John Donne Research Paper

John Donne

John Donne is a poet of his time. He is considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are noted for their strong, sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, sons, satires, and sermons. He was also well known for his conceits. His poems were very much shaped by his time, as he helped to shape his time with his poetry. He helped change the way poets wrote and thought!

Donne was a poet born between January 24 and June 31. His writing styles suggest a healthy appetite for life and its pleasures, while also expressing deep eomotion. He did this through the use of ceonceits, wit, and intellect which is seen in poems such as 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, an example being his equation of lovers with saints in The Canonization. Unlike other conceits found in other Elizabethan poetry which formed cliched comparisions between more closely related objects, metaphysical conceits go to a greater depth in comparing two completely unlike objects. Donne’s poetry represented a shift from classical forms to more personal poetry. His poems are structured with changing and jagged rhythms that closely resemble casual speech. Some scholars believe

his works reflect the changing trends of his life, with love poetry and satires from his youth and religious sermons during his later years.

Donne’s poem’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 carrer on religious literature. The fashion for coterie poetry of the period gave him a means to seek patronage and many of his poems were...