The
Journey of
John
Donne
(15721631)
1572 – The Journey Begins
Good News: Donne’s
family was highly
connected and influential.
Bad News: Born into a deeply
Catholic family in Elizabethan
England when anti-Catholic
sentiment was high.
Result:
Search for spiritual
significance and
identity begins
1584-1591 – Education
Good News: At age 12,
enters Oxford University
and later goes on to
Cambridge.
Bad News: Unable to earn a
degree because of Catholic family
background.
Result:
Gains a highly
privileged academic
background and a
lifelong love for
learning.
1591-1597 – Sows “Wild Oats”
Good News: Mixes religion
and academics by
studying on his own.
Bad News: Watches his brother
pay with his life in 1593 when he
dies in prison for sheltering a
priest.
Result:
Undaunted by
restrictions,
pursues the wild and
unexplored through
his writings as well
as his life.
1598 – Gains a Reputation
Good News: Rises in social
influence.
Bad News: Your beliefs are as
important as your
accomplishments.
Result:
Donne gathers a
following that will
prove invaluable to
him in the future.
1601-1609 – Marriage/Scandal
Good News: In Anne More,
John finds and marries
the love of his life.
Bad News: Secrets one keeps, no
matter how sincere, muddy
deeper truths about your life.
Result:
As Carl Jung
reminds us, “There
is no coming to
consciousness
except through
pain.”
Donne’s Holy Sonnets
(Definitions)
• Sonnet was the fashionable poetic form of the
17th century.
• Donne used an Italian style: an octave with one
rhyme scheme, followed by a sestet in a
differing rhyme scheme.
• “The image of the soul in meditation which the
Holy Sonnets present is an image of a soul
working out its salvation in fear and trembling.”
– Helen Gardner, ed. John Donne: The Divine Poems, 1952.
Donne’s Holy Sonnets
(Subjects)
•
•
•
•
•
•
Questions about faith.
God’s mercy and judgment.
Human mortality and the immortality of the soul.
Sin
Damnation.
Absolution and salvation.
Donne’s Holy Sonnets
(Significance)
• In these works, young Donne despairs about his
own salvation and fears death.
• In his later writings, he reflected an assurance
of his salvation and an understanding that life is
a preparation for life-everlasting and death
should not be feared.
• None of these private works were published
while Donne was alive.
1610-1614 – A New Beginning
Good News: Recognition
by the academic
community at long last.
Bad News: No financial
reward for his degree due
to inability to firmly commit
to Church of England.
Result:
Once again, feeling
aimless, Donne
heads out for more
explorations with
new employer.
1615 – The Turning Point (1)
Good News: Donne comes
to accept his life’s
vocation, becomes
Anglican priest.
Bad News: Loses four
children and begins to
reevaluate his life.
Result:
Donne’s education,
political influence,
and faith have a
fortuitous and
meaningful
convergence.
1617 – The Turning Point (2)
Good News: Finally
recognized for who he is
and what he believes.
Bad News: Loses one of his
greatest inspirations and
loves with death of Anne.
Result:
The merging of his
intelligence, passion,
and poetic stylings
leads to great
respect by likeminded people.
Holy Sonnet xvii
(an excerpt)
“Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt
To Nature . . .
Wholly on heavenly things my mind is set . . .
To seek thee, God.”
At Anne’s death, Donne wrote this final Holy Sonnet, ending a long string of love
poems. After this point, his writing turned to Godly matters. As one friend put
it: his writing became “crucified to the world.”
Metaphysical Poetry
(Background)
• Donne is considered the dominant figure of 17th
Century English writers who came to be known as
the “metaphysical poets.”
• He, along with George Herbert and Andrew
Marvell were linked, not through their common
philosophies, but through their style – through
their use of wit.
Metaphysical Poetry
(What is wit?)
• Wit is “intelligent reason, powerful mental capacity,
cleverness, ingenuity, intellectual quickness, inventive
and constructive ability, a talent for uttering brilliant
things, the point of amusing surprise.” – Louis Martz, ed. English
Seventeenth-Century Verse, vol. I (1970),
• For Donne, this meant using surprising devices to startle
readers and get them to see things in a new way.
• He did this through his use of the “metaphysical
conceit.”
Metaphysical Poetry
(The Conceit)
• A metaphysical conceit is an extended metaphor
or analogy that joins two dissimilar images to
make a point.
• “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
• “The Flea”
• “Batter my heart, o three-person God”
1621-1631 – The Godly Conclusion
Good News: There is
reconciliation and there is
redemption.
Bad News: The world loses
one of its greatest
theologians and poets.
Result:
In 1633, Donne’s
eldest son collects
the poems Donne
has passed around
for 30 years into
one volume for the
world.
Signature Poem
(“Death Be Not Proud”)
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore Death, nor canst thou kill mee;
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charms can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
Signature Poem
(“Death Be Not Proud”)
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore Death, nor canst thou kill mee;
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charms can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
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Death, be not proud
Death, be not proud
Death, be not proud
Daniel Char
English 12
Mr. Munson
Yo, Death, why don’t you
settle down
Some say you are horrible and
evil, but you aren’t
You may “think” you have defeated
many people, but
you lose, sucka, you couldn’t
even kill me.
You may look just like
sleep
Chiming
JunYeol
Chikung
But sleeping is much
sweeter than you, Death
Granted, one day we will
follow you
Into an eternal rest and a
freedom you do not possess
But far from a Master, you are
just a slave of fate, chance,
power, and desperation
And keep company with poison,
violence, and disease
It seems that drugs and
hypnosis can do the same
things you do
And they do it better, so why
should we be scared of you?
You offer only a short nap
before we awaken forever
And when we awaken, you,
Death, will no longer
exist
The
Journey of
John
Donne
(15721631)
Wit
by Margaret Edson
Questions for your essays:
•Defend Wit as a play that explores the thematic
pattern of creation/fall/redemption.
•Analyze why Wit is the perfect title for this
play.
•What does Vivian’s dying teach her about life?
•Detail how Wit illustrates the meaning of John
Donne’s sonnet “Death Be Not Proud.”
•Explore the parallels between Vivian Bearing and
E.M. Ashford with Jason Posner and Harvey
Kelekian.
“This is my Playes Last Scene”
by John Donne
This is my playes last scene; here heavens appoint
My pilgrimages last mile; and my race
Idly, yet quickly rune, hath this last pace,
My spans last inch, my minutes last point
And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoynt
My body, and soule, and I shall sleepe a space,
But my’ever-waking part shall see that face,
Whose feare already shakes my every joynt:
Then, as my soule, to’heaven her first seate, takes flight,
And earth-borne body, in the earth shall dwell,
So, fall my sinnes, that all may have their right,
To where they’are bred, and would presse me, to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purg’d of evill,
For thus I leave the world, the flesh and devill.