John Donne Selected Poems

One of England’s preeminent poets, John Donne’s poems are among the most passionate, profound, and spiritual in the English language. This rich representation reflects the wide diversity of his poetry. From such witty items as “The Flea,” which transforms the image of a louse into something marvelous, to the intimate and intense Holy Sonnets, Donne breathed new vigor into poetry by drawing lucid and often startling metaphors from the world in which he lived.

John Donne was born into a Catholic family in 1572. After a conventional education at Hart Hall, Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn, he took part in the Earl of Essex's expedition to the Azores in 1597. He secretly married Anne More in December 1601, and was imprisoned by her father, Sir George, in the Fleet two months later. He was ordained priest in January 1615, and proceeded to a Doctorate of Divinity at Cambridge in April of that year. In 1621 he was made Dean of St. Paul's in London, a post which he held until his death in 1631. He is famous for the sermons he preached in his later years as well as for his poems.