Donne the Player (1572-1609)

Donne the Preacher (1609-1631)

I mean, come on! Look at the pimp hat! Check out his fine threads!

This is the young Donne, who lived the high life in Oxford, Cambridge, and London. Wine, women, and song were the name of the game. He was independently wealthy, from an inheritance left him by his father. He studied law, served in the navy (seeing action in Spain and the Azores), and sat in Queen Elizabeth's last Parliament in 1601. During this time, a number of his poems circulated in manuscript, including the book that most of the poems we're reading for class came from: Songs and Sonnets. The future was so bright that, had there been shades back then, Donne would have had to wear them.

This is not to say all was sunshine and roses for ol' Jack. The main problem was that his family was Catholic. In all-Anglican England, this was a big deal. He went to both Oxford and Cambridge, but couldn't graduate from either one, because at graduation you had to swear allegiance to the Anglican Church. In 1593, his brother died in prison; he was doing time for helping a Catholic priest. Not long after, Donne converted to Anglicanism. Soon after, he was appointed private secretary to a big name at court, and was on his way to a promising career when... he fell in love.

She was just seventeen, you know what I mean, and the way she looked was way beyond compare. But she was also the neice of the nobleman Donne worked for. Her name was Anne More, and they were secretly married in 1601. When Uncle Lord Egerton found out, he was not pleased. So unpleased, in fact, that Donne was fired and thrown in prison. For the next eight years, Donne had to eke out a living with whatever lawlerly jobs he could get. And he needed them, to support a growing (as in 11 kids!) family.

You don't put on a collar like that for anyone but God...

Or the king. James I, in 1615, declared that Donne couldn't be employed outside the church. He actually did this because he liked Donne, believe it or not. Donne had published a couple of anti-Catholic treatises a few years before, and this public renunciation of the old faith did a lot to clean up his image in the eyes of the official powers. Donne accepted the post of Royal Chaplain later that same year (he already had a Doctor of Divinity degree from Cambridge a couple of years earlier).

Once he actually got work as a preacher, Donne took off. He became one of the better-known preachers of his time. He became famous for his sermons--he went on tour, preaching around England and the Continent.

Once again, though, all was not sunshine and roses. In 1617, his wife died in childbirth. A part of him never quite recovered. As he went on, he became increasingly obsessed with death, going so far, in his late years, as having a portrait of himself done wrapped in a burial shroud. (There was also a statue.) He kept it with him, as a constant reminder of his own mortality. How's that for hardcore?

His Holy Sonnets were a product of this time in his life, when he was thinking constantly about both religious subjects and death. These later religious poems show the same ability with metaphor and willingness to go with unorthodox imagery that his earlier poems did.