biography
pronunciation:
[duhn]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (?1572–1631)
|
| biography:
| Poet and priest, born in London, UK. Of Welsh extraction, he was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, studied law in London, and in 1598 became secretary to Thomas Egerton (1540–1617), keeper of the Great Seal. His career prospects were excellent, but his secret marriage to the Lord Keeper's niece had him dismissed and cast into prison. Originally a Roman Catholic, he then joined the established Church, eventually taking Orders in the Anglican church. He was made Dean of St Paul's, where his sermons were extremely popular. Donne is regarded as the foremost of the metaphysical poets, capable of describing human relationships and a person's relationship with God in religious or philosophical language that is charged with a dramatic intensity of emotion. His creative years fall into three periods. The first (1590–1601) was a time of passion and cynicism, as seen in his Elegies and Songs and Sonnets. The second, from his marriage to his ordination, was a period of anguished meditation and flattery of the great, as seen in his Anniversaries and funeral poems. His third period includes sonnets and hymns, and shows that in transferring his allegiance from the world to God he retained his earlier passion. |
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