POETRY NEWSLETTER JULY 5TH 2021

 

A Portrait of Donne, aged 18

I apologise for the size but it is available on the British Library website about Donne (see link below) in a much larger format. The engraving is based on a miniature almost certainly  painted by Nicholas Hilliard.

JOHN DONNE 

1572–1631

Where to begin? John Donne was not only a great and remarkable poet but one of the great writers of English prose. Enormous amounts have been written about him and I love both his poetry and his prose. In order to be relatively brief, I shall hop from interesting thing to interesting thing rather than writing a straightforward biographical account.

During Donne’s own lifetime his poetry was highly regarded among the small circle of his admirers, who read it as it was circulated in manuscript, and in his later years he gained wide fame as a preacher. Only seven poems were published in his life time, five of which were not with his permission. Because he did not oversee the publication of his poems  it is impossible to know the order in which they were written or how he might have liked them arranged.

It was not until the early twentieth century that his greatness was acknowledged. The history of his reputation is, I think, the most curious of any major writer in English except perhaps Elizabeth Barret Browning who went from being a fierce political campaigner writing passionate romantic poetry to a sweet little invalid on a couch within a century. In Donne's case no other body of great poetry has been so disregarded and dismissed as inept and crude before being rediscovered several centuries later. For some 30 years after his death, his posthumously published poetry became a powerful influence upon English poets. However, during the Restoration his writing became unfashionable and remained so. Samuel Taylor Coleridge admired him, and Robert Browning was an enthusiast, but it was not until the end of the 1800s that Donne’s poetry was embraced by a growing band of avant-garde readers and writers. His prose remained largely ignored until 1919.

In the first two decades of the 20th century Donne’s poetry was decisively rehabilitated. He became a cult figure in the 1920s and 1930s, when Eliot and Yeats among others, discovered in his poetry the peculiar fusion of intellect and passion which they aspired to in their own work. His love poetry was written nearly four hundred years ago; yet it feels as direct and passionate as anything written today.

THE METAPHYSICAL POETS

Donne was part of a group of seventeenth century poets who were known as the Metaphysical poets. Their poems are marked by philosophical exploration, colloquial diction, ingenious conceits, irony and metrically flexible lines. Topics of interest often included love, religion, and morality, often expressed through unusual comparisons, and frequently employing unexpected similes and metaphors in displays of wit. The inclusion of contemporary scientific advancements was also typical.  Donne  is the foremost figure, and other poets include George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughn. This is obviously a whistle stop tour of the subject but the British Library link below will lead you to an article  by Michael Donkor John Donne and metaphysical poetry. which is very useful if you would like more details.

LIFE

Donne certainly lived in interesting and perilous times. He was born in London some time between 24 January and 19 June 1572 into the world of English recusant Catholicism, whose dangers his family well knew. His father, John Donne, was an ironmonger. His mother, Elizabeth (nee Heywood) Donne, a lifelong Catholic, was the great niece of the executed Sir Thomas More. His uncle Jasper Heywood headed an underground Jesuit mission in England from 1581 to 1583 and, when he was caught was imprisoned, and then exiled and very lucky indeed not to be executed. Donne’s younger brother, Henry, died from the plague in 1593 while being held in Newgate Prison for harbouring a priest.

Donne himself converted to Anglicanism as a young man. In October 1584 he entered Hart Hall, Oxford, where he remained for about three years. Though no records of his attendance at Cambridge are extant, he may have gone on to study there too and may have accompanied his uncle Jasper Heywood on a trip to Paris and Antwerp during this time. It is known that he entered Lincoln’s Inn in May 1592, after at least a year of preliminary study at Thavies Inn, and was at least nominally a student of English law for two or more years. After sailing as a gentleman adventurer with the English expeditions to Cadiz and the Azores in 1596 and 1597, he entered the service of Sir Thomas Egerton, the lord keeper of the Great Seal of England. As Egerton’s highly valued secretary he developed a keen interest in statecraft and foreign affairs that he retained throughout his life.

John Donne, Anne Donne, Undone

His place in the Egerton household brought him into contact with Egerton’s domestic circle. Egerton’s brother in law was Sir George More, the parliamentary representative for Surrey.  More came up to London for an autumn sitting of Parliament in 1601, bringing with him his daughter Ann, then 17. Although Ann was young  her marriage, albeit with parental consent, would be legal in England today. Donne was twenty nine. They were clandestinely married in December 1601 in a ceremony arranged with the help of a small group of Donne’s friends and Anne returned to her father's house.   

