Tuesday, 15 November 2011

Sts John and Anne Donne

http://www.freewebs.com/anneandjohndonne/

 
HOLY SONNETS.

XVII.

Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt
To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,
And her soul early into heaven ravishèd,
Wholly on heavenly things my mind is set.
Here the admiring her my mind did whet
To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head;
But though I have found thee, and thou my thirst hast fed,
A holy thirsty dropsy melts me yet.
But why should I beg more love, whenas thou
Dost woo my soul, for hers offering all thine:
And dost not only fear lest I allow
My love to saints and angels, things divine,
But in thy tender jealousy dost doubt
Lest the world, flesh, yea, devil put thee out.



CHURCH FOR SALE

COME AND TAKE YOUR PICK
AND MIX, WHATEVER YOU
LIKE AS DUE TO AN ATTEMPT FOR A
QUICK FIX OF THE ONE HOLY NATION
EVERYTHING IS UP FOR CHEAP
FROM BLESSINGS OVER
THE GIFTS TO THE LAST
CHURCH PEW AND A HEAP OF
BOOKLETS WITH THE FALSE CREED -
AS THERE
WILL ONLY BE LEFT A FEW
OF THOSE, WHO ARE TRUE
TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
AND WHO WANT TO HEAL
WITH LOVE AND FORGIVENESS
AND WITH DEVOTION TO HIS
HOLY EUCHARIST ALL
ILLUSIONARY RIFTS, AND THOSE
ARE ALSO THE LAST TO BE FOUND
USING THE INCENSE OF THE MYSTICAL
HOLY ROSE.

WHEN JESUS COMES BACK
HE WILL KNOW EVERY SINGLE
PRIEST, CHURCH AND PERPETRATOR,
WHO HAS SOLD OUT GOD AND
HIS SACRIFICE AND HE WILL TAKE
TO TASK ALL OF YE, WHO ART
IN THIS RELIGIOUS MONOPOLY
GAME PLAYING MANIPULATOR.

HE WILL WIPE OFF THY SELF-RIGHTEOUS
FACES THY GRIN AND THROW OUT OF HIS
REMAINING TEMPLE THY SELF-SERVING
POMPOUS FALSE CELEBRATION THAT HAS
NOTHING TO DO WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT'S
THROUGH JESUS SACRED HEART'S ELEVATION.

MY BELOVED HUSBAND JOHN [DEAN DONNE]
WILL NOW RISE WITH ME TO FULFILL FINALLY
OUR ETERNAL DESTINY: WE TRIED OUR BEST
IN OUR TIME BUT AS THEE KNOWETH PEOPLE
BACK THEN DID ALSO SELL OUT THEIR
SOULS WITHOUT REASON NOR RHYME,
AND OUR FAITH WAS BY GOD AND MAN
CONTINUOUSLY BEING PUT TO THE TEST.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH - I AM NO LONGER
LOOKING ON WITHOUT SPEAKING OUT
ALOUD: WE HAVE ALREADY DIED, SO THEE
CANST KILL OR 'UNDONNE' US AGAIN -
BUT WITH CHRIST
WE HAVE RISEN AND WE ARE NOW ALL
PROCEEDING, THE FAITHFUL AND THE
HOLY SOULS TO FULFILL TOGETHER
AMONGST THE NATIONS OUR HOLY
ROLES AND WE ARE CONSTANTLY
ON BEHALF OF THE ONE HOLY
NATION INTERCEDING.

OUR LORD AND KING JESUS
ALWAYS WANTED HIS CHURCH
TO BE ONE, AND HE ALSO WANTED
TO SERVE MANKIND AND GOD WITH
MARY MAGDALA, HIS ASSISTING MISSUS.
MY BELOVED JOHN DID ALREADY
TRY TO SAY, THAT THIS WAS TRULY
JESUS' WAY OF LOVE AND FORGIVENESS.

HE ALSO BESTOWED MANY A GIFT TO HEAL
MANY A MAN-MADE RIFT UPON
HIS APOSTLES AND UPON WHOM HE ANOINTED
AMONGST THE WOMEN,
BUT FOR THE BLESSING OVER THE GIFTS
HE CLEARLY APPOINTED AND ANOINTED
THE CHOSEN MEN ALONE, AS THEY
WERE SUPPOSED TO  SERVING GOD AND HIS
HEAVENLY KINGDOM ON EARTH
AS A FAITHFUL DRONE.

SO, ALL YE REMAINING FAITHFUL
OF THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC CHURCH,
THROW OUT NOW THE DEVIL FROM
HIS HIDING PLACE ON THY ALTAR'S LURCH.
THEE DIDST ALREADY WITH THE OLDEN
CELTIC CATHOLIC CHURCH GET IT ALL
RIGHT, ALTHOUGH SOME OF THY
ANCESTORS MIGHT HAVE JOINED
THE ROMAN SIDE AT WHITBY
THAT ALSO IMPOSED SOME
MAN-MADE CANON  LAW THAT
WAS CLEARLY WRONG.

