Biographic Sketch of John Donne (1572-1631)
A. Studying Law in Lincoln’s Inn
B. Marriage
A. Works
B. Years Abroad
A. Features of Works
B. Last Years
Born in 1572, John Donne’s father died when he was merely 4 years old. His mother Elizabeth Heywood Donne, was the daughter of John Heywood, an interludes author and a epigrammatist, and the great niece of Sir Thomas More. After Donne’s father died, with three children, she married six months later to John Syminges, an Oxford physician who practiced his profession in London. Receiving good education, Donne was tutored at home till 12, and then in 1584, Donne entered Hart Hall, Oxford, where he spent 3 years, learning French and Latin. Donne probably attended Oxford for three years and further to Cambridge, but he may also have joined his uncle Jasper Heywood, who was charged of an underground Jesuit mission in England and exiled, to Paris and Antwerp.
A. Studying Law in Lincoln’s Inn
After spending one year at Thavies Inn, Donne received further education as a nominated law student in Lincoln’s Inn in1592. He stayed there and studied law for two or more years. Then perhaps Donne went on an adventurous trip. Soon on his return from the expedition to Cadiz and the Azores from 1596 to 1597, Donne served as the secretary of Sir Thomas Egerton, and hence developed high interest in foreign affairs and state events. Meanwhile, he dissociated himself from Roman Catholicism.
B. Marriage
In 1601, Sir Thomas Egerton’s brother-in-law, Sir George More brought his seventeen-year-old daughter Ann More with him to London. It was then Donne fell in love with Ann More and married her in December the same year. The wedding was arranged and witnessed by several of Donne’s friends, and as Donne revealed the news to the bride’s father, Sir George More outrageously had Donne and his friends imprisoned and demanded Sir Thomas Egerton to dismiss his secretary. The marriage turned out upheld and Donne reconciled with his father-in-law. Despite his happy marriage and increasing family, for the following twelve years, he remained jobless on and off and depended much upon loans and helps from relatives and patrons.
A. Works
It was this frustrating decade without regular work that brought out Donne’s productive and consecutive works. Most of his verse letters, sonnets, poems and epithalamiums such as Biathanatos, Pseudo-Martyr, and Ignatius his Conclare, were written against Roman Catholicism. Donne’s famous secular poems, sonnets, and the famous Anniversaries for Elizabeth Drury brought him Sir Robert Drury’s attention.
B. Years Abroad
In 1611, Donne was invited and joined Sir Robert Drury to the continental trip. It was then Donne composed several of his most prominent poems, including the famous “A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” for his wife to express his sorrow in leaving her and his children.
Though Thomas Morton had long tried to persuade Donne to accept holy orders since 1606, Donne hesitated. It was not until 1615 that he was ordained as a priest and accepted King James appointment for a ministry. The same year, Donne received an honorary doctoral degree of divinity dedicated to him from Cambridge. But two years later, John Donne was severely buffeted by the death of his wife. Ann More Donne deceased because of childbirth. Within their 16-year marriage, she gave him twelve children, only that five of them died. Ann’s death left Donne desolate and thence devoted himself to his work. In 1619, Donne served as an embassy chaplain in Germany, and later he was appointed as the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1621.
A. Features of Works
Donne’s works were famous for the themes of his faith in God and women. Donne’s witty ability of depicting his belief of God, and fragile life of human being and especially of women, though not writing with conventional glamorous style of verse like the Petrachan style, Donne successfully and beautifully connect the time and space in his poems with extraordinary images. Donne’s usage of diction and language in composing his works is considered revolutionary of his time. And it is quite recently in the modern study of poems that his style is regarded as “metaphysical”.
B. Last Years
Donne reversed to work on prose more than ever in his later years. Most of his distinguished prose, sermons and devotions were announced in his last years. In 1623, with his writing of Devotions, Donne proved that his imagination was not at all blunt because of his serious illness. Donne’s last public sermon was Death’s Duel in 1631. He passed away one month after his sermon at court, but left the contemporary with profound depictions of spiritual issues of divinity with natural devices of language.