Songs and Sonnets is the title given to the love poems of John Donne, first printed in 1633, two years after his death. Witty, passionate and full of surprising images, they are the most famous works of the metaphysical poets.
A posthumous collection
Donne wrote most of these poems in his youth, in the 1590s and early 1600s, and circulated them in manuscript among friends. He never published them.
They appeared in the 1633 edition of his Poems; the title Songs and Sonets was given to the group in the 1635 edition.
Donne's poems argue, tease and shock. In The Flea, a lover uses a flea that has bitten both him and his mistress as an argument for love; in A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, two lovers are compared to the legs of a pair of compasses.
Samuel Johnson later coined the term 'metaphysical poets' for Donne and his followers, criticising their far-fetched comparisons.
Rediscovery
Admired in his time, then neglected, Donne was rediscovered in the early twentieth century, notably through Herbert Grierson's 1912 edition and T. S. Eliot's essays.
The poem Song, with its list of impossible tasks, is one of his best known, playfully cynical about women's constancy.
Anecdotes
From lover to dean
The young Donne who wrote these daring poems later became an Anglican priest and Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, one of the great preachers of his age.
A secret marriage
Donne's secret marriage to Anne More, niece of his employer, cost him his post and briefly landed him in prison; a well-known pun on their names is attributed to him.
Frequently asked questions
When were Donne's love poems published?
In 1633, two years after his death.
Who are the metaphysical poets?
Donne and seventeenth-century poets who used bold, intellectual comparisons; the label comes from Samuel Johnson.
What is the famous image in A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning?
The two lovers compared to the legs of a pair of compasses.