Donne, John

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John Donne
John Donne
Born	21 January 1572(1572-01-21) London, England
Died	31 March 1631(1631-03-31) (aged 59)
Occupation	Poet, Priest, Lawyer
Nationality	English
Genres	Satire, Love poetry, Elegy, Sermons
Subjects	Love, sexuality, religion, death
Literary movement	Metaphysical Poetry
Influences William Shakespeare
Influenced W. B. Yeats, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden[1]

John Donne (pronounced /ˈdʌn/ dun; 21 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, preacher and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works are notable for their realistic and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially as compared to that of his contemporaries. John Donne's masculine, ingenious style is characterized by abrupt openings, paradoxes, dislocations, argumentative structure, and "conceits"--images which yoke things seemingly unlike. These features in combination with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax, and his tough eloquence were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of British society and he met that knowledge with sharp criticism. Another important theme in Donne’s poetry was the idea of true religion, which was something that he spent a lot of time considering and theorizing about. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic poems and love poems. Donne is particularly famous for his master of metaphysical conceit. ^[2]

Despite his great education and poetic talents, he lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited during and after his education on womanizing, literature, pastimes and travel. In 1601 Donne secretly married Anne Moore with whom he had 12 children. ^[3] In 1615 he became an Anglican priest although he didn’t want to take Anglican orders, he did so because King James persistently ordered it. In 1621, he was appointed the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. He also served as a member of parliament in 1601 and again in 1614.

[edit] Early life

A portrait of Donne as a young man, c. 1595. Artist unknown. In the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.^[4]

John Donne was born in London, England, into a Roman Catholic family at a time when open practice of that religion was illegal in England.^[5] Donne was the third of six children. His father, also named John Donne, was of Welsh descent, and a warden of the Ironmongers Company in the City of London. Donne's father was a respected Catholic who avoided unwelcome government attention out of fear of being persecuted for his religious faith.^[6][7]

Donne's father died in 1576, leaving his wife, Elizabeth Heywood, the responsibility of raising their children.^[7] Elizabeth Heywood was also from a recusant Catholic family, the daughter of John Heywood, the playwright, and sister of Rev. Jasper Heywood, a Jesuit priest and translator. She was a great-niece of the Catholic martyr Thomas More.^[8] This tradition of martyrdom would continue among Donne’s closer relatives, many of whom were executed or exiled for religious reasons.^[9] Donne was educated privately; however there is no evidence to support the popular claim that he was taught by Jesuits.^[10] Donne's mother married Dr. John Syminges, a wealthy widower with three children, a few months after Donne's father died. In 1577, his mother died, followed by two more of his sisters, Mary and Katherine, in 1581.

Part of the house where John Donne lived in Pyrford.

Donne was a student at Hart Hall, now Hertford College, Oxford, from the age of 11. After three years at Oxford he was admitted to the University of Cambridge, where he studied for another three years.^[11] He was unable to obtain a degree from either institution because of his Catholicism, since he could not take the Oath of Supremacy required of graduates.^[8]

In 1591 he was accepted as a student at the Thavies Inn legal school, one of the Inns of Chancery in London. In 1592 he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, one of the Inns of Court.^[8] His brother Henry was also a university student prior to his arrest in 1593 for harbouring a Catholic priest, William Harrington, whom Henry betrayed under torture.^[5] Harrington was drawn and quartered, i.e. tortured on the rack, hanged until not quite dead, then was subjected to disembowelment.^[5] Henry Donne died in Newgate prison of bubonic plague, leading John Donne to begin questioning his Catholic faith.^[7]

During and after his education, Donne spent much of his considerable inheritance on women, literature, pastimes and travel.^[6][8] Although there is no record detailing precisely where he traveled, it is known that he traveled across Europe and later fought with the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh against the Spanish at Cádiz (1596) and the Azores (1597) and witnessed the loss of the Spanish flagship, the San Felipe.^[1][7][12] According to Izaak Walton, who wrote a biography of Donne in 1640:

By the age of 25 he was well prepared for the diplomatic career he appeared to be seeking.^[12] He was appointed chief secretary to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas Egerton, and was established at Egerton’s London home, York House, Strand close to the Palace of Whitehall, then the most influential social centre in England.

[edit] Marriage to Anne More

During the next four years he fell in love with Egerton's niece Anne More, and they were married just before Christmas^[5] in 1601 against the wishes of both Egerton and her father, George More, Lieutenant of the Tower. This ruined his career and earned him a short stay in Fleet Prison, along with the priest who married them and the man who acted as a witness to the wedding. Donne was released when the marriage was proven valid, and soon secured the release of the other two. Walton tells us that when he wrote to his wife to tell her about losing his post, he wrote after his name: John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done. It was not until 1609 that Donne was reconciled with his father-in-law and received his wife's dowry.

Following his release, Donne had to accept a retired country life in Pyrford, Surrey.^[8] Over the next few years he scraped a meagre living as a lawyer, depending on his wife’s cousin Sir Francis Wolly to house him, his wife, and their children. Since Anne Donne had a baby almost every year, this was a very generous gesture. Though he practiced law and worked as an assistant pamphleteer to Thomas Morton, he was in a constant state of financial insecurity, with a growing family to provide for.^[8]

Anne bore him 12 children in 16 years of marriage (including two stillbirths—their eighth and then in 1617 their last child); indeed, she spent most of her married life either pregnant or nursing. The 10 surviving children were named Constance, John, George, Francis, Lucy (after Donne's patroness Lucy, Countess of Bedford, her godmother), Bridget, Mary, Nicholas, Margaret and Elizabeth. Francis, Nicholas and Mary died before they were ten. In a state of despair, Donne noted that the death of a child would mean one less mouth to feed, but he could not afford the burial expenses. During this time Donne wrote, but did not publish, Biathanatos, his defence of suicide.^[9] His wife died on 15 August 1617, five days after giving birth to their twelfth child, a still-born baby. Donne mourned her deeply, including writing the 17^th Holy Sonnet.^[8] He never remarried; this was quite unusual for the time, especially as he had a large family to bring up.

[edit] Early poetry

An Art Cover for some of John Donne's most popular poetry, his 'Divine Poems'

Donne's earliest poems showed a developed knowledge of English society coupled with sharp criticism of its problems. His satires dealt with common Elizabethan topics, such as corruption in the legal system, mediocre poets, and pompous courtiers. His images of sickness, vomit, manure, and plague assisted in the creation of a strongly satiric world populated by all the fools and knaves of England. His third satire, however, deals with the problem of true religion, a matter of great importance to Donne. He argued that it was better to examine carefully one's religious convictions than blindly to follow any established tradition, for none would be saved at the Final Judgment, by claiming "A Harry, or a Martin taught [them] this."^[9]

Donne's early career was also notable for his erotic poetry, especially his elegies, in which he employed unconventional metaphors, such as a flea biting two lovers being compared to sex.^[12] In Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed, he poetically undressed his mistress and compared the act of fondling to the exploration of America. In Elegy XVIII, he compared the gap between his lover's breasts to the Hellespont.^[12] Donne did not publish these poems, although did allow them to circulate widely in manuscript form.^[12]

[edit] Career and later life

Donne was elected as Member of Parliament for the constituency of Brackley in 1602, but this was not a paid position and Donne struggled to provide for his family, relying heavily upon rich friends.^[8] The fashion for coterie poetry of the period gave him a means to seek patronage and many of his poems were written for wealthy friends or patrons, especially Sir Robert Drury, who came to be Donne's chief patron in 1610.^[12] Donne wrote the two Anniversaries, An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul, (1612), for Drury. While historians are not certain as to the precise reasons for which Donne left the Catholic Church, he was certainly in communication with the King, James I of England, and in 1610 and 1611 he wrote two anti-Catholic polemics: Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius his Conclave.^[8] Although James was pleased with Donne's work, he refused to reinstate him at court and instead urged him to take holy orders.^[7] At length, Donne acceded to the King's wishes and in 1615 was ordained into the Church of England.^[12]

A few months before his death, Donne commissioned this portrait of himself as he expected to appear when he rose from the grave at the Apocalypse.^[13] He hung the portrait on his wall as a reminder of the transience of life.

Donne became a Royal Chaplain in late 1615, Reader of Divinity at Lincoln's Inn in 1616, and received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Cambridge University in 1618.^[8] Later in 1618 he became chaplain to Viscount Doncaster, who was on an embassy to the princes of Germany. Donne did not return to England until 1620.^[8] In 1621 Donne was made Dean of St Paul's, a leading (and well-paid) position in the Church of England and one he held until his death in 1631. During his period as Dean his daughter Lucy died, aged eighteen. It was in late November and early December 1623 that he suffered a nearly fatal illness, thought to be either typhus or a combination of a cold followed by the seven-day relapsing fever. During his convalescence he wrote a series of meditations and prayers on health, pain, and sickness that were published as a book in 1624 under the title of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions.^[14] later became well known for its phrase "for whom the bell tolls" and the statement that "no man is an island". In 1624 he became vicar of St Dunstan-in-the-West, and 1625 a Royal Chaplain to Charles I.^[8] He earned a reputation as an eloquent preacher and 160 of his sermons have survived, including the famous Death’s Duel sermon delivered at the Palace of Whitehall before King Charles I in February 1631.