NOW IS THE TIME TO STAND UP
FOR JESUS, AND TO TAKE THY
STAND FOR GOD, THEE ART
CALLED TO DEFEND THE HOLY
EUCHARIST AND THE BLESSED
SACRAMENTS AND ALSO THE
SANCTITY OF THE HOLY FAMILY
TO UNITE THE ONE BODY OF
CHRIST IN ONE HOLY NATION.

THAT IS ALL HE EVER WANTED
AND I PRAY THAT THEE ART
ALL FULFILLING THY HOLY ROLES
BY ACTING UPON THY CONSCIENCE
AND ACCORDINGLY TO THE TRUTH
THAT THEE ART KNOWING IN THY
SOULS.

DO NOT SELL OUT THY
ANGLO-CATHOLIC CHURCH
AND DRIVE ANOTHER NAIL
THROUGH OUR BELOVED
JESUS' WOUNDS BY LEAVING
HIS SACRIFICE DEFENSELESS
FOR SALE.

ALL YE, WHO ART NOW REMAIN
SILENT, WILL HAVE TO ANSWER
ONE DAY TO GOD AND TO THY
LORD AND KING ON THY VERY OWN
JUDGMENT DAY. I AM NOT
JUDGING THEE, I JUST TRY TO
OPEN THY HEARTS AND LEAD
THEE ON THE RIGHT WAY.

MY JOHN WAS NOT A COWARD,
QUITE ON THE CONTRARY - BUT
HE SUFFERED ALL HIS LIFE
FROM HAVING TO PAY THE DEBTS
ON BEHALF OF ME, HIS BELOVED
WIFE. I OWE HIM THIS LAST CHANCE
OF AMENDMENT TO DEFEND GOD'S
EVERY SINGLE COMMANDMENT.

IT SEEMS NOTHING HAS CHANGED MUCH,
AND I PRAY THAT IT IS NOT YET TOO LATE,
TO HAVE ANOTHER TRY ABOUT THE
FUTURE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
TO DEBATE.

AFTER ALL, THIS IS A COUNTRY
THAT IS FULL OF PERFECTLY GOOD
TRADITION AND I CANNOT IMAGINE
THEE DOST WANT TO BE SEEN
AS THE ONE, WHO AGREED TO
THE ABOLITION OF GOD'S LAW,
AS THAT REALLY WOULD BE
THE LAST STRAW FOR HIM
TO BRING ABOUT THEE THE
REALLY DARK TIMES, IN WHICH
THEE WOULDST ALL LEARN
AGAIN TO LEARN AND SEE
HIS TRUE POWER AND MIGHT.

AND THAT HE WILL FULFILL THROUGH
JESUS - IT WILL HAPPEN
FOR THEE IN AN INSTANT
WITHOUT PREPARATION AND
WITHOUT FOR THEE REASON
AND RHYME AND WITHOUT EVEN
THE SLIGHTEST FIGHT HE WILL
CAUSE TO ALL EVILDOERS
THE GREATEST DEVASTATION,
SO THAT ONCE AND FOR ALL
AFTER THAT THERE WILL BE
ONLY IN THE WORLD THE INFINITE LIGHT'S
ILLUMINATION AND THE HEAVENLY
KINGDOM ON EARTH'S
ETERNAL MANIFESTATION.

IT IS IN THY HANDS THAT
ARE GIVING THY VOTE,
WHETHER OR NOT THEE
SHOWETH THY TRUE COLOURS
AND WHETHER THEE DOTH ON
THE DEVIL OR ON GOD THY
HEART AND SOUL DEVOTE.

I PRAY FOR THEE AS
I HOPE THEE DOTH FOR JESUS,
JOHN, OUR CHILDREN AND ME.
WE ALL LIVED AND DIED IN GREAT
DISTRESS AS WE WERE CAUGHT
ALSO IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS
ONGOING BATTLE THAT ONCE
STARTED BECAUSE OF MAN'S
ETERNAL LUST FOR POWER AND
OUT OF GREED, INSTEAD OF
USING THEIR PROWESS FOR KEEPING
ALIFE AND AFLAME THE ONE TRUE
CREED.

ANNE DONNE RESURRECTED
UNDONNE-JOHN DONNE- ANNE - DONNE
4TH JULY 2008








911 or 999 - God decrees there
is no need to run!

By Dean Donne's wife Resurrected

911 or 999, Abba decrees there
is no need to run from marriage
in heaven here on earth.
'Peace be with you, my dearies',
He says to me, Anne Donne,
on His return to the Secret
Garden of the Holy Rose.

He seems so relieved to be
finally back at home. I
thought to myself that He
surely must have had pleasure
and treasure the chance to
actually enjoy to freely roam
amongst mankind.

But I could not be further
away from the holy truth -
He says, 'Get pen and paper.
I need to dictate, what I still
remember and quickly take
to task all of those who are
less obedient, humble and
kind as you, dearest Anne,
or as once was Boaz' Ruth.'

And then He starts to
shoot many fiery darts into
the hearts of all the matters,
that He thinks need sorting
out and lie in tatters - there
we go:

'Shall we dial 911 or 999,
or shall we simply run?
No ego allowed and there is
no need for it in God's creation,
as only self-less service
will lead to highest elation
and to the kind of inspiration
that only the Holy Spirit can
bring out of us to make us grow
almost to perfection.

We do not need to be a priest
to participate in Our Lord and King
Jesus Christ's wonderful Eucharistic feast
of the holy communion.

Just open your hearts to the
deepest dimension of what
His sacrifice truly doth entail and then
not even the most hardened of hearts
can fail to see and feel that He gave His
body and His soul to fulfill in grace
and the utmost love His ultimate
holy role, and that only through love
mankind and His holy church can
heal.

God get interrupted by one of His
little angels, who dearly loves her
God and Jesus, but also wants to
get answers clearly as she heard
that her mother might become the
latter's missus:

'Anne, was Jesus actually a priest?'
this little rose asks. 'Well',
I say, 'He is, after the order of
Melchizedek.' 'Why do you want to
know?' 'Oh, I just want to make sure
that when he returns to our table
here with us, he is not just a dead
ghost like those ones in a show as
then he would make a very strange
host for a community meal and then
who would want even to eat a
Sunday roast?'

That is the keyword for Oma
Mathilde. She is just preparing
for the children a heavenly hearty
toast, with her wooden spoon mixing
the ingredients for the delicious
topping:

'Oh, yes, deary, you are so right.
And I also cannot understand at all,
why there is also always this silly fight
about why men cannot answer their
call to marriage, even when they are
priests.'

And, as you can see now, life here
in the Secret garden in heaven is not
much different from that down under
and even Abba has a hard time to get
heard and dictated His lightning and
thunder as Oma Mathilde continues
her case with Him from face to face:

'I always thought, it is your desire,
and that is what I truly admire,
as you are God and the Creator of heaven
and earth, for your creation to multiply
through love and selfless dedication.

But every heavenly union of souls
needs to be also anchored in earthly
celebration of the marvel of joining
together a husband and wife and
to help God pro-create the even bigger
miracle of a holy and beloved child,
the earthly crown of any fulfilled holy
life.

And as we see from Anne here and
John Donne, it is so inspiring to see
that God's Infinite Light shone upon
them and that they are still a pair that
is a joy to see, as it is perfected
by the might of the Holy Spirit to
Abba's greatest delight. Anyway,
everyone loves a good wedding,
so I suggest we should get ready
the bread and the wine and for
the bridal chamber the bedding.'

She continues, 'Abba is in total
agreement that this nonsense of
preventing priests from living and
leading by example in the tiniest
cell of holy community in faith,
has to stop, as the gift of the purest
form of love bestowed by the holy
spirit is obviously being conned
by self-serving tactics of some
within the church, which smells
to me like Satan's toads in the lurch.

Those rejecting God's plans for
two souls that He joined together in
heaven as two peace-bringing turtle
doves and go against His Divine plan
and wishes, should better watch out
now in order to avoid His long
suppressed wrath.

He always unconditionally loves His
holy family on earth, and He wants to
hear as many pitter-pattering feet
in innocence and purity running around
the kitchen hearth because they
are full of love and gifts and free from
any hurt and tear and fear.

But', suddenly she holds and
momentarily rests her case, not for
long though, as with a renewed glimmer
in her diamond sparkling eyes I can
see the shimmer of recognition and
hope of Abba's loving intervention -

'Abba has been too patient with a hint
of despair at many a wrong human
choice that came about through His
allowance of free will. That has
presented Him with a long unholy
bill of sins.

Now He will ensure His heavenly
kingdom on earth will again honour
marriage and the wider family of God
as mankind's and especially the priests'
highest priority and to use this tiny
cell of creation as His lightning rod.


Abba has just brought back many
memories from His outing to mankind,
where He mixed with all sorts of people
of His special interest and gained
insight from within and behind
closed doors:

Most of what He carefully overheard
was the kind of news that is full of
darkness and removed from the
Infinite Light that is exactly the food
for the Lion of Judah, when He
in hunger of love and peace and
unity on earth comes and roars
with all His power and might.

From Satan's inhuman and dead beasts,
who He found were in the majority,
to the most holy and dedicated priests,
He met almost everyone.

And because it is high noon, He decided
and decreed that from now on, or at least
any time very soon, everyone ordained
after the Order of Melchizedek
should be able to marry and fulfill
their earthly love's obligation to
make a true home in His infinitely
welcoming house:

By serving unto Him and to establish
the new kingdom on earth with hearts
and souls that are committed to love
only and to fulfill without delay
their holy roles as the lids on the pots,
as husbands and wives, in happiness
with their God-given spouse.

