Introduction

by Brandon Harrison

John Donne (1572-1631) was an English writer and is seen as a major figure amongst the “Metaphysical poets” a group of 17th-century writers whose works are notable for their use of conceits–extended metaphoric comparisons that are strikingly clever. In addition to poetry, he also wrote love lyrics, erotic verses, essays, sermons, and satires. Donne’s work is notable for its emotional and intense tone and its subject matter: faith, human and divine love, and the possibility of salvation.

Biography

Donne was born in London in 1572 to a recusant Catholic family at a time when the practice of that religion was illegal in England. When he was just four years old, his father died, leaving Elizabeth Donne (nee Heywood) to raise John and his five siblings on her own. He was educated privately, then from 11-14 at Hart Hall (now Hertford College, Oxford), and 15-18 at the University of Cambridge. He received no degrees, however, because of his Catholic faith (and refusal to take the Oath of Supremacy).

During and after his education, Donne spent much of his considerable inheritance on women, literature, pastimes and travel. He fought alongside Sir Walter Raleigh at the battle of Cadiz and traveled across Europe, living for years in Italy and Spain, presumably with an eye toward a diplomatic career. He was appointed chief secretary to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Thomas Egerton, and lived close to the Palace of Whitehall, then the most influential social center in England (“John Donne”). On Christmas Eve, 1601, Donne secretly married Egerton’s niece, Anne More. This effectively ended his career and, for a time, he was imprisoned. It would take eight more years before he was reconciled to his wife’s family. Anne gave birth to 12 children in 16 years of marriage, (including two stillbirths); indeed, she spent most of her married life either pregnant or nursing. She died five days after giving birth to their twelfth child (who was stillborn); Donne mourned her deeply, and wrote of his love and loss in his 17th Holy Sonnet.

Around this time, Donne converted to Anglicanism and resurrected his career, serving as a member of parliament and, by 1621, was appointed Dean of St. Paul’s a leading and well-paid position in the Church of England, which he held until his death in 1631.

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 (“John Donne” Wikipedia). His images of sickness, vomit, manure, and plague reflected his strongly satiric view of a society populated by fools and knaves. 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 (Ibid). Donne did not publish these poems, although they circulated widely in manuscript form.

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. 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”.

His Rediscovery

Though Donne’s writing was beloved by a small circle of admirers and he was mainly known as a writer, in later years, he gained local fame as a preacher. Donne’s work was still loved for around thirty years after his death, but it then plunged into obscurity, only to be “rediscovered” in the 20th century (“John Donne” Wikipedia). His work remained primarily unnoticed until the year 1919 when a growing band of avant-garde readers and writers who picked up his work in the late 1800’s started to showcase his poetry (“John Donne” Poetry Foundation). Even though Donne’s poems were written well over four hundred years ago, one main reason that it appeals to contemporary readers is because of the way they speak directly and urgently to us.

Works Cited

“Holy Sonnets.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 26 Aug. 2019, www.britannica.com/topic/Holy-Sonnets Accessed March 26, 2020.

“John Donne.” Poetry Foundation, n.d. www.poestryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne Accessed March 28, 2020.

“John Donne’s Holy Sonnets by John Donne.” Enotes.com, n.d. www.enotes.com/topics/john-donne-holy-sonnets Accessed March 28, 2020.

Reading: From Songs and Sonnets

THE FLEA.

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know’st that this cannot be said                                        5
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,                                           10
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.                                   15
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?                                     20
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
‘Tis true ; then learn how false fears be;                                    25
Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

SONG.

GO and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be’st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find’st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,

Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

THE SUN RISING.

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, “All here in one bed lay.”

She’s all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

THE BAIT.

COME live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.

There will the river whisp’ring run
Warm’d by thy eyes, more than the sun ;
And there th’ enamour’d fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be’st loth,
By sun or moon, thou dark’nest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest ;
Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes’ wand’ring eyes.

For thee, thou need’st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait :
That fish, that is not catch’d thereby,
Alas ! is wiser far than I.

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
“Now his breath goes,” and some say, “No.”

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, ’cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

Reading: From Holy Sonnets

10

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Satire 3: On Religion

Meditation IV (4)