POETRY-1 (ENG403)

LECTURE – 22
 JOHN DONNE (1572-1631)

• Decline of Elizabethan Age

• End of Elizabethan Era
• Political Upheavals
• Religious Disturbance
• Materialistic Social Attitude
 REVIEW OF EARLIER POEMS

• Geoffrey Chaucer- 14th Century

o Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
• Edmund Spenser- Elizabethan poet
o The Faerie Queene
• John Milton- Puritan
o Paradise Lost
 THE METAPHYSICAL SCHOOL
• John Donne- representative metaphysical poet
– Love songs, hymns, elegies, holy sonnets
• George Herbert
• Richard Crashaw
• Henry Vaughan
 CHARACTERISTICS OF
METAPHYSICAL POETRY
• Dazzling wordplay
• Explicitly sexual
• Paradox
• Subtle argumentation
• Surprising contrasts
• Intricate psychological analysis
 CHARACTERISTICS OF
METAPHYSICAL POETRY
• Striking imagery
• Far fetched ideas.
• Full of logic & reasoning.
• Heterogeneous ideas are combined.
• Theme like love is experimented like science
 JOHN DONNE (1)
• Born in London in 1572
• Most outstanding metaphysical poet. He is
poet, theologian and lawyer.
• Roman Catholic family.
• His father/warden/Ironmogers’ company
• Went to Oxford at the age of 11
• Went to Trinity College Cambridge1587-1589.
• Took no degree from both.
 JOHN DONNE (2)
• Went to attend Lincoln’s Inn in 1592.
• He entered Anglican Communion in 1593. Travelled
to foreign countries in 1595-96.
• Appointed secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton
• keeper of the great seal in 1598
• Dismissed from this job in 1601
• Secret marriage to Anne More
• Anne More-Egerton’s niece
 JOHN DONNE (3)
• Imprisoned for a short time
• Worked as a lawyer for the next few years.
• Found refuge with Sir Francis Wooley
• Mrs Donne’s cousine at Pryford
• Lived at Camberwell for a short time.
• Lived at Mitcham from 1605-1607
• Employed with Sir Thomas Morton in 1605
• Reconciled with his father-in-law in 1608
 JOHN DONNE (4)
• Poetic accomplishments
– Divine poems (1607)
– Biathanatos (1608)
– Published posthumously (1644)
– Suicide is not sinful
• Did M.A from Oxford in 1610.
• Resided at the Drury House in 1610.
 JOHN DONNE (5)
• Wrote Elegy:
o An Anatomy of the World (1611)
o Of the Progress of the Soul (1612)
• Death of 15 years old Elizabeth Drury
• Gained Sir Robert Drury’s favour.
• Travelled with him on the continent
• Wrote Epithalamion in 1613
• Marriage of Rochester and the Countess
 JOHN DONNE (6)
• Priest of Anglian Church in 1615
• Appointed royal chaplain
• Famous as a Preacher; delivering sermons
• Brilliant & eloquent
• His wife died in 1617
• Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1621
• Prolocutor of the Lower House of Convocations in
1621
• Held the living of St. Dunstan’s in the West from
1624-1631.
 PROSE WORKS
• Juvenilia, or Certaine Pradoxes and Problemes
• Catalogus Librorum Aulicorum
• Biathanatos
• Pseudo-Martyr
• Conclave Ignati
• Essays in Divinity
• Three Sermons, Four Sermons, Five Sermons, Fifty
Sermons, and Letters to Several Persons of Honour.
• Essays: satirical
•
 DONNE’S POETRY
• Secular & Religious Subjects
• Contrast to the Petrarchan love-doctrine of his time.
• He wrote:
• Songs
• Sonnets
• Divine poems
• Elegies
• Satires
• Verse letters
• Historical epistles etc.
 DONNE’S SERMONS
• 160 Sermons
– Memorable
– Biblical passages
– Theme of divine love
– Decay & resurrection of the body
CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS POETRY
• His poetical works:
o Unsurpassable
o Tedious/weird
o Wire-drawn in their logic
o Typical of cross-grained
o Mathematical imaginary
o Unconventional analogies and comparisons
 IMAGERY
• The images:
• Circles
• Maps
• Engravings
• Elephants
• Flea
• Whales
• New discoveries etc.
 JOHN DONNE (7)
• Immaculate rhythm
• Lacks smoothness & dignity.
• Obsessed with the idea of death.
• Donne preached “Death’s Duel”
• his own funeral sermon,
• Died in London on March 31, 1631.
 LOVE SONGS & HOLY SONNETS
• Love Songs
o Go and Catch a Falling Star
o Love’s Alchemy

• Holy Sonnets
o Sonnet 1
 Thou Hast made me, Shall thy work decay?
o Sonnet 10
 Death Be Not Proud
 ELEMENTS OF HUMANISM
• Hunger for knowledge
• Thirst for unraveling the mystery of Existence
• The search of truth
• Attitude to Love
• Treatment of Love is unconventional
• Differed from Elizabethan love poetry
• Rejects the lofty cult of women
• No deity/goddess
INTELLECTUAL GENIUS OF DONNE
• Challenged the conventions
• True love: merger of souls
• Two bodies, one soul

• Alchemy
• Materialism
 REVIEW OF LECTURE 22
• John Donne
• Metaphysical Poetry
• Biography
• Works
o Poetry
o Prose
o Sermons
• Elements of Humanism
• Donne’s Individuality