Imagine that wondrous dart of the
shoot of Jesse with the arrow arriving
right in the holy church's heart:
How much love and light will this
new decree for mankind bring!

Holy marriages of marriages, families
of families sealed by God's love of
loves. Who doth not melt and smile
at the sight of the whitest of white
turtle doves.

And even His beloved Son finally
is being allowed like Anne and John
Donne to marry His one and only
true bride, who is a real woman,
and whom He no longer wants to
have to hide, at least not before
His friends and immediate family.

The rest belongs to God as it is
the future, and it is the Lord Jesus'
privilege to fit all things in His
own time and space to save the
the world and the faithful of the
human race in one accord with
His missus.

Quite frankly, even Abba has
finally arrived at the conclusion
that her many lifetimes and longer
periods of tests and trials and
tribulations have proven that love
really doth conquer all and that it
is love only that can heal all rifts.

All that the church and mankind
has to do now is to allow these few little
shifts of the rather man-made sacred
stones, and let them settle into
everyone's bones.

The seven seals are still totally
valid, the only difference is that
Abba treats the seven seals of
the holy purified catholic church
as His gifts and grants His Son
and all the priests the choice to
dance with joy and love at their
own wedding feasts.

And so, the category of the frog
on the list to be kissed and
transformed into the man with whose
soul God has already joined us in heaven,
is being expanded from now on
for every virgin and holy bride:

Your beloved heavenly future spouse
could become when he manifests on earth
be a prince, page or priest or any
kind of servant in Abba's holy
with joy and happiness in the many
rooms filled house.'

I so love Abba's stories of the holy truth,
and I am so grateful that I have shared the
honour of being compared to a woman
like Ruth.

I hope that now we shall gather again all
the awakening holy men and women, who
will continue to nurture our simple holy
truth: Faith, hope and love that is nourished
by the Eucharistic heart of the bridegroom
and the love overflowing of the bride
leading by example and living in love and
harmony to fulfill their holy destiny amongst
mankind and in the bosom of each family.

Only when a family serves God and is allowed
to be holy and innocent by intent, will a nation
heal and grow in strength and doth not need to play
silly sinister games in vicious circles at great
length.

We eat and drink in the Name of Jesus,
We sit at the table of the Lord.
We live in the house of Abba, Our God,
let our example be His lightning rod.

Anne Donne Resurrected
20th December 2007




John Donne (play /ˈdʌn/ dun; 1572 (between 24 January and 19 June)[1] – 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially as compared to that of his contemporaries. John Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings, various paradoxes, ironies, dislocations. These features in combination with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax, and his tough eloquence were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of British society and he met that knowledge with sharp criticism. Another important theme in Donne’s poetry was the idea of true religion, which was something that he spent a lot of time considering and theorising about. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic poems and love poems. Donne is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits.[3]
Despite his great education and poetic talents, he lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited during and after his education on womanising, literature, pastimes and travel. In 1601 Donne secretly married Anne Moore with whom he had 12 children.[4] In 1615 he became an Anglican priest although he did not want to take Anglican orders. He did so because King James I persistently ordered it. In 1621, he was appointed the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. He also served as a member of parliament in 1601 and again in 1614.

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[edit] Early life

A portrait of Donne as a young man, c. 1595. Artist unknown. In the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.[5]
John Donne was born in London, into a Roman Catholic family when practice of that religion was illegal in England.[6] Donne was the third of six children. His father, John Donne, was of Welsh descent, and a warden of the Ironmongers Company in the City of London. Donne's father was a respected Catholic who avoided unwelcome government attention out of fear of persecution.[7][8]
Donne's father died in 1576, leaving his wife, Elizabeth Heywood, the responsibility of raising their children.[8] Elizabeth Heywood was also from a recusant Catholic family, the daughter of John Heywood, the playwright, and sister of Rev. Jasper Heywood, a Jesuit priest and translator. She was a great-niece of the Catholic martyr Thomas More.[9] This tradition of martyrdom would continue among Donne’s closer relatives, many of whom were executed or exiled for religious reasons.[10] Donne was educated privately; however there is no evidence to support the popular claim that he was taught by Jesuits.[11] Donne's mother married Dr. John Syminges, a wealthy widower with three children, a few months after Donne's father died. In 1577, his mother died, followed by two more of his sisters, Mary and Katherine, in 1581.
Part of the house where John Donne lived in Pyrford.
Donne was a student at Hart Hall, now Hertford College, Oxford, from the age of 11. After three years at Oxford he was admitted to the University of Cambridge, where he studied for another three years.[12] He was unable to obtain a degree from either institution because of his Catholicism, since he could not take the Oath of Supremacy required of graduates.[9]
In 1591 he was accepted as a student at the Thavies Inn legal school, one of the Inns of Chancery in London. In 1592 he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, one of the Inns of Court.[9] His brother Henry was also a university student prior to his arrest in 1593 for harbouring a Catholic priest, William Harrington, whom Henry betrayed under torture.[6] Harrington was tortured on the rack, hanged until not quite dead, then was subjected to disembowelment.[6] Henry Donne died in Newgate prison of bubonic plague, leading John Donne to begin questioning his Catholic faith.[8]
During and after his education, Donne spent much of his considerable inheritance on women, literature, pastimes and travel.[7][9] Although there is no record detailing precisely where he travelled, it is known that he travelled across Europe and later fought with the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh against the Spanish at Cádiz (1596) and the Azores (1597) and witnessed the loss of the Spanish flagship, the San Felipe.[2][8][13] According to Izaak Walton, who wrote a biography of Donne in 1658:
... he returned not back into England till he had stayed some years, first in Italy, and then in Spain, where he made many useful observations of those countries, their laws and manner of government, and returned perfect in their languages.
—Izaak Walton[14]
By the age of 25 he was well prepared for the diplomatic career he appeared to be seeking.[13] He was appointed chief secretary to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas Egerton, and was established at Egerton’s London home, York House, Strand close to the Palace of Whitehall, then the most influential social centre in England.

