Biathanatos

Biathanatos is a work by the English writer and clergyman John Donne. Written in 1608 and published after his death, it contains a heterodox defense of self-homicide (suicide), listing prominent Biblical examples including Jesus, Samson, Saul, and Judas Iscariot. Thomas de Quincey responds to the work in his Writings VIII, page 336, and Jorge Luis Borges responds in Biathanatos, in his collected non-fiction.

Sources

• Michael Rudick and M. Pabst Battin (eds.) Biathanatos (Garland English Texts 1982).

Works by John Donne Prose "Biathanatos" (1608) "Pseudo-Martyr" (1610) "Ignatius His Conclave" (1611) "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions" (1624) Poetry "Death Be Not Proud" (1610) "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" (1611) "The Canonization" (published 1633) "The Good-Morrow" (published 1633) "Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed" (published 1654) "The Flea" (published 1633) "The Dream" (published 1635) Holy Sonnets