Professor David Peimer
The Remarkable Life and Poetry of John Donne
Summary
John Donne (1572–1631) is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, and satires. He is also known for his sermons. Professor David Peimer discusses the life and work of Donne and ties it in to the greater history of the 1500s and 1600s in England.
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
This is a fantastic question, Alan. I wish I had time to really go into it. I think that he’s saying, reluctantly and quarrelsomely and argumentatively and probably furiously with a bit of satire and wit, saying, “Okay, I’ll accept you as a contradictory God, but I ain’t going to stop the quarrels.” ‘Cause I think the illusion is that the God doesn’t, can’t help solve the contradictions.
Yes I do. I think they were borrowing and stealing from each other all the time. And plagiarism was not really a phenomenon like we would regard it today, at all. You know, it was steal from wherever, it wasn’t even called steal, it was just, you know, let’s call it borrow or take from each other, all the time.
Hey, that’s a great connection, Miriam. That’s fantastic. Yeah. Tevye’s arguing and it’s ironic and it’s playful, but he’s cross, he’s quarrelling and you know, that’s a great actually image. Never thought of that. To connect it to Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” and his constant, you know, quarrelling and discussion and fighting and arguing with God.