● Identify the contextual influences of the composer to understand the values, beliefs

and attitudes that underpin their purpose and meaning

John Donne
Historical and Social Context
● Characterised by substantial changes in the political, religious and economic realm

Age of Discovery
● Brought about unprecedented scientific and geographic discoveries as well as economic
prosperity and expansion, particularly through newly established trade routes and
connections
○ Increased literacy rates and increased education → increase in intellectual
growth
○ Renaissance gave rise to renewed focus on classical study, such as
history, law and language, bringing around worldly pleasure. Scepticism
and secularisation that threatened to destabilise the Church’s moral hold
● Emergence of Jacobean Era, which gave rise to anthropocentric Renaissance
Humanism → ideas of individualism, self-determination and reason were encouraged
● Simultaneously, there existed religious tensions between Catholics and Protestants,
which was exacerbated by the Reformation of of the Catholic Church → emergence of
theological uncertainty
● Donne’s poetry accentuates the individual’s personal and spiritual connection with God,
rather than through the Catholic Church

● Donne fuses many of the rational ideals of Renaissance Humanism with the strongly
entrenched religious doctrines of his time → ie. the use of rational arguments/allusions,
but ending his sonnets with themes related to salvation and redemption through God
○ Subversion of sonnet structure → adherence to Christian Humanism, whereby
the individual’s pursuit for dignity, freedom and happiness are values, as they are
imputed within the teachings of religion