[edit] Marriage to Anne More

During the next four years he fell in love with Egerton's niece Anne More, and they were married just before Christmas[6] in 1601 against the wishes of both Egerton and George More, Lieutenant of the Tower and Anne's father. This wedding ruined Donne's career and earned him a short stay in Fleet Prison, along with Samuel Brooke who married them,[15] and the man who acted as a witness to the wedding. Donne was released when the marriage was proven valid, and soon secured the release of the other two. Walton tells us that when he wrote to his wife to tell her about losing his post, he wrote after his name: John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done. It was not until 1609 that Donne was reconciled with his father-in-law and received his wife's dowry.
Following his release, Donne had to accept a retired country life in Pyrford, Surrey.[9] Over the next few years he scraped a meagre living as a lawyer, depending on his wife’s cousin Sir Francis Wolly to house him, his wife, and their children. Since Anne Donne had a baby almost every year, this was a very generous gesture. Though he practised law and worked as an assistant pamphleteer to Thomas Morton, Donne was in a constant state of financial insecurity, with a growing family to provide for.[9]
Anne bore him 12 children in 16 years of marriage (including two stillbirths—their eighth and then in 1617 their last child); indeed, she spent most of her married life either pregnant or nursing. The 10 surviving children were named Constance, John, George, Francis, Lucy (after Donne's patroness Lucy, Countess of Bedford, her godmother), Bridget, Mary, Nicholas, Margaret and Elizabeth. Francis, Nicholas and Mary died before they were ten. In a state of despair, Donne noted that the death of a child would mean one fewer mouth to feed, but he could not afford the burial expenses. During this time Donne wrote, but did not publish, Biathanatos, his defence of suicide.[10] His wife died on 15 August 1617, five days after giving birth to their twelfth child, a still-born baby. Donne mourned her deeply, including writing the 17th Holy Sonnet.[9] He never remarried; this was quite unusual for the time, especially as he had a large family to bring up.

[edit] Early poetry

Donne's earliest poems showed a developed knowledge of English society coupled with sharp criticism of its problems. His satires dealt with common Elizabethan topics, such as corruption in the legal system, mediocre poets, and pompous courtiers. His images of sickness, vomit, manure, and plague assisted in the creation of a strongly satiric world populated by all the fools and knaves of England. His third satire, however, deals with the problem of true religion, a matter of great importance to Donne. He argued that it was better to examine carefully one's religious convictions than blindly to follow any established tradition, for none would be saved at the Final Judgment, by claiming "A Harry, or a Martin taught [them] this."[10]
Donne's early career was also notable for his erotic poetry, especially his elegies, in which he employed unconventional metaphors, such as a flea biting two lovers being compared to sex.[13] In Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed, he poetically undressed his mistress and compared the act of fondling to the exploration of America. In Elegy XVIII, he compared the gap between his lover's breasts to the Hellespont.[13] Donne did not publish these poems, although did allow them to circulate widely in manuscript form.[13]

[edit] Career and later life

Donne was elected as Member of Parliament for the constituency of Brackley in 1602, but this was not a paid position and Donne struggled to provide for his family, relying heavily upon rich friends.[9] The fashion for coterie poetry of the period gave him a means to seek patronage and many of his poems were written for wealthy friends or patrons, especially Sir Robert Drury, who came to be Donne's chief patron in 1610.[13] Donne wrote the two Anniversaries, An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul, (1612), for Drury. While historians are not certain as to the precise reasons for which Donne left the Catholic Church, he was certainly in communication with the King, James I of England, and in 1610 and 1611 he wrote two anti-Catholic polemics: Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius his Conclave.[9] Although James was pleased with Donne's work, he refused to reinstate him at court and instead urged him to take holy orders.[8] At length, Donne acceded to the King's wishes and in 1615 was ordained into the Church of England.[13]
A few months before his death, Donne commissioned this portrait of himself as he expected to appear when he rose from the grave at the Apocalypse.[16] He hung the portrait on his wall as a reminder of the transience of life.
Donne became a Royal Chaplain in late 1615, Reader of Divinity at Lincoln's Inn in 1616, and received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Cambridge University in 1618.[9] Later in 1618 he became chaplain to Viscount Doncaster, who was on an embassy to the princes of Germany. Donne did not return to England until 1620.[9] In 1621 Donne was made Dean of St Paul's, a leading (and well-paid) position in the Church of England and one he held until his death in 1631. During his period as Dean his daughter Lucy died, aged eighteen. It was in late November and early December 1623 that he suffered a nearly fatal illness, thought to be either typhus or a combination of a cold followed by the seven-day relapsing fever. During his convalescence he wrote a series of meditations and prayers on health, pain, and sickness that were published as a book in 1624 under the title of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. One of these meditations, Meditation XVII, later became well known for its phrase "for whom the bell tolls" and the statement that "no man is an island". In 1624 he became vicar of St Dunstan-in-the-West, and 1625 a Royal Chaplain to Charles I.[9] He earned a reputation as an eloquent preacher and 160 of his sermons have survived, including the famous Death’s Duel sermon delivered at the Palace of Whitehall before King Charles I in February 1631.

[edit] Later poetry

“ ... any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.. ”
 
— Donne, Meditation XVII[17]
Some have speculated that Donne's numerous illnesses, financial strain, and the deaths of his friends all contributed to the development of a more somber and pious tone in his later poems.[13] The change can be clearly seen in "An Anatomy of the World" (1611), a poem that Donne wrote in memory of Elizabeth Drury, daughter of his patron, Sir Robert Drury of Hawstead, Suffolk. This poem treats Elizabeth's demise with extreme gloominess, using it as a symbol for the Fall of Man and the destruction of the universe.[13]
The poem "A Nocturnal upon S. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day", concerns the poet's despair at the death of a loved one. In it Donne expresses a feeling of utter negation and hopelessness, saying that "I am every dead thing...re-begot / Of absence, darkness, death." This famous work was probably written in 1627 when both Donne's friend Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and his daughter Lucy Donne died. Three years later, in 1630, Donne wrote his will on Saint Lucy's day (* December), the date the poem describes as "Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight."
The increasing gloominess of Donne's tone may also be observed in the religious works that he began writing during the same period. His early belief in the value of scepticism now gave way to a firm faith in the traditional teachings of the Bible. Having converted to the Anglican Church, Donne focused his literary career on religious literature. He quickly became noted for his sermons and religious poems. The lines of these sermons would come to influence future works of English literature, such as Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which took its title from a passage in Meditation XVII of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, which took its title from the same source.
Towards the end of his life Donne wrote works that challenged death, and the fear that it inspired in many men, on the grounds of his belief that those who die are sent to Heaven to live eternally. One example of this challenge is his Holy Sonnet X, Death Be Not Proud, from which come the famous lines “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” Even as he lay dying during Lent in 1631, he rose from his sickbed and delivered the Death's Duel sermon, which was later described as his own funeral sermon. Death’s Duel portrays life as a steady descent to suffering and death, yet sees hope in salvation and immortality through an embrace of God, Christ and the Resurrection.[10][13][18]

[edit] Death

It is thought that his final illness was stomach cancer, although this has not been proven. He died on 31 March 1631 having written many poems, most only in manuscript. Donne was buried in old St Paul's Cathedral, where a memorial statue of him was erected (carved from a drawing of him in his shroud), with a Latin epigraph probably composed by himself. Donne's monument survived the 1666 fire, and is on display in the present building.

[edit] Style

His work has received much criticism over the years, especially concerning his metaphysical form. Donne is generally considered the most prominent member of the Metaphysical poets, a phrase coined in 1781 by the critic Dr Johnson, following a comment on Donne by the poet John Dryden. Dryden had written of Donne in 1693: "He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love."[19] In Life of Cowley (from Samuel Johnson's 1781 work of biography and criticism Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets), Johnson refers to the beginning of the seventeenth century in which there "appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets". Donne's immediate successors in poetry therefore tended to regard his works with ambivalence, with the Neoclassical poets regarding his conceits as abuse of the metaphor. However he was revived by Romantic poets such as Coleridge and Browning, though his more recent revival in the early twentieth century by poets such as T. S. Eliot and critics like F R Leavis tended to portray him, with approval, as an anti-Romantic.[20]
Donne's work suggests a healthy appetite for life and its pleasures, while also expressing deep emotion. He did this through the use of conceits, wit and intellect—as seen in the poems "The Sun Rising" and "Batter My Heart".
Donne is considered a master of the metaphysical conceit, an extended metaphor that combines two vastly different ideas into a single idea, often using imagery.[10] An example of this is his equation of lovers with saints in "The Canonization". Unlike the conceits found in other Elizabethan poetry, most notably Petrarchan conceits, which formed clichéd comparisons between more closely related objects (such as a rose and love), metaphysical conceits go to a greater depth in comparing two completely unlike objects. One of the most famous of Donne's conceits is found in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" where he compares two lovers who are separated to the two legs of a compass.
Donne's works are also witty, employing paradoxes, puns, and subtle yet remarkable analogies. His pieces are often ironic and cynical, especially regarding love and human motives. Common subjects of Donne's poems are love (especially in his early life), death (especially after his wife's death), and religion.[10]
John Donne's poetry represented a shift from classical forms to more personal poetry.[21] Donne is noted for his poetic metre, which was structured with changing and jagged rhythms that closely resemble casual speech (it was for this that the more classical-minded Ben Jonson commented that "Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging").[10]
Some scholars believe that Donne's literary works reflect the changing trends of his life, with love poetry and satires from his youth and religious sermons during his later years. Other scholars, such as Helen Gardner, question the validity of this dating—most of his poems were published posthumously (1633). The exception to these is his Anniversaries which were published in 1612 and Devotions upon Emergent Occasions published in 1624. His sermons are also dated, sometimes specifically by date and year.

[edit] Legacy

John Donne is commemorated as a priest in the calendar of the Church of England and in the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on 31 March.[22]
Sylvia Plath, interviewed on BBC Radio in late 1962, said the following about a book review of her collection of poems titled The Colossus that had been published in the United Kingdom two years earlier: "I remember being appalled when someone criticised me for beginning just like John Donne but not quite managing to finish like John Donne, and I felt the weight of English literature on me at that point."[23]
The memorial to John Donne, modelled after the engraving pictured above, was one of the few such memorials to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666 and now appears in St Paul's Cathedral, where Donne is buried.

[edit] Donne in literature

Donne has appeared in several works of literature:
  • A dying John Donne scholar is the main character of Margaret Edson's Pulitzer prize-winning play Wit (1999), which was made into the film Wit starring Emma Thompson.
  • Donne's Songs and Sonnets feature in The Calligrapher (2003), a novel by Edward Docx.
  • In the 2006 novel The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox, Donne's works are frequently quoted.
  • John Donne appears, along with his wife Anne and daughter Pegge, in the award-winning novel Conceit (2007) by Mary Novik.
  • Joseph Brodsky has a poem called "Elegy for John Donne".
  • The love story of John Donne and Anne More is the subject of Maeve Haran's 2010 historical novel The Lady and the Poet.
  • An excerpt from "Meditation 17 Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions" serves as the opening for Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom The Bell Tolls".
  • Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer prize-winning novel Gilead makes several references to Donne's work.
  • John Donne is the favourite poet of Dorothy Sayers' fictional detective Lord Peter Wimsey, and the Wimsey books include numerous quotations from and allusions to his work.
  • A quotation from Donne became especially widely known due to serving as the motto (and the source for the title) of Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls".
  • John Donne's poem 'A Fever' (incorrectly called 'The Fever') is mentioned in the penultimate paragraph of the novel "The Silence of the Lambs" by Thomas Harris.

[edit] Donne in pop culture and songs

  • John Renbourn, on his 1966 debut album John Renbourn, sings a version of the poem, "Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star". (He alters the last line to "False, ere I count one, two, three".)
  • Tarwater, in their album called Salon des Refusés, have put "The Relic" to song.
  • Children of Bodom, in the song "Follow the Reaper" reference John Donne's Holy Sonnet 10
  • Metallica in the song "For Whom the Bell Tolls" reference Meditation 17 from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
  • Titus Andronicus, in their 2008 song "Albert Camus", quote from Donne's Holy Sonnet 10
  • Jethro Tull, in the song "Teacher" uses the line "No man is an Island" from Meditation 17 from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
  • Van Morrison pays homage to John Donne in "Rave on John Donne," from his album Inarticulate Speech of the Heart.
  • Lost in Austen, the British mini series based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, has Bingley refer to John Donne when he describes taking Jane to America, "John Donne, don't you know? 'License my roving hands,' and so forth."
  • In Howl's Moving Castle, a novel written by Diana Wynne Jones, the poem, "Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star", is used as the basis for a curse on the main character.
  • Loudon Wainwright III, in his 1986 song Hard Day On The Planet, affirms "A man ain't an island; John Donne wasn't lying"
  • Indie Rock band mewithoutYou use words from A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning in their song "Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt", from their album A-B Life.
  • Bob Chilcott has arranged a choral piece to John Donne's "Go and Catch a Falling Star".
  • In the British dark comedy Psychoville, the character David recites a John Donne poem to his dying mother, and then she asks him who wrote it. He replies "John Donne" to which she says, "No David, it's John did", attempting to correct his cockney.
  • In the Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing at Baxter's the phrase, "No man is an island" is screamed repeatedly at the end of the instrumental "A Small Package of Value Will Come to You, Shortly."

