Meet the Author
John Donne
English · 1572–1631 · Poet and preacher
Portrait: After Isaac Oliver, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A London poet who became dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and whose poems argue with lovers, death, and God through startling comparisons.
2 StoryBites Editions2 Poems
Why read John Donne?
Donne’s poems sound like someone thinking out loud, arguing a case with wit and nerve. Death, Be Not Proud talks down to death itself, while A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning compares two parted lovers to the legs of a drawing compass. Read him for the metaphysical conceit at its sharpest, and for the way he makes an argument feel urgent.
A life in six dates
- 1572Born in London to a Catholic family
- 1596Sails with the Earl of Essex’s expedition to Cadiz
- 1601Secretly marries Anne More, which soon costs him his post as a secretary
- 1615Ordained a priest in the Church of England
- 1621Becomes dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral
- 1631Dies in London
- 1633Poems, by J. D. is published, including Death, Be Not Proud and A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Themes across the collection
The StoryBites Editions
Context that actually matters
Metaphysical poetrySamuel Johnson later applied this label to Donne and poets like him, whose far-fetched comparisons join ideas that seem unrelated.
Poems in manuscriptDonne’s poems passed among readers in handwritten copies during his life, and most were not printed until after his death.
Religious conflict in EnglandRaised Catholic at a time when Catholics were persecuted, Donne later joined the Church of England, and questions of faith and death run through his work.