15/09/2026
John Donne
(1572 – 1631)
John Donne was born in London in a Catholic family.
In 1601, he married Ann More, the niece of his Patron and was imprisoned for elopement. Sir Robert Drury was his
Patron.
In 1621, he was made “Dean of St. Paul Church”.
He was persecuted for being a Catholic and was de-barred from taking a university degree and from a public career.
Later he changed to Anglican in 1615 on the order of King James I.
None of his poetry was published during his lifetime.
He wrote Satires, Elegies, Epigraphs, Verse Letters, Songs and Sonnets and Holy Sonnets.
In one of his elegiac poem – “To His Mistress Going to Bed” he compares the fondling of the mistress to the
exploration of America as –
“License my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my Newfound Land
My Kingdom, safest when with one mann’d”
This elegy opens with –
“Come Madam, Come, all rest my powers defy;
Until I labour, I in labour lie.”
Upon the insistence of James I, Donne entered Anglican Priesthood. He is known for moving sermons and religious
poems.
He wrote 19 ‘Holy Sonnets’ also called ‘Divine Meditations’. Title of Hemingway’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ and
Thomas Merton’s ‘No Man is an Island’ are taken from Donne’s Meditation 17.
For his Patron Robert Drury, Donne wrote two anniversary poems: –
An Anatomy of the World (1611)
Of the Progress of the Soul (1612)
In 1610 and 1611 he wrote two anti-Catholic polemics: –
Pseudo Martyr (1610)
Ignatius his Conclave (1611)
Ben Jonson criticized him saying –
“Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserves hanging.”
Because his rhythm resembled as a casual speech.
Donne served in the parliament as a Member of Parliament in 1601 & 1614.
Izaak Wolton wrote biography of Donne.
Donne’s wife Anne died in 1617 while giving birth to her 12th child. Donne mourned deeply and wrote of his love and
loss in his 17
th Holy Sonnets. In elegy VIII he compared the gap between his lover’s breasts to the Hellespont.
He wrote “An Anatomy of the World” (1611) in the memory of Elizabeth Drury, daughter of his patron Sir Robert
Drury.
He wrote a poem “A Nocturnal upon S. Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day” in 1627 on the death of his friend Lucy,
Countess of Bedford and his daughter Lucy Donn.
In his Sonnet X “Death be Not Proud”, he challenges the belief that those who die are sent to heaven to live eternally.
The famous line of the Sonnet is –
“Death be not proud, though some called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.”
Donne is considered a master of the metaphysical conceit & an extended metaphor. For example, in his “A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” he compares two lovers who are separated to the two legs of compass.
He wrote a poem “The Canonization” in 1633 in which the speaker argues that his love will canonise him into a kind
of sainthood.
T. S. Eliot mentioned Donne in his work – “Whispers of Immortality”
Thomas Carew wrote “Elegy for John Donne”.
Donne revolted against the tradition of Spenser.
‘Grierson’ quoted that “there are three distinctive strains in the love poetry of Donne – 1. Cynical, 2. Platonic and 3.
Conjugal.
Works of John Donne
Biathanatos (1608): It was published after the death of Donne. It contains a heterodox defense of su***de listing
prominent Biblical examples.
Pseudo-Martyr(1610): It is a polemical prose track in English by Donne. It was Donne’s first appearance in print. It
argued that English Roman Catholics should take the oath of Allegiance of James I of England.
This work launched Donne into a career as a clergyman of the Church of England.
Ignatius his Conclave (1611): This work satirizes the jesuits. In the story St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the
jesuits is found to be in Hell.
Ignatius is subsequently ejected from hell and ordered to colonize the moon where he will do less harms.
It also makes references to many scientists of the day, including Copernicus, Kepler, Brahe, and Galileo.
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1614)
It is a prose work by Donne. It covers death, re-birth and the Elizabethan concepts of sickness as a visit from god,
reflecting internal sinfulness.
The devotions is divided into 23 parts – each consisting of 3 sub-sections and called the
Meditation
the expostulation and
a prayer
Each section is in chronological order and reflection on a single day of illness.
The 17th devotion includes the phrases –
“No man is an island” and
“For Whom the Bell Tolls”
Holy Sonnets (1633)
These are also called “Divine Meditations” or “Divine Sonnets”.
