John Donne

This article is about the English writer John Donne . For the Welsh nobleman John Donne , see John Donne (Welsh nobleman)

John Donne (circa 1616)

John Donne ( January 22, 1572 – March 31, 1631 ) was an English writer and the most important of the metaphysical poets. His work includes sermons , religious poems, translations from Latin, epigrams , elegies , songs and sonnets .

life and work

Donne in the pose of melancholic (1595 portrait in the National Portrait Gallery )

Raised in a Catholic family, Donne studied at both Oxford (at Hertford College ) and Cambridge . From 1591 to 1595 he received legal training at Thavies Inn and Lincoln's Inn . As a young man he traveled Europe and from 1596 to 1597 he accompanied the Earl of Essex on his naval expeditions to Cadiz and the Azores . On his return, he became secretary to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal Sir Thomas Egerton (from 1603 Lord Ellesmere, from 1616 Viscount Brackley) and began to make a name for himself as a poet. Works from this period include many of his songs and sonnets, notable for their realistic and sensual style. Donne also wrote many satirical verses that show a cynical worldview.

In 1601 Donne secretly married Anne More, niece of Baron Ellesmere's second wife; this became a public scandal that ruined Donne's reputation; his works took on a more serious tone. Two anniversaries — An Anatomy of the World , 1611 and Of the Progress of the Soul , 1612—show how shattered his belief in the order of the Things were going on in pre-revolutionary England, at a time of growing doubt in politics, science and philosophy.

In the work Pseudo-Martyr (published in 1610), Donne formulates a comprehensive legal-historical and state-theoretical analysis of the relationship between secular and spiritual power, as embodied by the English king on the one hand and the pope on the other. With his own publications, King James I had spoken up in the debate about the oath of allegiance to the king, which was also to be sworn by Catholics (Oath of Allegiance) , and had been sharply attacked in replies by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine . Support from original minds and brilliant polemicists was very welcome. Donne performed them with Pseudo-Martyr. His 1611 anti - Jesuit satire Ignatius his Conclave ( The Conclave of Ignatius ) was probably the first English-language work to mention Galileo Galilei : Lucifer , Prince of Hell , fears Ignatius of Loyola might dethrone him. So he sends him to the moon, which has moved closer to earth thanks to Galileo's telescope. There the Jesuits should bring together the Lunatic Church (double meaning: moon church or madness church) and the Roman Church and at the same time create a lunar hell.

After a long period of financial uncertainty and hardship, during which he was twice a Member of Parliament (1601 and 1614), Donne finally complied with the wish of his King James I and was ordained an Anglican priest in 1615. After the death of his wife in 1617, the tone of his poetry darkened, particularly in the Holy Sonnets .

After his ordination, Donne wrote a number of religious works, including his Devotions (1624) and various sermons, some of which were published during his lifetime. He was also considered one of the most skilled preachers of his time. In 1621 Donne was made Dean of St Paul's (London), a post he held until his death in 1631.

At the beginning of the 20th century, John Donne was examined in detail in the discussion initiated by TS Eliot . The debate focused on the interpretation of the individual poems and almost completely ignored the historical and biographical conditions of John Donne. Joseph Brodsky - like TS Eliot winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature - described himself as Donne's "pupil" and called Donne "one of the greatest figures in world literature".

Characteristic of Donne's poetry is in particular his sacralization of the erotic and the associated development of a new form of love poetry that is provocative from the point of view of literary history , in which physical desire and sexuality in particular appear as sacred mysteries . What is new is not so much his use of quite unconventional religious images or metaphors in an erotic discourse, but above all the canonization of love as a physical-sexual experience in a metaphor and imagery that borders on the blasphemous .

Quote

Two phrases from Donne's work found their way into popular culture , namely the proverbial 'No Man is an Island', which Thomas Merton and Johannes Mario Simmel chose as the title of a book, and ' For Whom the Bell Tolls ' as the title of a novel by Ernest Hemingway . Both are from the same paragraph in Meditation XVII :

No man is an island , entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls ; it greats for you.

“ No one is an island whole in itself; every human being is a piece of the continent, a part of the mainland. When a floe is washed into the sea, Europe becomes less, just as if it were a headland, or your friend's estate, or your own. Every human death is my loss, for I am part of humanity; and therefore never ask to know whose hour strikes ; she beats you herself.”

factories

Modern editions

• Sir Herbert Grierson (ed.): John Donne: Poetical Works . 1933 (standard edition).
• Joe Nutt (ed.): John Donne: The Poems. 1999, ISBN 0-333-74783-6 .
• Phillip Mallet (ed.): York Notes on John Donne: Selected Poems. 1999, ISBN 0-582-41465-2 .

