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John Donne Biography
1572- Born in Bread Street, London, the financial district, to Roman Catholic parents
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Being from a Catholic family, he was, at the time, part of a
problematic persecuted minority
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October 1584- he matriculated at Oxford at the age of 12 for 3 years, along with his brother,
Henry, to avoid taking the oath of allegiance
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He continued his education here, but took
no degree because as a Roman Catholic, he could not swear the required oath of allegiance to
the Queen
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May 6th 1592- Admitted to Lincoln’s Inn
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His biographer, John Stubbs, describes this as a time of ‘lonely
promiscuity’
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1593- Brother Henry sent to the tower and arrested as a religious subversive
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c
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He travelled in Spain and Italy, returning to London to study
law
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1590-1601- Songs and Sonnets composed
c
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His next ten years were spent living in poverty
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February 1601/02- Imprisoned in the Fleet by Sir George More
April 1602- marriage ratified (confirms the union of the couple)
1602-1604- residence with Sir Francis Wooley at Pyrford
1605-1609- residence at Mitcham
c
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M
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, Oxford
1610- Pseudo-Martyr published
After 1610- composition of Divine Poems
1611- Ignatius his Conclave published
1611- Anatomy of the World published
1612- Residence at Drury House
1612- The Second Anniversary published
November 1611- September 1612- continental travel with Sir Robert Drury
c
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Donne had come to
believe he had a religious vocation and agreed to take holy orders
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April 30th 1615-first surviving sermon (to the Queen at Greenwich)
1614/5- presented to the livings of Keyston and Sevenoaks
October 1617-1622- Reader in Divinity to the Bencher’s of Lincoln’s Inn
July 27th 1617- preached to the Earl of Dorset at Knole
March 24th 1617- first sermon preached at St Paul’s Cross
August 1617- death of his wife (still birth- died in childbirth)
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May 1619- December 1620- with Doncaster’s Embassy to Germany
November 19th 1621- Dean of St Paul’s
Winter 1623- Composition of Devotions
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March 1624- Appointed to St Dunstan’s in the West
Autumn 1625- Plague in London- retires to Magdalen Danven’s home at Chelsea
February 12th 1631- he was fatally ill with stomach cancer
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This is sometimes referred
to as his own funeral sermon
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1640- LXXX Sermons with Walton’s Life published
1649- Fifty Sermons published
1660- XXVI Sermons published

Life and Social Context
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Leading English poet of the metaphysical school and dean of St Paul’s Cathedral
(London)
Considered the greatest love poet in English languages
Power and eloquence of his sermons secured his reputation as the foremost preacher
in England, a favourite of both James I and Charles I
Metaphysical poet- beyond the physical world, label for group of poets (usually used
imagery of the soul)
‘Donne the Rake’- reputation as a libertine
Hung up a portrait of himself before his death to remind himself that there was life
after death- it was his memento mori (a reminder of death)
Dissolution of monasteries- Henry VIII burned down and destroyed monasteries to
take land and possessions because of the Church’s wealth
Donne’s uncle, Jasper Heywood, was a Jesuit priest who was banished to Naples to
die but was reprieved and humiliated by Henry VIII
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They were
considered intellectual people and scholars but had no female groups
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Donne worked with the torture of Catholic priests
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Hung, but cut down before spine could
break, genitals thrown into the brazier
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Metaphysical Poetry
It has been described by Stephen Greenblatt as 'the tired clichés of love poetry
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demanding from the reader an unprecedented
level of mental alertness and engagement'

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