It is a series of 19 poems by Donne. It was published posthumously. It is written in Petrarchan style, consists of 2
quatrains (4 line stanza) and a sestet (6 line stanza).
Sonnet XVIII, ‘Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt’ is thought to have been written in 1617 following
the death of his wife Anne More. In these sonnets Donne addresses religious themes of immortality, divine Judgment, divine love and humble
penance while reflecting deeply personal anxieties.
The sonnets were written on Donne’s conversion to Anglicanism in 1615.
Holy Sonnets appeared in three sequence
Songs and Sonnets (1633); 12 Poems,
Westmoreland MS (1620); 19 Poems &
Divine Meditations (1635); 12 Poems.
Sonnet X: “Death Be Not Proud”
It appeared in all the three editions of Sonnets. 10th in Westmoreland edition, 11th in Songs and Sonnets and 6th in
Divine Meditation.
Opening lines: –
“Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou are not so,
… … … … … … … … … … … … … …
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally
And death shall be no more, Death, thou shall die.”
Donne suffered a major illness that brought him close to death during his eighth year as an Anglican minister.
Sonnet XIV: “Batter My Heart”
Opening lines: –
“Batter my heart, three – person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend;…”
Songs and Sonnets
It consists of the following poems:
The Flea: It is dedicated to Ann More.
“Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that thou deniest me is…
just so much honour, when thou yields’st to me,
Will waste, as this Flea’s death took life from thee.”
The Good – Morrow
“I wonder, by my troth what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not wean’d till then?
…
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest.”. Go and Catch a Falling Star
“Go and catch a falling star
Get with child a mandrake root
… … … … … … … … … …
And swear, no where
Lives a women true and fair
If thou find’st one, let me know
Such a pilgrimage were sweet.
Yet do not, I would not go,...”
The Canonization
“For God’s sake hold your tongue and let me love
Or chide my palsy, or my gout …
… … … … … … … … … … …
That they did all to you epitomize –
Countries, towns, courts beg from above
A pattern of your love.”
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
“As virtuous men pass mildly away,
and whisper their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
Now his breath goes and some say ‘No’.
So let us melt, and make no noise
No-tear floods, nor sigh-tempests move
Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.”
---- ------ ----- ------- ------
It was written for his wife Anne before he left a trip to continental Europe.
The Progress of the Soul
It contains an epistle and “Progress of the Soul: First Song”.
Other poems of John Donne are: –
Woman’s Constancy
The Undertaking. The Sun-rising
The Indifferent
Love’s Usury
The Triple Fool
Lover’s Infiniteness
Song: Sweetest Love, I do not go
The Legacy
A Fever
Air and Angels
Break of Day
The Anniversary
A Valediction of my Name, in the Window
Twickenham Garden: Donne compares his lovers tear with the w**e of love.
Valediction to his Book
Community
Love’s Growth
Love’s Exchange
Confined Love
The Dream
A Valediction of Weeping
Love’s Alchemy
The Curse
The Message
A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day, being the shortest day
Witchcraft by a picture
The Blossom
The Dissolution
Song: Soul’s joy now I am gone
Farewell to Love
A Dialogue between Sir Henry Wotton and Mr. Donne.
Epithalamion or Marriage Songs by Donne
On the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine
Being marries on St. Valentine Day.
“Hail Bishop Valentine, whose day this is;
All the air is thy diocese...”
Eclogue: At the marriage of earl of Somerset
Epithalamion Made at Lincoln’s Inn.
Elegies by John Donne
i) Jealousy
ii) The Anagram
iii) “O, Let me not Serve so, as those Man Serve”
iv) Nature’s lay idiot, I Taught Thee to Love
v) “Come, Fates; I Fear You Not!”
vi) His Parting from Her
vii) The Expostulation
viii) Elegy on his Mistress. ix) The Heavens Rejoice in Motion.
x) To his Mistress Going to Bed – (Elegy XIX)
“Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tir’d with standing though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime,
Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
…
Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,
As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are like Atlanta’s balls, cast in men’s views,
…
To teach thee, I am naked first; why then
What needest thou have more covering than a man.”
Divine Poems of Donne
i. Temple
ii. Crucifying
iii. Re-Surrection
Letters to Several Personages
i. To the Countess of Bedford
ii. To Mr. Izaak Walton
iii. To Ben Jonson
Satires by Donne
Of Religion
Well; I may now Receive, and Die
To Sir Nicolas Smyth