John Donne is a love poet after Shakespeare

BIOGRAPHY: John Donne is a metaphysical poet. He was born in Bread Street London in 1572 in a Roman Catholic family. His father was an ironmonger and citizen of London. Suddenly his father died in 1576 and he left three children to his family. His mother, Elizabeth, looked after her children. She was the daughter of epigrammatist and playwright John Heywood and a relative of Sir Thomas More.

 Jesuits was John’s first teachers. At the age of Eleven John and his brother, Henry, entered in a Hart Hall of University of Oxford where he studied for three years. Next three years, he spent in the University of Cambridge. But unfortunately he did not get any degree at either university because he would not take the Oath of Supremacy required at graduation. 

 
His brother, Henry, died of a fever in prison after being arrested for giving sanctuary to a proscribed Catholic priest. This made Donne begin to question his faith. His first book of poems, Satires, written during this period of residence in London, is considered one of Donne’s most important literary efforts. Although not immediately published, the volume had a fairly wide readership through private circulation of the manuscript.

John Donne was chosen Ministry of Parliament for Brackley and sat in Queen Elizabeth’s last Parliament in 1601. In the same year, he furtively married Lady Egerton’s niece, seventeen year old namely Anne More. She was the daughter of Sir George More. Her father was Lieutenant of the Tower and effectively dutiful career suicide. Sir George had Donne thrown in Fleet Prison for some weeks.