Hi. I'm an MPhil student in Renaissance Literature at Cambridge and am working on my MPhil thesis (due August 31st) on models of selfhood in Donne. In general terms I'm looking at the two models suggested by the etymologies of 'individual' and 'person' and seeing whether they can be reconciled - individuum suggesting an autonomous self-reflexive agent and persona suggesting a more performative and socially constructed identity).

I was wondering if much work has been done on apophatic (aka 'negative' theology in Donne). If so, I would appreciate pointers.

I'm also wondering whether it is likely that Donne was influenced by Francois de Sales - I've found some passages in the Treatise on the Love of God (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/desales/love.html) which talk about putting down roots into God (as in 'A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany') and some great passages on the meaning of kissing as the intermingling of souls, for instance:

Yet we do not utter our discourse nor the thoughts which proceed from the spiritual portion of our soul, which we call reason, and by which we are distinguished from beasts, except by words, and consequently by help of the mouth; insomuch that to pour out our soul and open out our heart is nothing else but to speak. [...] And thus one mouth is applied to another in kissing to testify that we would desire to pour out one soul into the other, to unite them reciprocally in a perfect union.

(http://www.ccel.org/ccel/desales/love.ii.ix.html) 

Could Donne have got these points from de Sales, or are they commonplaces he could have got from anywhere?

Thanks,

David.