John Donne

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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

Transcript

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0:49.7	Hello John Dunn is best known now as one of England's finest poets of love and in his own time as an astonishing preacher with an exceptional mind and remarkable life.
1:00.0	He was born in 1572, a Catholic in a Protestant country and when he married in secret
1:06.7	he fell into poverty that only ended once he became a priest in the Church of
1:10.9	England. As Dean of St Paul's Cathedral,
1:14.0	his sermons were celebrated, perhaps none more
1:16.3	than his final one in 1631, when he was plainly
1:19.8	in his dying days, as if preaching at his own funeral.
1:23.5	With me to discuss John Dunn, poet and priest are Marian Lund,
1:27.7	Associate Professor in Renaissance English Literature
	...

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