Literature · Religion · Politics · 1572–1631
Born: 22 January 1572 · Died: 31 March 1631 · Age at death: 59
John Donne died aged 59. He was born on 22 January 1572 and died on 31 March 1631.
Metaphysical poet and cleric who served as Dean of St Paul's
Did you know?He wrote a series of poems while seriously ill and famously sat for a portrait dressed in his own burial shroud.
John Donne wrote some of the boldest love poems in English. He later wrote some of its most searching religious verse. His metaphors are startling, comparing lovers to compasses and the soul to a besieged town. A secret marriage wrecked his early career. Years later he became one of the great preachers of his age. His work fell out of fashion for centuries. T. S. Eliot and other modernists revived it in the twentieth century.
John Donne ( DUN; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631).
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“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
Profile
English poet and priest, born 1572
John Donne was born in London on 22 January 1572.
He was the leading Metaphysical poet.
He became Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in 1621.
He wrote the line 'No man is an island'.
Career highlights
Did you know?He was briefly jailed for marrying his employer's niece in secret.
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