SOURCE: Shifflett, Andrew. “Sexual Calvinism in Donne's ‘Communitie.’” In Renaissance Papers 1998, edited by T. H Howard-Hill and Philip Rollinson, pp. 53-67. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1998.

In the following essay, Shifflett provides a historically grounded reading of Donne's poem “Communitie” from Songs and Sonnets, suggesting that Donne explicitly rejected the Calvinist definition of community in his poetry and sermons.

Good wee must love, and must hate ill, For ill is ill, and good good still,                     But there are things indifferent, Which wee may neither hate, nor love, But one, and then another prove,                     As wee shall finde our fancy bent. 

If then at first wise Nature had Made women either good or bad,           Then some wee might hate, and some chuse, But since shee did them so create, That we may neither love, nor hate,                     Onely this rests, All, all may use. 

If they were good it would...