German translations

• "Naked thinking heart." From his poetic writings and prose works. Translated by Annemarie Schimmel . Cologne 1969
• Songs and Sonnets - Love Songs. Transl. K. Wydmond. Stuttgart 1981
• "It is true that poetry is also a sin." Poems. Transl. Maik Hamburger , Christa Schuenke . Leipzig 1982
• Elegies - Erotic Elegies. Transl. K. Wydmond. Stuttgart 1983
• alchemy of love. poems. Transl. Werner von Koppenfels . Zurich 1996
• "Here I lie, slain by love." Songs and Sonnets - songs and poems. Translated by Wolfgang Breitwieser. Frankfort 2000
• "Storm my heart!" Elegies, epigrams, sonnets. Translated by Wolfgang Breitwieser . Frankfort 2000
• "Go, catch a star that falls." Transl. Werner Vordtriede . Frankfurt 2001
• After John Donne. Translated by Benedikt Ledebur . Vienna 2004
• "Enlighten, lady, our darkness." Songs, sonnets, elegies. Translated by Wolfgang Held . Frankfurt 2009
• "Hush up and let me love you!" A John Donne Reader. Translated and edited by Michael Mertes . 2nd edition Bonn 2020

memorial day

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Anglican Church have designated March 31 as Donne's Memorial Day.

literature

• Robert Cecil Bald: Donne's Influence in English Literature. Peter Smith, Gloucester 1965.
• Robert Cecil Bald: John Donne: A Life. Oxford University Press , 1970, ISBN 0-19-811684-5 .
• Clay Hunt: John Donne's The Canonization. In: Willi Erzgräber (ed.): Interpretations. Volume 7: English Literature from Thomas More to Laurence Sterne . Fischer, Frankfurt 1970, DNB 457073489 , pp. 112–137.
• Antoine Berman : Pour une critique des traductions: John Donne. (= Bibliothèque des idées ). Gallimard, Paris 1995.
• John Madey :  John Donne. In: Biographical-Bibliographical Church Lexicon (BBKL). Volume 16, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-079-4 , cols. 396–398.
• Robert Ellrodt : John Donne: Self-Oriented Self-Consciousness. In: Seven Metaphysical Poets. A Structural Study of the Unchanging Self. Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-811738-8 , pp. 25–46.
• David L. Edwards: John Donne. Man of Flesh and Spirit. Continuum, 2001, ISBN 0-8264-5155-1 .
• Achsah Guibbory (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Donne. Cambridge University Press , 2006, ISBN 0-521-54003-8 .
• John Stubbs: Donne: The Reformed Soul. Penguin, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-14-101717-4 .
• John Carey : The Inconstant. About John Donne. In: Sense and Form . 5, 2009, pp. 690-703.
• John Carey: John Donne: Life, Mind, and Art. Rev. Ed. Faber & Faber, 2008, ISBN 978-0-571-24446-1 .
• Chanita Goodblatt: The Christian Hebraism of John Donne: Written with the Fingers of Man's Hand. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park 2010.
• Michael Mertes: Geometry, Celestial Mechanics and Cosmology of Love. About John Donne. In: Sense and Form. 6, 2011, pp. 759-781.
• Gregory Kneidel: John Donne and Early Modern Legal Culture: The End of Equity in the Satyres. Pennsylvania State University, University Park 2015.
• Michael Mertes: Eros and Religion in John Donne. In: Voices of the times . 3, 2018; pp. 201-209.

web links

Wikiquote: John Donne  – Quotes

• Literature by and about John Donne in the German National Library catalogue
• Works by and about John Donne  in the German Digital Library
• Literature by and about John Donne in the bibliographical database WorldCat
• Works by John Donne atInternet Archive
• Poems by John Donne on Poetry Foundation
• One of his great poems: "The Canonization"

itemizations

1. ↑ The Little Encyclopedia. Volume 1, Encyclios-Verlag, Zurich 1950, p. 376.
2. ↑ John Donne: Pseudo-Martyr. Edited, with Introduction and Commentary by Anthony Raspa. Montreal & Kingston/London/Buffalo 1993.
3. ↑ John Donne, Ignatius His Conclave. Edited by TS Healy. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1969, pp. 81ff.
4. ↑ See TS Eliot's review of the book Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler , edited by Herbert JC Grierson, in The Times Literary Supplement , October 1921 ( uwyo.edu ); German transl. in: Wolfgang Kaußen (ed.): Go, catch a star that falls. Insel, Frankfurt am Main/ Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-458-34491-8 , pp. 221-234.
5. ↑ See Igor Pomerantsev 's 1981 conversation with Brodsky. English: Conversation with Joseph Brodsky about John Donne . English: Brodsky on Donne: 'The Poet Is Engaged In The Translation Of One Thing Into Another' .
6. ↑ Cf. in more detail Manfred Pfister : The early modern period: From More to Milton. In: Hans Ulrich Seeber (ed.): English literary history. 4th, adult edition. Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-02035-5 , p. 110f.
7. ↑ Pseudonym of Christian Nekvedavicius, see Christian Nekvedavicius in the Lexicon of Westfälischer Authors
8. ↑ March 31 in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints