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'Death Be Not Proud': The Art of Holy Attention. By David Marno. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016. Pp. 315. $40.00.
This book is supposed to be about John Donne, but really constitutes an attempt to relate modern philosophy to Renaissance concerns. Attitudes toward religion and philosophy are explored in two philosophers Donne (1572-1631) did not know: René Descartes (1596-1650) and Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715).
The concept of "holy attention"(borrowed from John Norden's A Goodlie Mans Guide to Happinesse: A Manuell of necessary Motives, holy Meditations, and godly Prayers, to stirre up the hearts of men unapt to pray; to the great Comfort of all, that with due and holy attention will practice this most godly and Christian dutie [London, 1624]) is surveyed in both Catholic and Protestant thought, and is promoted as the key to personal salvation. Marno acknowledges that the tradition makes it clear that undistracted prayer is impossible for human beings. "The...