the Text and the Meaning of Donne's Shorter Poems." The
reference to text might be misleading; no effort is made here
to establish a new apparatus criticus. My assumption is merely
that the text is the meaning, and the meaning is the text--an
assumption in no way original. Even the most casual student of
Donne knows that almost every word may be integral in his
poems; slight tampering with the text may change the meaning
radically. As everyone knows, practically all of Donne's poems
were published posthumously, and we have no autograph MSS.
of the poems. There are extant, however, a number of 17 c.
MSS. and printed editions--and, consequently, a number of
variant readings. While external evidence permits us to separate
improbabilities from probabilities, we must ultimately resort to
literary (i.e., esthetic) criteria in choosing between one variant
reading and another. There are enough undisputed passages for
us to arrive at what is and what is not characteristically Donne-
ian. (I am quite willing to grant that some readings may repre-
sent early stages of composition; I am interested, however, in
presenting only what I consider the nearest approximation to
Donne's final text.)

Sir Herbert Grierson's monumental edition of 1912 is still
basic for the study of Donne's poems. His apparatus criticus has
held up remarkably well, and it would be inaccurate to say that
his explanatory notes are outmoded. No one before Grierson
took such pains to explicate the poems, and every succeeding
critic is apt to be highly indebted to him, as I undoubtedly am,
but there are still gaps in Grierson's explication. Sometimes
Grierson is wrong; sometimes he is misleading; often, however,
he arrives at his text and his notes by means of analysis, but fails
to present the analysis for our inspection. We have to go through
the process ourselves to find out whether his choice is valid.
At any rate, he considers many things obvious which we would
like to see explained.

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