[edit] Bibliography

There are some differences in major editions of Donnes poetry, which are Grierson's and Chambers's editions. Sometimes some parts of the verses differ a lot.

[edit] Poetry

  • Poems (1634)
  • Poems on Several Occasions (2001)
  • Love Poems (1905)
  • John Donne: Divine Poems (includes the Holy Sonnets), Sermons, Devotions and Prayers (1990)
  • The Complete English Poems (1991)
  • John Donne's Poetry (1991)
  • John Donne: The Major Works (2000)
  • The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne (2001)

[edit] Prose

  • Six Sermons (1633)
  • Fifty Sermons (1649)
  • Paradoxes, Problemes, Essayes, Characters (1652)
  • Essayes in Divinity (1651)
  • Sermons Never Before Published (1661)
  • John Donne's 1622 Gunpowder Plot Sermon (1996)
  • Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and Death's Duel (1999; first published in 1624)

[edit] See also

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  • Cleanth Brooks. "The Language of Paradox", Literary Theory: An Anthology 2nd edition; Julie Rivkan, Michael Ryan (eds) pp. 28–39 (2004)

[edit] References

  • Bald, R. C. John Donne: A Life. (Oxford, 1970)
  • Colclough, David, John Donne's Professional Lives (Cambridge, 2003)
  • Le Comte, Edward. Grace to a Witty Sinner: A Life of Donne, (Walker, 1965)
  • Lim, Kit. John Donne: An Eternity of Song, Penguin, 2005.
  • Morrissey, Mary, Politics and the Paul's Cross Sermons, 1558-1642 (Oxford, 2011)
  • Stubbs, John. Donne: The Reformed Soul, Viking, 2006. ISBN 0-670-91510-6
  • Sullivan Ceri The Rhetoric of the Conscience in Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan (Oxford, 2008)
  • Walton, Izaak. The life of John Donne, Dr. in Divinity, and late Dean of Saint Pauls, pr. by J.G. for R.Marriot, 1658.
  • Warnke, Frank J. John Donne, (U of Mass., Amherst 1987)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Poetry Foundation
  2. ^ a b Donne, John. Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
  3. ^ Bookrags.com
  4. ^ Luminarium.org
  5. ^ The painting on the NPG's website.
  6. ^ a b c d Schama, Simon (26 May 2009). "Simon Schama's John Donne". BBC2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo. Retrieved 18 June 2009. 
  7. ^ a b "Donne, John" by Richard W. Langstaff. Article from Collier's Encyclopedia, Volume 8. Bernard Johnston, general editor. P.F. Colliers Inc., New York: 1988. pp. 346–349.
  8. ^ a b c d e "Donne, John." Article in British Authors Before 1800: A Biographical Dictionary. Edited by Stanley Kunitz and Howard Haycraft. The H.W. Wilson Company, New York: 1952. pp. 156–158
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Jokinen, Anniina. "The Life of John Donne." Luminarium, 22 June 2006. Accessed 22 January 2007.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton anthology of English literature, Eighth edition. W. W. Norton and Company, 2006. ISBN 0-393-92828-4; pp. 600–602
  11. ^ * Colclough, ‘Donne, John (1572–1631)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, October 2007 oxforddnb.com, accessed 18 May 2010
  12. ^ Donne, John in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Will and Ariel Durant. The Story of Civilization: Part VII: The Age of Reason Begins. Simon and Schuster: New York, 1961. pp. 154–156
  14. ^ Walton, Izaak. "The life of John Donne, Dr. in Divinity, and late Dean of Saint Pauls", pr. by J.G. for R.Marriot, 1658.
  15. ^  "Brooke, Samuel". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
  16. ^ Lapham, Lewis. The End of the World. Thomas Dunne Books: New York, 1997. p. 98.
  17. ^ The version of Meditation XVII found on wikiquote. Other sources change Donne's original orthography, phrasing and emphases, and have "...never ask for whom..."
  18. ^ Fulfilling the Circle: A Study of John Donne's Thought by Terry G. Sherwood University of Toronto Press, 1984, p. 231
  19. ^ Dryden, John, A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (London, 1693)
  20. ^ The Best Poems of the English Language. Harold Bloom. HarperCollins Publishers, New York: 2004. pp. 138–139.
  21. ^ John Donne. Island of Freedom. Accessed 19 February 2007.
  22. ^ (PDF) Evangelical Lutheran Worship – Final Draft. Augsburg Fortress Press. 2006. http://www.renewingworship.org/ELW/content/PDF/ChurchYear_asm_20060119.pdf. 
  23. ^ Voices and Visions television documentary episode about Sylvia Plath telecast on PBS for the first time on 14 August 1988. Her recollection of the book revewier comparing her to John Donne is from an audio clip of one of her BBC radio appearances that she made in late 1962 after separating from her husband, poet Ted Hughes.

[edit] External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about: John Donne
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Donne
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