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John Donne
John Donne was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631). He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, and satires. He is also known for his sermons.
Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations. These features, along with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of English society and he met that knowledge with sharp criticism Another important theme in Donne's poetry is the idea of true religion, something that he spent much time considering and about which he often theorised. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic and love poems. He is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits.
Despite his great education and poetic talents, Donne lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited during and after his education on womanising, literature, pastimes, and travel. In 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, with whom he had twelve children. In 1615 he was ordained deacon and then Anglican priest, although he did not want to take Holy Orders and only did so because the king ordered it. He also served as a member of Parliament in 1601 and in 1614.
Books by John Donne
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, or in full Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes, is a prose work by the English metaphysical poet and cleric in the Church of England John Donne, published in 1624. It covers death, re...
Holy Sonnets
The Holy Sonnets—also known as the Divine Meditations or Divine Sonnets—are a series of nineteen poems by the English poet John Donne (1572–1631). The sonnets were first published in 1633—two years after Donne's death. They are written predominantly...
The Dream
Would you wake up from a dream if it were the most beautiful dream you have ever had? In John Donne's poem The Dream, the speaker finds himself in such a predicament. He has dreamed of his beloved, and the dream is so vivid and passionate that he do...
Death Be Not Proud
This week we’re marking the American Memorial Day with eleven readings of a John Donne poem. Memorial Day was conceived as a time to remember military men and women who had lost their lives in war. Kings and presidents come and go and some of the rea...
Nocturnall Upon St. Lucies Day
LibriVox volunteers bring you 6 recordings of A Nocturnall Upon St. Lucies Day by John Donne. This was the fortnightly poetry project for winter solstice 2008.
Selection of Divine Poems
John Donne was an English Jacobean preacher, sometime lawyer, later in life a Member of Parliament and Royal Chaplain. Marrying for love against the wishes of his influential father-in-law; Donne's career was cast into shadow: forcing him to support...
Burnt Ship
LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of A Burnt Ship by John Donne. This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 17th, 2010.
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions Together With Death's Duel
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions is a 1624 prose work by the English theologian and writer John Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. It is a series of reflections that were written as Donne recovered from a serious illness. The work consis...
Anniversary Poems
Elizabeth Drury, daughter of Donne's patron, Sir Robert Drury, died in 1610. A year later Donne laments her hyperbolically as the soul of the created universe. In "An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary," he poetically scrutinizes that year-o...
To His Mistress Going to Bed
John Donne was an English poet and cleric in the Church of England. He is considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are noted for their strong, sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Lati...
Goodfriday, 1613. Riding Westward
John Donne was an English poet and cleric in the Church of England. Despite his great education and poetic talents, Donne lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited during and after...
Aspects Of Love - An Anthology
Aspects Of Love is an anthology of poetic explorations on the theme of erotic love - though one of the "poets" represented here is better known, even than as a dramatist, as the philosopher, Plato. His Symposium heads off this set of erotic explorat...
John Donne's Satires
Donne’s Style In John Donne’s day, a satire was such a poem as a satyr might compose. Satyrs were rough, savage creatures in Greek mythology, human to the waist but goat from there down. That is the reason that Donne’s style in these poems exceeds...