One of the fascinating things about the poems of human love is that Dan is always calling on religious imagery, on sacred imagery. He's playing with these religious ideas, as part of the daring, erotic poetry. But then, what's interesting about the human love poetry is he doesn't write sonnet sequences. If I may read just a little bit of one, out of X me, countries meet in one, the poem goes on and he says, he's inconstant, as humorous in my contrition, as my profane love, and as soon forgot.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Donne (1573-1631), known now as one of England’s finest poets of love and notable in his own time as an astonishing preacher. He was born a Catholic in a Protestant country and, when he married Anne More without her father's knowledge, Donne lost his job in the government circle and fell into a poverty that only ended once he became a priest in the Church of England. As Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, his sermons were celebrated, perhaps none more than his final one in 1631 when he was plainly in his dying days, as if preaching at his own funeral.
The image above is from a miniature in the Royal Collection and was painted in 1616 by Isaac Oliver (1565-1617)
With
Mary Ann Lund
Associate Professor in Renaissance English Literature at the University of Leicester
Sue Wiseman
Professor of Seventeenth Century Literature at Birkbeck, University of London
And
Hugh Adlington
Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham