Tuesday

The next assignment:

Get out all your Donne poems (or look them up on the blog), and order them according to clear organizing principles.

You are about to edit a short student edition of the poetry of John Donne. Your job for the publisher is to group Donne's poems appropriately and put them in the best order both by groups and by contents within the groups. 

I recommend three separate groupings. For instance, you might have one group called "Jack Donne, the Rake." Have clear criteria for choosing poems for this group, but of course, some of the main ones should be that all these poems reveal a young, reckless voice and regard love with a distinct physical emphasis. Within that group, decide how and why you are going to order the poems in a certain way: "The Flea" first, "Song" second, and so on, with a clear critical principle guiding your decisions.  

Once you have decided upon your criteria for ordering the poems, physically do it with the physical copies of the poems. Then write a one-page overall introduction to Donne with relevant biographical and general critical information. Next, write a one-half-page introduction to each group of poems in which you explain your criteria for ordering and grouping as you have.  Give the entire collection a title and do the same for each group within the collection. Make a table of contents that you place right after a title page. Then provide the overall intro, then the first group intro, then the first group poems, then the second group intro, then the second group poems...

Work singly or in pairs – no threes! You will receive a project grade. Pairs will share.