Letteratura inglese - John Donne

John Donne's Life and Works

"John continued to live in London for the next few years working as counsel for the anti-Catholic pamphleteer, Thomas Morton from 1604 to 1607. It is also during this time that Donne began his writing with Divine Poems in 1607 and Biathanatos in 1608, later published after his death, in 1644.

In 1608 Donne made up with his father-in-law after a few attempted suicides. Pseudo-Martyr, Donne's next work, published in 1610, won him favor with the king. The prose work was a treatise that said Catholics could swear allegiance to King James the first without renouncing the pope.

In 1615 John became a priest of the Anglican church and began giving his now famous sermons. Later that same year, he obtained the position of royal chaplain. St. Paul's Cathedral appointed him Dean in 1621, a position he held for ten years.

In a final interesting note, our esteemed Mr. Donne performed the eulogy for his own funeral and even posed for a portrait in his death shroud shortly before his death."

In 1631, John Donne (1572 – March 31, 1631) died of an unknown terminal illness. All of Donne's now famous works were published after his death.

Donne was a Jacobean poet and preacher, representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works, notable for their realistic and sensual style, include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires, and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and immediacy of metaphor, compared with that of his contemporaries.

Donne came from a loyal Roman Catholic family, and so he experienced persecution until his conversion to the Anglican Church. Despite his

Such as Helen Gardner, question the validity of dating when 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 1623. His sermons are also dated, sometimes quite specifically, by year and date.

Early life

A portrait of Donne as a young man. John Donne was born in Bread Street, London, England, sometime between January 23 and June 19 in 1572, the third of six children. His father, of Welsh descent, also called John Donne, was a warden of the Ironmongers Company in the City of London and a respected Roman Catholic who avoided unwelcome government attention, out of fear of being persecuted for his Catholicism. John Donne Sr. died in 1576, leaving his wife, Elizabeth Heywood, the responsibility of raising their children. Elizabeth Heywood, also from a noted Catholic family, was the daughter of John Heywood, the playwright, and sister of Jasper Heywood, the translator and Jesuit.

where he studied for another three years. He was unable to obtain a degree from either institution because he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy required of graduates.[4]

In 1591, he was accepted as a student at the Thaives Inn legal school, one of the Inns of Court in London. In 1592 he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, another of the Inns of Court legal schools.[4]

His brother Henry was also a university student prior to his arrest in 1591 for harbouring a Catholic priest. Henry Donne died in prison of bubonic plague, leading John Donne to begin questioning his Catholic faith.[3]

During and after his education, Donne spent much of his considerable inheritance on women, literature, pastimes, and travel.[4][2] Although there is no record detailing precisely where he travelled, it is known that he visited the Continent and later fought with the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh against the Spanish at Cadiz (1596) and the Azores (1597) and witnessed the loss of the Spanish flagship, the San Felipe,

and her crew.^[6][3][1]

According to Izaak Walton, who wrote a biography of Donne in 1640: " ... he returned not back into England till he had stayed some years, first in Italy, and then in Spain, where he made many useful observations of those countries, their laws and manner of government, and returned perfect in their languages."

By the age of 25 he was well prepared for the diplomatic career he appeared to be seeking.^[6] 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. During the next four years he fell in love with Egerton's 17 (some say 14 or 16) year old niece, Anne More, and they were secretly married 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 proved 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.[4] Over the next few years he scraped a meager 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 state of constant financial insecurity, with a growing family to provide for.[4] Before her death, Anne bore him eleven children (including still births). The nine

Living were named Constance, John, George, Francis, Lucy (after Donne's patroness Lucy, Countess of Bedford, her godmother), Bridget, Mary, Nicholas and Margaret. Francis 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 daring defense of suicide.

Early poetry Donne's earliest poems showed a brilliant 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, yet stand out due to their intellectual sophistication and striking imagery. 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. Donne argued that it was better carefully to examine 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." 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 equated to marriage. 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. Donne did not publish these poems, although he did allow them to circulate widely in manuscript form. Because love-poetry was very fashionable at that time, there are different opinions about whether the passionate love poems Donne wrote are addressed to his wife Anne, but it

seems likely. She spent most of her married life either pregnant or nursing, so they evidently had a strong physical relationship. On August 15, 1617, his wife died five days after giving birth to a still-born baby, their eleventh child in sixteen years of marriage. Donne mourned her deeply and never remarried. This was quite unusual for the time, especially as he had a large family to bring up.

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.[4] 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.[6] It was for Sir Robert that Donne wrote the two Anniversaries, An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul (1612). 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.[4] Although James was pleased with Donne's work, he refused to reinstate him at court and instead urged him to take holy orders.[3] Although Donne was at first reluctant due to feeling unworthy of a clerical career, Donne finally acceded to the King's wishes and was ordained into the Church of England in 1615.[6] 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 Apoc