Biography of #John Donne

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#Biography of #John Donne
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John Donne was born in #London in #1572
into the family of the successful and
wealthy ironmonger John Donne. His
mother, Elizabeth #Heywood, was
descended from the family of Sir Thomas
More. His mother was an accomplished
literary woman, the author of #epigrams
and interludes, although she did not live
long enough to teach John much about
poetry or writing. Both sides of Donne's
family were respected Catholics in an
England in which the dominant religion
had become Anglicanism.
When Donne was very young (ages four
and five) his parents died in rapid
succession. He was put in the care of Dr.
John Syminges, whom his mother had
married after the death of John Donne
senior. The young Donne was, like most
children of his class at this time,
educated at home until he went to #Hart
Hall (now Hertford College), Oxford, in
1583. After three years there he went on
to Cambridge for another three. Since he
was a Catholic, neither university would
grant him a degree. He left university and
studied law at Lincoln's Inn in 1592.
As a young man Donne was, by any
standard and certainly by those of a future
clergyman, wild and even dissipated. ........
His
early poems, "many of them outspokenly
sensual and at times cruelly
cynical" (Chambers 413), do not reconcile
easily with much of the divine literature of
his later life. There is some evidence that
he had at least one affair with a married
woman, and also that he frittered away a
large portion of his inheritance in
unworthy pursuits.
Donne traveled in Europe for a time, and
he was part of the English military force,
headed by the Earl of Essex, which fought
the Spanish at Cadiz. He spent a few
years in Spain and then in Italy, returning
to England at the age of twenty-five. In
England he was appointed secretary to Sir
Thomas Egerton, who was the Lord-Keeper
of the #Great Seal (a high government
office). This brought Donne into contact
with many influential and important people
in governmental, court, literary, and
#church circles. A great amount of Donne's
poetry was written during this time, but he
did not attempt to publish any of it. It was
passed from hand to hand.
While in #Egerton's service, Donne met and
fell in love with the Lord-Keeper's niece,
Anne More. In 1601, when Donne was
twenty-nine and Anne was seventeen, the
two secretly married, presumably because
if they had married openly they would
have met opposition from her family. This
action lost Donne his position with the
Lord-Keeper, and he was thrown into Fleet
Prison for several weeks. What followed
were several years of poverty for the
couple, with Donne trying, unsuccessfully,
to attach himself to another high official
in the government. Doubtless his Catholic
faith and his willingness to deceive
authority figures did not help his career at
this time.
.......
Donne was #elected to #Parliament for
Brackley in 1602, but since Members were
not paid it did not help the Donne family's
finances. Donne continued to write,
including some poetry which might be
considered "on commission" for his rich
friends.
By 1610 Donne had begun to write
polemics against his own faith,
Catholicism. It is not clear exactly what
turned Donne away from this faith which
his family had so famously adhered to in
the face of adversity in years past.
Perhaps Donne did have a true spiritual
change of heart, or perhaps the difficulties
of his #faith and the needs of his growing
family made him accept (or at least
pretend to accept) the dominant faith of
his time.
After their marriage the Donnes had a
baby almost every year, and for a long
time they were dependent on Anne
Donne's cousin, Sir Francis Wolly.
Financial security and success would not
come until Donne had joined the Anglican
Church. Notably during this time, Donne
wrote Biathanos (a defense of suicide),
the Holy Sonnets, and other divine poems.
......
In #1611 Donne printed his first poem, an
elegy for Sir Robert Drury's daughter. This
was followed by other published poems,
and the Drurys took Donne into their home
as well as abroad with them to Paris.
Donne's anti-Catholic writing had attracted
the notice of King James I, who
encouraged him to enter the clergy of the
Anglican church. Finally, in 1615, Donne
did so. He was almost instantly successful
as a clergyman, being offered several
posts during the first year of his divinity
(Chambers 414). In this year Donne
became a Royal Chaplain, and within three
years he obtained his Doctorate of Divinity
from Cambridge.
Anne Donne died after giving birth to their
twelfth child (stillborn) in 1617. His
surviving children numbered ten, although
three died before they were ten years old.
Donne never remarried, though it would
have been in his best interest to do so for
his large family. It is apparent both from
his poetry and from historical writing
about him that he mourned her deeply.
After #Anne's death, Donne devoted himself
wholeheartedly to religion and theology,
and he became a successful clergyman
and a highly sought #sermonist. In #1621
Donne became the Dean of St. Paul's (St.
Paul's Cathedral in London), which was a
very well paid and extremely influential
post within the Church of England. He held
this post until his death in 1631. During
the last ten years of his life his literary
output was mostly sermons.
As was the fashion and custom of the day,
Donne's poems were mostly circulated in
manuscript form.
A collection of them
was not made until after his death in
#1633. His earliest poetry, which is often
graphically sensual in nature, might have
embarrased the staid and respected Dean
of St. Paul's in his later life. The fashion
of poetry was slowly changing from the
Elizabethan freedom of expression to a
more restrained style. Donne's existing
ouevre spans his early sensuality and
intellectual experimentation up to his
most dogmatic and theological works of
his later years. His style, though
recognizable throughout, changed with his
changes in status and the events around
him.
Spanning the Elizabethan and
Renaissance worlds, Donne can be viewed
as a transitional poet: both sensual and
divine, constrained and free. He has been
studied consistently since his #death,
weathering fashions in poetry and
criticism, and his poetry and prose have
provided food for thought across many
successive generations.