Peter McCullough

English lecturer Professor Peter McCullough delivers a John Donne sermon in its entirety in the perfect period setting of the 17th-century Lincoln College chapel. The event is free but tickets must be booked through the box office.

Donne is best known for the poetry written in his flamboyant youth and vexed early adulthood. But, following ordination in 1615, he used the same talents to compose some of the most powerful prose of the period – dazzling sermons preached in early modern London’s most prestigious pulpits. Originally preached in the Chapel Royal of James VI and I at Whitehall in Lent, 1623, the sermon reveals Donne at the height of his powers, crafting an oration of literary and emotional intensity equal to any of his ‘Holy Sonnets’, if on a larger, but still intimate, scale.

McCullough is fellow in English at Lincoln College, professor in the Oxford English faculty, and general editor of the Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne. He has for many years offered readings of Donne’s sermons for students, convinced that these works are best experienced as first intended – in performance rather than on the page. He will give a brief introductory lecture.

Event lasts 90 minutes.

Part of the festival’s programme on Christian tradition.