John Donne was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary who was born in London in 1571 or 1572, into a recusant Roman Catholic family when practice of that religion was illegal in England. Donne was the third of six children. His father, also named John Donne, married to one Elizabeth Heywood, was of Welsh descent. Donne was educated privately; however, there is no evidence to support the popular claim that he was taught by Jesuits. In 1583, at the age of 11, he began studies at Hart Hall. After three years of studies there, Donne was admitted to the University of Cambridge, where he studied for another three years.
During the next four years, Donne fell in love with Egerton’s niece Anne More, and they were secretly married just before Christmas in 1601, against the wishes of both Egerton and George More, who was Lieutenant of the Tower and Anne’s father. Upon discovery, this wedding ruined Donne’s career, getting him dismissed and put in Fleet Prison, along with the Church of England priest Samuel Brooke, who married them, and the man who acted as a witness to the wedding. Donne was released shortly thereafter when the marriage was proved to be valid, and he soon secured the release of the other two. Walton tells us that when Donne 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.
In 1602 John Donne was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Brackley, but the post was not a paid position. Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, being succeeded by King James. The fashion for coterie poetry of the period gave Donne a means to seek patronage, and many of his poems were written for wealthy friends or patrons, especially for MP Sir Robert Drury of Hawsted (1575–1615), whom he met in 1610 and who became his chief patron, furnishing him and his family an apartment in his large house in Drury Lane.
Donne sat as an MP again, this time for Taunton, in the Addled Parliament of 1614 but though he attracted five appointments within its business he made no recorded speech. Although King James was pleased with Donne’s work, he refused to reinstate him at court and instead urged him to take holy orders. At length, Donne acceded to the king’s wishes, and in 1615 was ordained priest in the Church of England.
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’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. 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 was found at Melford Hall in November 2018. 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. 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 of Hawstead, Suffolk. 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. One example of this challenge is his Holy Sonnet X, “Death Be Not Proud”. Even as he lay dying during Lent in 1631, he rose from his sickbed and delivered the Death’s Dual 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.
