Donne, John

A seventeenth-century English poet and clergyman. Donne is famous for his intricate metaphors , as in a poem in which he compares two lovers to the two legs of a drawing compass. He also wrote learned and eloquent sermons and meditations. The expressions “ Death, be not proud ,” “ No man is an island ,” and “ for whom the bell tolls ” are drawn from Donne's works.

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Part Joan Didion and part John Donne, Manguso has the rare ability to devastate and illuminate with a single sentence.

Your character in Wit seeks strength in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, especially his Holy Sonnet 10, “Death Be Not Proud.”

In the closing years of the preceding century, John Donne had traveled in Italy.

But he had affinities with John Donne and the metaphysical poets, and could be obscure on occasion.

April 18, 2024petrichor

[pet-ri-kawr]

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