John Donne (1572–1631) was the greatest of the English metaphysical poets, known for his witty, passionate love poems, his intense religious sonnets and his sermons as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral. His Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, written during a grave illness, contain some of the most quoted lines in English prose.
Works
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, Holy Sonnets, Songs and Sonnets
A dangerous inheritance
Donne was born in London in 1572 into a Catholic family, at a time when Catholics were persecuted in England; his mother was a relative of Thomas More, and his brother died in prison for sheltering a priest. He studied at Oxford and Cambridge but could not take a degree without renouncing his faith.
He studied law at Lincoln's Inn, sailed with the Earl of Essex on expeditions against Spain, and wrote witty love poems and satires that circulated in manuscript. Around this time he left the Catholic Church.
A secret marriage
In 1597 he became secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, a post that promised a brilliant career. But in 1601 he secretly married Anne More, the niece of Egerton's wife, aged seventeen. Her father had him dismissed and briefly imprisoned.
For years the couple lived in poverty, with a growing family; they had twelve children, of whom several died young. Donne sought patrons and wrote prose works, poems of praise and the religious poems later known as the Holy Sonnets.
The Dean of St Paul's
Urged by King James I, Donne was ordained in the Church of England in 1615. Anne died in 1617, after giving birth to a stillborn child. In 1621 he became Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, where his sermons drew large crowds.
In 1623, during a grave illness, he wrote the Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, meditations on sickness, death and the bonds between people. He died in 1631. His poems were published only after his death, in 1633, and were rediscovered and admired by T. S. Eliot in the twentieth century.
Anecdotes
Posing in a shroud
Shortly before his death, Donne posed for a portrait wrapped in his burial shroud, standing on an urn, as if rising from the grave. The marble statue made from it was one of the very few monuments to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666, and still stands in St Paul's Cathedral.
John Donne, Anne Donne, undone
According to his early biographer Izaak Walton, after his dismissal for his secret marriage, Donne wrote to his wife a short message playing on their names: John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done. The story is famous, though its authenticity cannot be confirmed.
Frequently asked questions
What is metaphysical poetry?
A name given to a group of seventeenth-century poets, including Donne, George Herbert and Andrew Marvell, known for their intellectual wit, surprising comparisons called conceits, and dramatic tone.
What are Donne's most famous poems?
The Flea, The Sun Rising, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, The Canonization and the Holy Sonnets, including Death, be not proud.
Where does the phrase for whom the bell tolls come from?
From Donne's Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624), Meditation XVII. Ernest Hemingway took his novel's title from it.