John Donn
... chain of events caused John to begin to question his faith. He eventually converted to Anglicanism sometime in the 1590s (Jokinen). Donne was appointed as the private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton in 1598. And in 1601, Donne entered Parliament. This, however, was short lived. Donne was fired and imprisoned for several weeks in 1601, after it had been discovered that he had secretly married Egerton’s niece, Anne More without the blessing of her father, Sir George More. They had been married several months before it was discovered. This ended his public political career and made other prospects scarce (Jokinen). He was reunited after a short imprisonment with his wife. At that point financial difficulties had begun to take hold. He and his wife moved to land belonging to Anne’s cousin and had much help from friends. He made a small living as a lawyer for the next few years where he acted as chief counsel for an anti-Roman Catholic pamphleteer who later became the Bishop of Durham, Thomas Morton. It is presumed that Donne helped Morton write pamphlets that appeared solely in Morton’s name from 1604-1607. It was not until 1609 that he reconciled with his father-in-law, Sir George More, and was granted the much needed dowry for his wife (Jokinen). Thomas Morton convinced Donne that it would be in his best interest to enter the church. Even though Donne’s dreams lay with being in the public eye once again, he made a visit to the king. King James insisted that Donne be in the Anglican Church. Donne reluctantly took his holy order is 1615 and was appointed Royal Chaplain later that year (Jokinen). Anne Donne was only able to lend her support to her husband a short time after he entered priesthood. She died in 1617 after giving birth to their twelfth child, a stillborn. He now had seven surviving children to attend to. Just as John Donne’s life and fortune began to improve he had lost his wife at her young age of thirty-three (Jokinen). Donne developed a severe sickness in 1623 and his health, even after recovering from this disease, began to deteriorate. He preached his last sermon in 1631, “Death’s Duell”, which was considered by most to be his own funeral sermon. He died just a few weeks later on March 31, 1631 (Jokinen). Donne’s writing consisted of three major subjects; love, death, and religion. Even though the majority of his work did not include dates, it has been concluded the time of his life that it was written by analyzing the writing itself. Much of his work remained unpublished until his death in 1631. During his twenties, his poems were primarily about love. He was known to have ‘pleasures of the flesh’ long before meeting the love of his life, Anne More. During the time he was in London and was beginning to question his faith, he developed what has been perceived to be one of his most important literary efforts, Satires. It is also believed that his collection of love poems, Songs and Sonnets was written about this same time. So far to date, I have been able to locate a list of fifty-seven poems under this heading. While he was imprisoned for secretly marrying his wife, Anne, he included a phrase in a letter to her that he is well-known for, “John Donne, Anne Donne, Undone.” He is known for the vast use of puns in his writing (Jokinen). During the time he was a lawyer, he began to develop his religious works. During this period, he wrote Devine Poems and the prose work Biathanatos, where he expressed his belief that suicide was not a sin. By the time Donne turned forty, he had published Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius his Conclave. In these he made a public abandonment of the Catholic Faith. In the midst of his religious literature, he wrote a collection of seventeen sonnets, referred to as Holy Sonnets. These collections were written on a vast array of subjects where he used his life occurrences to develop many known sonnets such as: Death Be Not Proud and Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt (Jokinen) which I consider to be among my favorites . This was written following the death of John Donne’s wife: Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt To Nature, and to her...