John donne poems biography

The Metaphysical Poets are known for their ability to startle the reader and coax new perspective through paradoxical images, subtle argument, inventive syntax, and imagery from art, philosophy, and religion using an extended metaphor known as a conceit. Donne reached beyond the rational and hierarchical structures of the seventeenth century with his exacting and ingenious conceits, advancing the exploratory spirit of his time.

He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities in his early teen years. He did not take a degree at either school, because to do so would have meant subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles, the doctrine that defined Anglicanism. Two years later he succumbed to religious pressure and joined the Anglican Church after his younger brother, convicted for his Catholic loyalties, died in prison.

Donne wrote most of his love lyrics, erotic verse, and some sacred poems in the s, creating two major volumes of work: Satires and Songs and Sonnets. In , after returning from a two-year naval expedition against Spain, Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton. As punishment, he did not provide a dowry for the couple and had Donne briefly imprisoned.

This left the couple isolated and dependent on friends, relatives, and patrons. Donne suffered social and financial instability in the years following his marriage, exacerbated by the birth of many children. His poetry with such distinguishing features was a reaction to the flatness of the traditional Elizabethan poetry. It was an adaptation of the decorative and mannerist techniques of European English.

Donne spent much of his time considering the true religion and also theorized it. His poetry includes both secular poems and love and erotic poems. His poetry is celebrated for the mastery of metaphysical conceits. Though Donne had acquired great education and had great poetic talent, he lived in poverty for several years and relied on his rich friends.

He spent much of his income on literature, travel, womanizing, and travel. Donne married Anne More secretly in They gave birth to twelve children. John Donne was born on 22 nd January to a Catholic family during a catholic revival. In England, it was a strong anti-Catholic period. In , the father of John died. His mother married again to a wealthy widower.

In , he attended Oxford University at the age of 11, and then he went to Cambridge University. However, due to his religious sect, Catholicism, he never received any degree. He was intended to pursue a legal or diplomatic career. In the s, he spent all his wealth on womanizing. It was during this time that he wrote his erotic poems and love lyrics.

Among the small group of admirers, Satires and Songs and Sonnets , his first books of poems were highly praised. In , on showing the sympathies of Catholicism, his brother Henry was sentenced, and he soon died in prison. This episode affected him to a great extent, and he started questioning his own faith in Catholicism. It made him write some best works on religion.

He spent several years with Egerton as a secretary, and it seems that it was during this time that abandoned Catholicism and converted to Anglicanism. In , Donne turned out to be a Member of Parliament and was on the way to a promising career. Daniel Day-Lewis. Maggie Smith. Alan Cumming. Olivia Colman. Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies. Affection is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. Watch Next. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. Writings 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 reflected his strongly satiric view of a society populated by fools and knaves. 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.

Donne did not publish these poems, although they circulated widely in manuscript form. One such, a previously unknown manuscript that is believed to be one of the largest contemporary collections of Donne's work among that of others , was found at Melford Hall in November Some have speculated that Donne's numerous illnesses, financial strain, and the deaths of his friends all contributed to the development of a more sombre and pious tone in his later poems.

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. The increasing gloominess of Donne's tone may also be observed in the religious works that he began writing during the same period. Having converted to the Anglican Church, Donne quickly became noted for his sermons and religious poems.

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. Even as he lay dying during Lent in , 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; death becomes merely another process of life, in which the 'winding sheet' of the womb is the same as that of the grave. Hope is seen in salvation and immortality through an embrace of God, Christ and the Resurrection. Style His work has received much criticism over the years, especially concerning his metaphysical form.

Donne is generally considered the most prominent member of the metaphysical poets, a phrase coined in by Samuel Johnson, following a comment on Donne by John Dryden. Dryden had written of Donne in "He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love.

Donne's immediate successors in poetry therefore tended to regard his works with ambivalence, with the Neoclassical poets regarding his conceits as abuse of the metaphor. However he was revived by Romantic poets such as Coleridge and Browning, though his more recent revival in the early 20th century by poets such as T. Eliot and critics like F. Leavis tended to portray him, with approval, as an anti-Romantic.

John donne poems biography

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. An example of this is his equation of lovers with saints in "The Canonization". One of the most famous of Donne's conceits is found in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" where he compares the apartness of two separated lovers to the working of the 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. John Donne's poetry represented a shift from classical forms to more personal poetry.

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". 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 The exception to these is his Anniversaries, which were published in and Devotions upon Emergent Occasions published in His sermons are also dated, sometimes specifically by date and year. His commemoration is on 31 March.