或按讲道的地点。开放大学已委托Peter McCullough担任总编辑，并由一个国际学者团队参与，将从这个研究项目中获得16卷本的版本。该项目将主要集中于处理和解决有关讲道文本的研究问题，并将资助一名研究助理，其主要任务将是比较所有可用的讲道文本的印刷版和手稿，以便尽可能建立最准确的文本。除了提供将由特约编辑介绍和注释的文本外，这项工作还将产生一个全面的版本文本指南，它将解释多恩的布道到达我们的方式，概述该版本所依据的原则，并为进一步研究和其他早期现代布道提供模板。这个版本必须持续一个世纪，目前还没有切实可行的方法来确保网络或CD出版物的技术和管理的长期连续性；目前，平行（印刷/电子）出版形式是这类工作的唯一合适形式。因此，这个项目将为那些对多恩的著作感兴趣的人（学生、教师、学者和更广泛的公众）提供无与伦比的资源，但对研究那个时期的布道、宗教、法律、法院和政治历史的学生来说，它也将是无价的。

This research project undertakes a complete reassessment of the sermons of John Donne (1576-1631), and will produce a new critical edition of those sermons, with introductions and explanatory notes for a new generation of readers. Donne is one of the most celebrated authors of the English Renaissance, whose work is regularly taught in schools and universities. Editorial work on Donne's poetry has not slackened since the 1910s, the most recent example being the Variorum Edition from Indiana U. P (four volumes of which have appeared to date). And Donne's popularity reaches well beyond academia, as witnessed recently by the campaign to purchase for the NPG the 'Lothian Portrait' of Donne, the appearance of a new popular biography by John Stubbs, and Simon Schama's BBC programme on Donne's poetry. However, poetry represents only a fraction of Donne, and in recent years his religion and prose works have been the focus of the most innovative research. This has led to significant advances in the understanding of both Donne's writing and of religious culture in seventeenth-century England. Yet sermons from this period are rarely available in accessible editions, and in contrast to the poetry, Donne's have suffered relative editorial neglect. The 160 extant sermons were edited by George R. Potter and Evelyn Simpson between 1954 and 1962, but no explanatory notes were provided, making the volumes difficult for students and even experts to use. Only a few selections have been published subsequently, and frequently in abridged form. The current project will address several linked questions, including (1) how to facilitate a modern reader's understanding of these sermons, by the provision of introductory materials and notes that identify references to the Bible, allusions to other works (by Donne and others), and engagements with theological, social, and political debates; (2) how close modern readers can get to a sermon as it was originally preached; (3) whether this form, or the latest one produced in the author's lifetime should be the basis of the text we read now; and (4) how such sermons should be arranged - by, for example, the date of their delivery or according to the location in which they were preached. OUP has commissioned the 16-volume edition that will result from this research project, under the General Editorship of Peter McCullough and involving an international team of scholars. The project will concentrate chiefly on addressing and resolving research questions concerning the texts of the sermons, and will fund a research assistant whose primary task will be to compare all available copies of the sermons in print and manuscript in order to establish the most accurate texts possible. As well as providing the texts that will be introduced and annotated by the contributing editors, this work will result in a comprehensive Textual Companion to the edition, which will explain the ways in which Donne's sermons have reached us, outline the principles on which the edition is based, and provide a template for further study and editions of other early modern sermons. This edition has to last a century, and there is no practical way yet of ensuring technical and managerial continuity long-term for a web or CD publication; at present, forms of parallel (print/electronic) publication are the only suitable forms for work of this kind. The project will, therefore, provide an unmatched resource for those interested in Donne's writings (students, teachers, scholars, and the wider public), but it will also be invaluable to students of the history of preaching, religion, the law, the court, and politics in the period.