John Donne
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Life
• John Donne (1572 ～
1631), the founder of the
metaphysical school of
poetry and the greatest
representative of the
metaphysical poets, was
born of a family with a
strong Roman Catholic
tradition. He was
educated at the Trinity
College, Cambridge.
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Life
As a young man hungry for
adventures, he went with Essex on
the expedition to Cadiz in 1596 and
later became secretary to Lord
Keeper Egerton. In 1601 he eloped
with the niece of Lord Keeper and
was imprisoned by the girl's father.
For several years after his release,
he lived in poverty. But during this
time he wrote some of his most
beautiful poems, many of which were
believed to have been written to his
wife. These were known as his
youthful love lyrics.
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Life
In 1615 he gave up
Catholic faith and
entered the Anglican
Church and soon
became Dean of Saint
Paul's Church. As the
most famous preacher
during the time, he
wrote many religious
sermons and poems.
And these were
known as his sacred
verses.
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John Donne’s House
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Metaphysical Poetry
John Donne's poems and other poems like his are known
as the Metaphysical poems. Metaphysical poetry is a term
applied to poetry that is highly intellectual and philosophical,
that makes extensive use of ingenious conceit, and that
usually combines intense emotion with mental ingenuity.
The term “ metaphysical ” was invented by John Dryden,
the outstanding writer during the Restoration, who thought
that John Donne “ affects the metaphysics ” in both his love
lyrics and cynical poems. Later, the term was adopted by
Samuel Johnson(1709 ～ 1784), who thought that Donne's
lyrics were not describing the natural feeling but were only
a game of showing off his knowledge and that in Donne's
poems, the most heterogeneous ideas were yoked by
violence.
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John Dryden
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Samuel Johnson
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The main features of metaphysical poetry
can be summarized as the following:
• Wit or conceit is commonly used, but the wit or conceit is
so odd that the reader usually loses sight of the thing to
be illustrated.
• The theme is peculiar. The theme is not decorated by
conventional comparisons. Instead, it is illumined or
emphasized by fantastic metaphors and extravagant
hyperboles.
• Sensuality is blended with philosophy, passion with
intellect, and contraries are ever moving one into the
other.
• Complex rhythms are used.
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Representative Works
As we have seen, John Donne's poems can be divided
into two categories: the early youthful love lyrics and the
later sacred verses. His love lyrics may be classified into
two groups. The poems of one group takes a negative
attitude towards love, saying that women are always
inconstant towards love and that there is no faithful love
on earth, as shown in Go and Catch a Falling Star. The
poems of the other group takes a positive attitude
towards love, in which Donne expresses his genuine
sentiments of love, and even sanctifies love as
something holy, as shown in The Canonization and A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.
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