John Donne
John Donne was a man with many qualities: well educated, ambitious and cultured. This allowed him to lead a comfortable and honorable life.
Donne was born in London in 1572 to a Roman Catholic family, but he converted to Anglicanism. The mother was a Catholic and the daughter of an English poet. His father was a wealthy London merchant who died when Donne was very young. The child studied at the Jesuits, and then, at twelve, he entered in Oxford University, where he studied for three years. In 1591 Donne studied Laws in London. In these years he wrote Songs and Sonnets and he published them privately (for close friends and relatives).
In 1597 John Donne worked as Thomas Egerton's court secretary. In these years he met the young woman Anne More (Egerton's nephew), with whom he fell in love, and they married secretly. This act was fatal for his work: in fact, the poet was dismissed.
In 1611 Donne participated in a diplomatic mission that separated him for a long time from his beloved wife. This distance shook the poet and led him to write one of his famous poems, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.
Later, Donne met an Anglican bishop, with whom he wrote two pamphlets where he publicly rejected the Catholic religion. Under the advice of King James I, the poet was invited to take an ecclesiastical career. Therefore, he took orders in 1615 and in a few years he became dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. In 1617 his wife Anne More died. This fact brought discomfort to the poet: he stopped writing love poetry and began composing Holy Sonnets. John Donne died in 1631 in London, and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.
Main Works
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