1979•Harvard Theological ReviewRequires access
Conversion Psychology in John Donne's Good Friday Poem
Terry G. Sherwood
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Abstract
John Donne's “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward” is justly regarded as one of the finest devotional poems of the English Renaissance period. It is likewise significant for what it reveals about the theology of a major English poet and divine and, more broadly, for what it reveals about the spiritual psychology of his time. The personal nature of the poem, which was written during the troubled years before his ordination in 1615, underscores the force of its ideas for Donne. At the thematic center of the poem is a necessary connection between Godgiven corrective affliction and the sinful soul's turning to God.