John Donne
English poet and cleric (1572-1631) · Writers · Died at 59
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Something wrong?The poet who cracked open English verse with abrupt starts, knotted syntax, and metaphors that vaulted from the bedroom to the cosmos - then spent his last decade as Dean of St Paul's, preaching sermons as tightly wound as his poems.
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, Though Truth and Falsehood be Near twins, yet Truth a little elder is.
And swear No where Lives a woman true and fair.
I have done one braver thing Than all the Worthies did; And yet a braver thence doth spring, Which is to keep that hid.
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Born into a recusant Catholic family in 1571 or 1572, Donne came up as a scholar and soldier before his early poetry mapped English society with erotic charge and metaphysical conceits that bent European baroque into angular English. A secret marriage to Anne More - with whom he had twelve children - left him poor for years, dependent on wealthy friends despite his gifts. He sat in Parliament in 1601 and 1614, but in 1615 the king pushed him into Anglican orders against his will. Under royal patronage he rose to Dean of St Paul's in 1621, where he preached until his death in 1631, the paradoxes and tough eloquence that marked his verse carrying over into sermons that wrestled with the idea of true religion.
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