John Donne (1572-1631) was an English poet and clergyman who wrote love poems in the court of Queen Elizabeth I in his youth. The now-common phrases “No man is an island” and “for whom the bell tolls” are from Donne’s poetry. Donne was born in 1572 to a prominent Roman-Catholic family at a time when anti-Catholic sentiment was rampant in England. He was taught by Jesuit priests in his youth and entered Hart Hall, University of Oxford at age 11. Donne then spent three years at the University of Cambridge but left without a degree because he refused to swear the Oath of Supremacy acknowledging King Henry VIII as the supreme leader of the Anglican Church, a requirement for graduation. In the 1590s Donne lived in London, studying law, and wrote the poems that made up his Satire and Songs and Sonnets. After returning from a naval expedition in 1596, he sat in Queen Elizabeth’s court. In 1601 he secretly married the daughter of a nobleman against her family’s wishes and lost his career and good name in society. Donne continued writing and practicing law while supporting his family. He published Divine Poems (1617) and wrote the prose work Biathanatos, published after his death. It wasn’t until Donne reached his forties that he made his religious conversion clear by writing anti-Catholic polemics, such as Pseudo-Martyr (1610). In 1615, at the King’s demand, he entered the Anglican ministry. Donne’s wife died at age thirty-three in childbirth, after giving birth to twelve children. Donne is believed to have written is Holy Sonnets, including “Death, Be Not Proud” shortly after his wife’s death. He became dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1621 and had a prominent position as a writer and preacher in London society until his death in 1631.
Major works by John Donne
Satires (1593)
Songs and Sonnets (1601)
The Second Anniversary: Of The Progress of the Soul (1611)
An Anatomy of the World (1611)
Deaths Duel (1632)
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)
Divine Poems (1607)
Ignatius his Conclaue (1611)
Psevdo-Martyr (1610)
Wisdom Crying out to Sinners (1639)
Biathanatos (1644, prose)
Fifty Sermons (1649)
Essays in Divinity (1651)
John Donne and the Web
The Academy of American Poets’ webpage offers a biography of John Donne, five of his poems, and related essays on the sonnet form and the metaphysical poets.
The Luminarium website specializes in 17th century British poets and includes extensive resources on John Donne.
The University of Toronto presents this collection of forty-two of John Donne’s poems in etext.