Some months elapsed before Donne dared to break the news to the girl’s father which he did by letter, provoking a furious response. More had Donne sacked from his job and thrown into the Fleet Prison for conspiracy to marry without consent. Donne and his helpful friends were briefly imprisoned, and More set out to get the marriage annulled, demanding that Egerton dismiss his secretary.

Below is a link to the British Library and two pleading letters written by John Donne about his marriage to Egerton and More. It is possible to enlarge the letters using the site

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/letters-from-john-donne-about-his-secret-marriage-to-ann-more

The marriage was eventually upheld and indeed later More became reconciled to it and to his son-in-law, but Donne lost his job in 1602 and did not find regular employment again until he took holy orders more than twelve years later. Throughout his middle years he and his wife brought up an ever-increasing family with the aid of relatives, friends, and patrons, and on the uncertain income he could bring in by polemical hackwork. Anne gave birth to twelve children in the sixteen years of their marriage, dying giving birth to their twelfth and still born child. 

In 1615 he was ordained deacon and then Anglican priest, although he had not wanted to take Holy Orders. He did so because King James 1 persistently ordered it. His marriage had led to his expulsion from court and he was eager to win James's favour.

 In 1621, he was appointed the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London, a leading and well-paid position in the Church of England, which he held until his death in 1631.

 TOPICS FROM AUGUST 2018 GROUP NEWSLETTER

John Donne

Liz chose the poem A Nocturnal on St Lucy’s Day. Her copy had a misprint so  lines read

 “The sun is spent, and now his flasks

 Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;”

The Misprint

"Contrast" in the Donne poem is definitely a mistake. I have looked the line up in three of my books (the Oxford edition of Donne’s poetry, The Metaphysical Poets and an anthology called Silver Poets of the Seventeenth Century) and each version reads "constant". Damian also kindly sent me a link to Richard Burton reading the poem (see below) and his diction is so clear and precise there can be no confusion. How very odd- I've never thought of poetry books having misprints before, but of course they do. I like the fact we were still able to give the line a perfectly sensible meaning.

Here is the link to Burton’s reading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoXDVZfYaTM

Portraits of Donne

 

This is the one I am most familiar with, and I think he looks almost a Restoration man in it, and I can imagine him swapping obscene verses with Rochester and amusing King Charles. In fact, I assume this is an earlier portrait than the one below which Liz is most familiar with, and in which he looks a very proper and serious Elizabethan gentleman. I am not familiar enough with clerical dress to know if the ruff was part of his Dean of St Pauls vestments.

Was Donne depressed?

I think we all found it hard to comprehend the reality of his life and the great sadness of the poem. I found this quotation from an old paper I wrote on Donne a thousand years or so ago:

"I have often such a sickely inclination. And whether it be, because I had my first breeding and conversation with men of a suppressed and afflicted Religion, accustomed to the despite of death, and hungry of imagin’d Martyrdome; Or that the common Enemie finde that doore worst locked against him in mee, Or that there be a perplexitie and flexiblitie in the doctrine it selfe; Or because my Conscience ever concurrence accompanies these thoughts in me, or that a brave scorn, or faint cowardliness beget it, whensoever any affliction assailes me, mee thinkes I have the keyes of my prison in mine owne hand, and no remedy presents it selfe so soone to my heart, as mine own sword. " 

It is always difficult to impose a twentieth/twenty first century sensibility on poets from another time and pondering on whether Donne was depressed is difficult. Certainly, his life was marked by intense grief and a sad familiarity with death and he was sometimes preoccupied by the latter. Three of his twelve children (Francis, Nicholas, and Mary) died before they were ten. Two children were still births. In a state of despair that almost drove him to suicide, Donne noted that in his grinding poverty, the death of a child would mean one mouth fewer to feed, but equally he could not afford the burial expenses. A devastating sentence.

During this time, Donne wrote but did not publish. However, he was also a man of great wit and playfulness and perhaps most significantly enormous creative power. Depression is, I think, the bitter enemy of creation… but it’s only my opinion and many, many poets are driven by suffering, melancholy and mental ill health. 

Finally, I am struck by the lines “accustomed to the despite of death, and hungry of imagin’d Martyrdome” and how relevant they seem to terrorist “Jihad” philosophy- had never thought of Catholic recusancy in that light before. 

Finally

I am reading Wednesday's poem and it will be deeply unsurprising as it has lingered on the blog for some days. Liz is bringing the poem the following week.

I hope everyone thrives.

Best wishes, Elizabeth