Give a brief Life-Sketch of JOHN DONNE.

Ans.

JOHN DONNE (1572-1631)

His Birth and Parentage: John Donne was born in 1572. He was the son of a London merchant. His mother was John Heywood’s daughter. She belonged to the family of Lords-the Heywoods and the Mores. John Donne lost his father at the early age of five. Due to being Roman Catholics, his parents were hated and condemned by most British people in those days.

His Education, Changing Religion and Loosing Morals: Having received his early education, he joined Oxford at the age of eleven but later on shifted to Cambridge. At the age of twenty, he entered Lincoln’s inn but his main interest was in verse instead of law books. He gave up Roman Catholicism and called himself simply Christian because he was disliked for being a Roman Catholic by his mates and teachers. He became immoral and came into the contact of society girls of ill-fame and started going to brothels. He passed his evenings in love-making and listening to songs. He indulged himself in sexual intercourses.

He married Anne More secretly.

His Living a Life of Poverty: For the next seven years or so Donne lived in poverty struggling with frustration, ill-health and family cares. He must at the moments have wondered whether his apparently catastrophic marriage had not been a mistake. Donne and his wife lived like poor people. First they lived with Sir Francis Wooley at Pyrford, Surrey. Sir Wooley was Anne More’s cousin and he helped Donne with a job during 1602-1606.

The Days of His Prosperity: His poverty-stricken days came to an end with his ordination in the Anglican Church in 1615. He became reader in divinity at Lincoln’s Inn, a royal chaplain, and in 1621 dean of St. Paul’s, a position which he held until his death in 1631, and in which he was an immense success.

His Life in Worldly Terms: The last years of Donne’s life were, in worldly terms, by far his best. He was a man universally respected and loved, and his sermons were major London occasions, bringing the crowds as only cricket or pop concerts can today. In his last years he was considered to be the most eloquent and famous preacher of his day and his best known sermon, Death’s Duel, was delivered only seven weeks before his own death.

His Death: Jim Hunter observes, “Early in March 1931 Donne agreed that a monument should be made ready for him in the Cathedral; and he posed for a painter (at his own suggestion), wearing his winding sheet and lying upon a board.” The picture which resulted he kept by his bedside till his death. Next he called in his friends and bade them farewell, one by one between 13th-20th March. On March 20th he told his servants to have their accounts with him cleared by March 26th. He set, in other words, a time, after which he was to prepare himself finally for death. In the beginning of 1631, he fell seriously ill. He died on March 31, 1631.