[edit] Later poetry

Some have speculated that Donne's numerous illnesses, financial strain, and the deaths of his friends all contributed to the development of a more somber and pious tone in his later poems.^[12] The change can be clearly seen in "An Anatomy of the World" (1611), a poem that Donne wrote in memory of Elizabeth Drury, daughter of his patron, Sir Robert Drury. This poem treats Elizabeth's demise with extreme gloominess, using it as a symbol for the Fall of Man and the destruction of the universe.^[12]

The poem "A Nocturnal upon S. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day",, concerns the poet's despair at the death of a loved one. In it Donne expresses a feeling of utter negation and hopelessness, saying that "I am every dead thing...re-begot / Of absence, darkness, death." This famous work was probably written in 1627 when both Donne's friend Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and his daughter Lucy Donne died. Three years later, in 1630, Donne wrote his will on Saint Lucy's day (* December), the date the poem describes as "Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight."

The increasing gloominess of Donne's tone may also be observed in the religious works that he began writing during the same period. His early belief in the value of skepticism now gave way to a firm faith in the traditional teachings of the Bible. Having converted to the Anglican Church, Donne focused his literary career on religious literature. He quickly became noted for his sermons and religious poems. The lines of these sermons would come to influence future works of English literature, such as Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which took its title from a passage in Meditation XVII of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, which took its title from the same source.

Towards the end of his life Donne wrote works that challenged death, and the fear that it inspired in many men, on the grounds of his belief that those who die are sent to Heaven to live eternally. One example of this challenge is his Holy Sonnet X, from which come the famous lines “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” Even as he lay dying during Lent in 1631, he rose from his sickbed and delivered the Death's Duel sermon, which was later described as his own funeral sermon. Death’s Duel portrays life as a steady descent to suffering and death, yet sees hope in salvation and immortality through an embrace of God, Christ and the Resurrection.^[9][12][15]

[edit] Death

It is thought that his final illness was stomach cancer, although this has not been proved. He died on 31 March 1631 having written many poems, most only in manuscript. Donne is buried in St Paul's Cathedral, where a memorial statue of him was erected (carved from a drawing of him in his shroud), with a Latin epigraph probably composed by himself.

[edit] Style

John Donne is the most undisputed leader of Metaphysical School of Poetry. John Donne was famous for his metaphysical poetry in the 17th century. His work suggests a healthy appetite for life and its pleasures, while also expressing deep emotion. He did this through the use of conceits, wit and intellect—as seen in the poems "The Sun Rising" and "Batter My Heart".

Donne is considered a master of the metaphysical conceit, an extended metaphor that combines two vastly different ideas into a single idea, often using imagery.^[9] An example of this is his equation of lovers with saints in "The Canonization". Unlike the conceits found in other Elizabethan poetry, most notably Petrarchan conceits, which formed clichéd comparisons between more closely related objects (such as a rose and love), metaphysical conceits go to a greater depth in comparing two completely unlike objects, although sometimes in the mode of Shakespeare's radical paradoxes and imploded contraries. One of the most famous of Donne's conceits is found in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" where he compares two lovers who are separated to the two legs of a compass.

Donne's works are also witty, employing paradoxes, puns, and subtle yet remarkable analogies. His pieces are often ironic and cynical, especially regarding love and human motives. Common subjects of Donne's poems are love (especially in his early life), death (especially after his wife's death), and religion.^[9]

John Donne's poetry represented a shift from classical forms to more personal poetry.^[16] Donne is noted for his poetic metre, which was structured with changing and jagged rhythms that closely resemble casual speech (it was for this that the more classical-minded Ben Jonson commented that "Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging").^[9]

Some scholars believe that Donne's literary works reflect the changing trends of his life, with love poetry and satires from his youth and religious sermons during his later years. Other scholars, such as Helen Gardner, question the validity of this dating—most of his poems were published posthumously (1633). The exception to these is his Anniversaries which were published in 1612 and Devotions upon Emergent Occasions published in 1624. His sermons are also dated, sometimes specifically by date and year.

His work has received much criticism over the years, especially concerning his metaphysical form.^[9] Donne's immediate successors in poetry tended to regard his works with ambivalence, while the Neoclassical poets regarded his conceits as abuse of the metaphor. He was revived by Romantic poets such as Coleridge and Browning, though his more recent revival in the early twentieth century by poets such as T. S. Eliot tended to portray him as an anti-Romantic.^[17]

[edit] Legacy

John Donne is commemorated as a priest in the calendar of the Church of England and in the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on 31 March.^[18]

Sylvia Plath, interviewed on BBC Radio in late 1962, said the following about a book review of her collection of poems titled The Colossus that had been published in the United Kingdom two years earlier: "I remember being appalled when someone criticized me for beginning just like John Donne but not quite managing to finish like John Donne, and I felt the weight of English literature on me at that point."^[19]

The memorial to John Donne, modelled after the engraving pictured above, was one of the few such memorials to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666 and now appears in St Paul's Cathedral, where Donne is buried.

[edit] Donne in literature

Donne has appeared in several works of literature:

• A dying John Donne scholar is the main character of Margaret Edson's Pulitzer prize-winning play Wit (1999), which was made into the film Wit starring Emma Thompson.
• Donne's Songs and Sonnets feature in The Calligrapher (2003), a novel by Edward Docx.
• In the 2006 novel, The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox, Donne's works are frequently quoted.
• John Donne appears, along with his wife Ann and daughter Pegge, in the award-winning novel Conceit (2007) by Mary Novik.
• Joseph Brodsky has a poem called "Elegy for John Donne".
• The love story of John Donne and Ann More is the subject of Maeve Haran's 2010 historical novel, "The Lady and the Poet."
• Excerpt from "Meditation 17 Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions" serves as the opening for Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom The Bell Tolls".

[edit] Donne in pop culture and songs

• Tarwater, in their album called Salon des Refusés, have put "The Relic" to song.
• Children of Bodom, in the song "Follow the Reaper" reference John Donne's Holy Sonnet 10
• Metallica in the song "For Whom the Bell Tolls" reference Meditation 17 from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
• Titus Andronicus, in their 2008 song "Albert Camus", quote from Donne's Holy Sonnet 10

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Poetry

• Poems (1634)
• Poems on Several Occasions (2001)
• Love Poems (1905)
• John Donne: Divine Poems (includes the Holy Sonnets), Sermons, Devotions and Prayers (1990)
• The Complete English Poems (1991)
• John Donne's Poetry (1991)
• John Donne: The Major Works (2000)
• The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne (2001)

[edit] Prose

• Six Sermons (1633)
• Fifty Sermons (1649)
• Paradoxes, Problemes, Essayes, Characters (1652)
• Essayes in Divinity (1651)
• Sermons Never Before Published (1661)
• John Donne's 1622 Gunpowder Plot Sermon (1996)
• Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and Death's Duel (1999; first published in 1624)

[edit] Critical works

• John Carey, John Donne: Life, Mind and Art, (London 1981)
• A. L. Clements (ed.) John Donne's Poetry (New York and London, 1966)
• Stevie Davies, John Donne (Northcote House, Plymouth, 1994)
• T. S. Eliot, "The Metaphysical Poets", Selected Essays, (London 1969)
• G. Hammond (ed.) The Metaphysical Poets: A Casebook, (London 1986)
• Sir Geoffrey Keynes, Bibliography of Donne, (Cambridge, 1958)
• George Klawitter, The Enigmatic Narrator: The Voicing of Same-Sex Love in the Poetry of John Donne (Peter Lang, 1994)
• Arthur F. Marotti, John Donne, Coterie Poet, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986)
• H. L. Meakin, John Donne's Articulations of the Feminine, (Oxford, 1999)
• Joe Nutt, John Donne: The Poems, (New York and London 1999)
• E.M. Simpson, A Study of the Prose Works of John Donne, (Oxford, 1962)
• C. L. Summers and T. L. Pebworth (eds.) The Eagle and the Dove: Reassessing John Donne (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986)
• John Stachniewski, The Persecutory Imagination, (Oxford, 1991)
• Ceri Sullivan, The Rhetoric of the Conscience in Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan (Oxford 2008)
• James Winny, A Preface to Donne (New York, 1981)
• Francis William Teodoro, A New Tomorrow Needs Us
• James Lyle Canda, Someone is Needing My Love
• Pauline T.C Algas, Two Against My One Heart

[edit] See also

	Anglicanism portal
	Saints portal

• Cleanth Brooks. "The Language of Paradox", Literary Theory: An Anthology 2nd edition; Julie Rivkan, Michael Ryan (eds) pp. 28–39 (2004)

[edit] References

• Bald, R. C. John Donne: A Life., Oxford, 1970
• Le Comte, Edward. Grace to a Witty Sinner: A Life of Donne, (Walker, 1965)
• Stubbs, John. Donne: The Reformed Soul, Viking, 2006. ISBN 0-670-91510-6
• Lim, Kit. John Donne: An Eternity of Song, Penguin, 2005.
• Warnke, Frank J. John Donne, (U of Mass., Amherst 1987)

[edit] Notes