James Baquet

    Few figures in the history of literature are as hard to define as John Donne (1572-1631). Famed as a poet and clergyman, he was far outside of the stereotypes associated with such figures.

    Donne was born into a Roman Catholic family at a time when Catholicism was illegal in England. His family did not attend church. His maternal grandfather was the writer John Heywood, and his mother’s great-uncle was the Catholic martyr Thomas More, beheaded by Henry VIII for refusing to approve his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and the subsequent founding of the Church of England.

    All this should have made an impression on the young boy, whose father died when Donne was just 4 years old. Yet, as a student and in the years after he left college (he never graduated, as he refused to take a loyalty oath to the protestant Queen Elizabeth as head of the English church) he squandered the money he had inherited from his father on women, books, travel, and entertainment — “wine, women, and song,” as they say. Hardly a good start for a priest!

    Donne managed to get a minor government post, but then made a fatal mistake. He fell in love with his boss’s niece, and married her in secret. This not only got him fired, but he was thrown in prison, along with the minister who married them and a witness to the marriage! They were all released fairly soon, but it spoiled his career. He ended up living in the countryside, making a precarious living as a lawyer. Having 12 children in 16 years also added to his financial burden.

    After Queen Elizabeth I died and King James I took the throne, Donne’s political fortunes improved. (He had by then renounced Catholicism.) He became a member of Parliament, but James would not allow him to serve at court. Instead, the king insisted he become an Anglican priest — which at last he did.

    In 1621 he became dean of St. Paul’s (later redesigned, you may remember, by Christopher Wren), and in this post he wrote some of his more stately and spiritual works. But as a younger, wilder man, he had written some pretty racy stuff!

    Vocabulary:

    Which word above means:

    1. formal promise to be faithful to someone or something

    2. wrong action with very bad consequences

    3. sexy

    4. mother’s father

    5. unstable, insecure

    6. following, coming after

    7. fixed idea about a type of person, usually not true

    8. of the Church of England

    9. wasted, spent foolishly

    10. gave up, turned against