John Donne

John Donne (1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier, and secretary. He came from a recusant family—Catholics who refused to attend Church of England services—and later became a cleric in the Church of England. With royal backing, he served as Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London from 1621 until his death. He is regarded as the leading figure among the metaphysical poets. His poetry is known for its metaphorical and sensual qualities, spanning sonnets, love poems, religious verse, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, and satires. He also gained renown for his sermons.

Donne’s style features abrupt openings, paradoxes, ironies, and dislocations. These traits, along with his use of dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, tense syntax, and tough eloquence, were a reaction against the smoothness of typical Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation of European baroque and mannerist techniques into English. His early work shows deep knowledge of English society. A recurring theme in his later poetry is the nature of true religion, a subject he pondered and theorized about at length. He wrote secular, erotic, and love poems. He is especially famous for his skill with metaphysical conceits.

Despite his education and poetic talent, Donne spent years in poverty, relying on wealthy friends. This hardship stemmed from his secret marriage to Anne More, with whom he eventually had twelve children. He served as a member of Parliament in 1601 and again in 1614. In 1615, at the king’s insistence, he was reluctantly ordained as an Anglican deacon and then a priest.

Donne was born in London in 1571 or 1572 into a recusant Roman Catholic family, at a time when practicing that faith was illegal in England. He was the third of six children. His father, also named John Donne, was of Welsh descent, a warden of the Ironmongers Company, and married to Elizabeth Heywood. The father avoided unwanted government attention out of fear of religious persecution. He died in 1576, when John was four, leaving his mother to raise the children alone. Elizabeth Heywood came from a recusant family too: she was the daughter of playwright John Heywood, sister of Jesuit priest and translator Jasper Heywood, and a great-niece of Thomas More. A few months after her husband’s death, she married John Syminges, a wealthy widower with three children.

Donne was educated privately; there is no evidence he was taught by Jesuits, despite a popular claim. At age 11, in 1583, he began studies at Hart Hall (now Hertford College), Oxford. After three years, he moved to the University of Cambridge for another three years. He could not earn a degree from either because, as a Catholic, he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy required for graduation. In 1591, he entered Thavie’s Inn, a legal school in London, and on 6 May 1592, he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, one of the Inns of Court.

In 1593, five years after the Spanish Armada’s defeat and during the ongoing Anglo-Spanish War, Queen Elizabeth issued the first English statute against sectarian dissent from the Church of England, targeting “Popish recusants.” Donne’s brother Henry, a university student, was arrested that year for harboring a Catholic priest, William Harrington, and died of bubonic plague in Newgate Prison. This event led Donne to question his Catholic faith.

During and after his education, Donne spent much of his large inheritance on women, literature, pastimes, and travel. Though no precise record exists, he crossed Europe. He later fought alongside the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh against the Spanish at Cadiz (1596) and the Azores (1597), witnessing the loss of the Spanish flagship, the *San Felipe*. By age 25, he was well prepared for a diplomatic career. He became chief secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and lived at Egerton’s London home, York House, near the Palace of Whitehall.

During the next four years, Donne fell in love with Egerton’s niece, Anne More. They married secretly just before Christmas 1601, against the wishes of both Egerton and Anne’s father, George More, the Lieutenant of the Tower. When discovered, the marriage ruined Donne’s career: he was dismissed, thrown into Fleet Prison, along with the priest Samuel Brooke, who performed the ceremony, and his brother Christopher, who stood in for George More to give Anne away. Donne was released shortly after the marriage was proved valid, and he soon secured the release of the other two. According to biographer Izaak Walton, Donne wrote to his wife about losing his post, signing his name: “John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done.” It was not until 1609 that Donne reconciled with his father-in-law and received his wife’s dowry.

After his release, Donne had to accept a retired country life in a small house in Pyrford, Surrey, owned by Anne’s cousin, Sir Francis Wooley.