John Donne (1572–1631) was an English poet, prose writer, and clergyman. His metaphysical poetry is among the most significant works in English literature.
Donne was not a professional poet at any point in his career. He published little of his work, sharing it instead among his friends and with people who cared about his advancement.
Donne is noted for his Satires (c.1590–99,) Elegies (c.1590–99,) and for his love poems, which appeared in the collection Songs and Sonnets. These are considered some of the finest collections of love lyrics in English literature.
Donne’s later works, such as An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul (1612) became more philosophical. His Holy Sonnets (1633) represents some of the greatest spiritual poems ever written. He wrote both the famous “Hymn to God the Father” and his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624) during a severe illness in 1623.
Donne’s rejection of Catholicism and conversion to Anglicanism is evident in the prose-work Pseudo-Martyr (1610.) He was ordained in 1615 and became Dean (1621) of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, where he became famous for his sermons.
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For good and evil in our actions meet; wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
—John Donne
Topics: Evil
Never start with tomorrow to reach eternity. Eternity is not being reached by small steps.
—John Donne
As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to their souls to go, whilst some of their sad friends do say, the breath goes now, and some say no.
—John Donne
Topics: Death, Dying
Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.
—John Donne
Topics: Despair, Doubt
As states subsist in part by keeping their weaknesses from being known, so is it the quiet of families to have their chancery and their parliament within doors, and to compose and determine all emergent differences there.
—John Donne
Topics: Family
Man is not only a contributory creature, but a total creature; he does not only make one, but he is all; he is not a piece of the world, but the world itself; and next to the glory of God, the reason why there is a world.
—John Donne
Topics: Humanity
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
—John Donne
Topics: Love, Beauty
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