John Donne (Pronounced as “Dun”) was an English poet of scholarly imagination and theological authenticity .He was a contemporary of Marlow and Shakespeare who joint him in the spirit and the supremacy of the revival era. It is hard to find another poet of Donne’s caliber so far versatility and scholarly inventiveness in English poetry is concerned.

Early life, education and marriage

Donne was born in Bradstreet, London in 1572 to a rich Catholic family and he was the eldest son of a wealthy iron merchant .John Heywood, a well-known dramatist, was his maternal uncle. Donne received his early education privately and then matriculated from oxford in 1584.It is said that he went to Cambridge for higher education but couldn’t receive a degree on account of his resistance to the swearword of thirty-nine articles. There are little information about his life from 1584-1592.He took admission as a law student to Lincoln’s Inn in May 1592.Like many other members of the Inns of Court he used to enjoy women’s company and cards: “Not dissolute but very neat, a great visitor of ladies, a great frequenter of plays, and a great writer of conceited verses.”

During these significant years, Donne studied law and religion. He also created a number of songs, elegies and satires when he was not even twenty-five. He visited Italy to go on Jerusalem but he was not permitted to do so. He also stayed in Spain where he studied the laws, the language and the arts of Spain. The strength of Italian life and literature and influence of Spanish philosopher and theologians subjugated his early poetry.

During that period he also met other Catholics who, like him, felt terribly the aggravation and harassment they were subject to. Donne wrote of that period: “I had my first breeding and conversation with men of suppressed and afflicted religion (Catholicism), accustomed to the respite of death and hungry of an imagined martyrdom.” These were the days of inner conflict and his soul was dividing into Catholicism and Anglicanism. Ultimately, by 1597 he must have embraced the Church of England, when he joined the service of Sir Thomas Edgerton. But before 1597, Donne joined as a volunteer in two joint military and naval missions.

He would have got promotion and advancement in public service had he not committed the imprudence of toning a run-away marriage with Anne More who was daughter of Sir George More of Losely and niece of Edgerton’s second wife. Donne thought that this marriage would strengthen his claims to promotion contrary to this Edgerton dismissed him from the service. The settlement with Sir More, his father-in-law, saved him from a long custody. Donne’s sudden and irresponsible marriage meant the loss of a promising and stable public career. The years from 1601 to 1609 were full of financial problems and Donne had to depend on the generosity of his supporters. Sir Robert Druary, Lord Hay, Robert Carr used to help him in different ways.

Donne’s conversion of Anglicanism

Brought up among the Catholics in early age, his belief in the old faith struggled against the impact of the Established church. Donne wasn’t a hypocrite; he knew the wrongdoings of the Church of Rome; his intellectual spirit detached itself from Catholicism. It can’t be said that conversion to Anglicanism wasn’t due to opportunism or feasibility but of intellectual persuasions. Even then, in later life he felt some kind of spiritual unrest.

Two loves of Donne

Donne had two loves: poetry the mistress of his youth and divinity, the wife of his mature age. He believed in the joy of living and the seduction of poetry. Donne followed the middle path between blind faith and renovation. Donne’s satiric brilliance created expression in his satire on heresy and on women. His divine poems, likewise, show the conflict of faith and reason, of hope and despair, and the penitence of a soul which has undergone purgation of emotional familiarity.

Donne-The Dean of St. Paul’s
In 1619, Donne, the Chaplain accompanied his friend the Earl of Don caster to Germany. He was promoted to the post of Dean of St. Paul’s in1621.His sermons attracted large audiences. During his serious sickness he composed a few devotional poems including the hymns Since I am coming and Wilt thou forgive. During his sickness in 1630, he gave orders for his own monument which still stands in St.Pual’s. He died in London on 31st March 1631.

Donne left a deep and pervasive influence on English poetry. The metaphysical lyricists owed great debt to him. Sometimes, his followers outshined him in happy conceit, passion and paradoxical reasoning .And yet he gave a sincere and passionate quality to the Elizabeth lyric. He interwove argument with poetry. In spite of his intellectual content, his poems attract us with a sense of vision, an intensity of feeling, and a felicity of expression. He was one of those great poets who left a mark on the history of English poetry.

The works of John Donne are so vast and variant as they can’t be captivated in few lines. As he attempted love poems, religious poems, some prose work and translation of Italian and Spanish works etc. The great works of that great poet will be issued in another article on Donne’s works.