Critical Notes
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New Explorations Critical Notes Higher Level Ordinary Level Higher Level Poets prescribed for examination in 2015 2015 2 Higher Level Poets prescribed for examination in 2016 2016 3 Higher Level Poets prescribed for examination in 2017 2017 4 Higher Level Poets prescribed for examination in 2018 2018 5 John Donne Notes and Explorations: Carole Scully 6 NEW EXPLORATIONS JOHN DONNE INTRODUCTION Introduction likelihood, Donne was fully aware of his uncle’s situation, as he was about 11 years old at the time and still living at home with his mother and stepfather. The quest for certainty Donne’s father had died when Donne was four years old, leaving about John Donne was born in 1572 in Bread Street, London, into a family £3,500 to his wife and six children – a large fortune at the time. About six that was prosperous, educated and, as Catholics, part of an unpopular months later Donne’s mother, still only in her thirties, married Dr John religious minority. He was the third of six children. His father, also Syminges, a wealthy widower with three children. At one time Syminges called John, was a successful merchant and a prominent member of the had been president of the Royal College of Physicians; more significantly, Company of Ironmongers. His mother, Elizabeth, a devout Catholic, he was a Catholic. Donne continued to live, therefore, in a family where was the daughter of John Heywood and the granddaughter of John education was valued, affordable and Catholic. Rastell, both popular writers in their time; even more significantly, she was the grandniece of Sir Thomas More, who had been beheaded by King Education Henry VIII in 1535 because he would not swear the oath accepting Henry Donne was educated at home with his brother Henry for the early as supreme head of the church. More had famously declared on the years of his life. There are strong indications that the boys’ teachers scaffold: ‘I die the King’s good servant, but God’s servant first.’ were Jesuits. In later years Donne wrote of these men: ‘I had my first breeding and conversation with men of suppressed and afflicted This staunch religious devotion in the face of oppression was very much religion, accustomed to the despite of death and hungry of an imagined in evidence in Elizabeth’s family. Two of her brothers, Donne’s uncles, martyrdom.’ This early exposure to religious intensity had a profound became members of the Jesuit order – an extremely dangerous choice of effect on Donne and may partly explain his constant intellectual career, as Jesuits were considered, with some justification, to be the main struggle to find some evidence of certainty in existence. Izaak Walton, leaders of the Catholic revolt against English Protestantism. It was treason, Donne’s first biographer, relates how Donne, at the age of 12, entered punishable by horrific forms of death, to be a Catholic priest or even to the University of Oxford with his younger brother, Henry. By starting help a Catholic priest. One of Donne’s uncles, Jasper, led a secret Jesuit university at a slightly younger age, Catholic boys could finish early; in mission to England between 1581 and 1583; he was caught and sentenced this way they left before taking a degree, as that involved swearing the to death, but this sentence was reduced to imprisonment and exile. There Oath of Supremacy, which declared the English monarch, and not the have been suggestions that the young Donne accompanied his mother Pope, to be head of the church. The boys attended Hart Hall, a college to visit Jasper in the Tower of London, but there is no proof of this. In all with Catholic sympathies, for three years. There are suggestions that they 7 NEW EXPLORATIONS JOHN DONNE INTRODUCTION then transferred to the other great university town of Cambridge. Even At this point in his life the 20-year-old Donne was living a life that was though he was still unable to take a degree, Donne benefited from this radically different from the one he had learned from his Jesuit teachers time spent in studies and in mixing with the intellectual group that lived and his family. He was Master of the Revels (the title explains his role) around the colleges. for the Christmas celebrations at Lincoln’s Inn. His poetry was circulated, with much praise, among the learned of London. He went to the theatre The world’s pleasures and socialised with fashionable women; he was on the way to becoming At some time in his youth, most probably between 1589 and 1591, Donne a popular celebrity. This may simply have been the natural rebellion of appears to have travelled on the Continent. Travel was very much a a young man against the beliefs of the older generation, or it may have part of a young gentleman’s education at this time. He seems to have been a reaction to seeing his younger brother, Henry, die from the plague been fluent in Italian and Spanish, and in later years he kept a great while imprisoned in Newgate prison for helping a Catholic priest. It could many Spanish books in his library; indeed, at about this time he chose a have been another attempt to find the elusive certainty in life. Whatever Spanish motto for himself, antes muerto que mudado (sooner dead than the reason, Donne gave himself up to living the life of a gentleman about changed). The dramatic nature of this motto expresses the type of young town and expressing his view of the world in bright, clever, sensual poetry: man Donne was, or at least wished to be. An early portrait shows him beautifully dressed, with long, dark, curly hair, his intelligent, educated Put forth, put forth that warm balm-breathing thigh, gaze looking into the future while his hand grasps a sword. He is the Which when next time you in these sheets will smother epitome of the Elizabethan gentleman. Perhaps Donne had discovered, There it must meet another. as so many of us do, that there is a comforting certainty in belonging to a recognisable group. Gradually, he drifted away from the law. In 1596 he joined a band of volunteers, under the leadership of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and In 1592 Donne was admitted to study law at Lincoln’s Inn, London. In this Sir Walter Raleigh, and sailed to Cádiz. He experienced a violent sea he was following the strong family tradition on his mother’s side. However, battle and wrote with grim honesty of the terrible scenes he witnessed: as the student lawyers were from wealthy families, they spent more of ‘They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drowned.’ He returned their time pursuing the pleasures of London life than studying law. A to England briefly, but in 1597 he joined another expedition under the friend of Donne’s from this time, Sir Richard Baker, described him as ‘not command of the Earl of Essex, sailing to the Azores with the aim of dissolute but very neat: a great visitor of ladies, a great frequenter of plays, capturing the Spanish treasure fleet. a great writer of conceited verses’. 8 NEW EXPLORATIONS JOHN DONNE INTRODUCTION It was socially acceptable for young men from the upper classes to take fortunes soon improved. In 1598 he was offered a post by the father of part in these expeditions. At the time, relations between England and one of his fellow volunteers to Cádiz and he became private secretary Spain were uneasy. As recently as 1588 English forces had narrowly to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. This was a great defeated the Spanish Armada, more by luck than by design. Queen opportunity for Donne, as he now had steady employment and a clear Elizabeth, though officially disapproving of her subjects’ attacks on connection with an important member of the court. The Lord Keeper Spanish vessels and territories, was perfectly happy to receive a share of presided over the House of Lords and the Court of the Star Chamber, the booty. Certainly the sense of drama and adventure seems to have where religious trials were conducted, and he organised the Court of appealed to Donne, as can be seen in his poetry: Chancery. As was customary, the Lord Keeper lived at York House, so Donne came to live in a large palace with beautiful gardens that swept Here take my picture, though I bid farewell; down to the Thames. He became part of Egerton’s extended family Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell. group, which included his 14-year-old niece, Ann More. The trip to the Azores was not a success, with violent storms battering the There is no doubt that Egerton was very fond of Donne. When his son ships. Donne described the damage vividly: died of his wounds in Dublin Castle while serving with Essex in Ireland, Egerton asked Donne to carry his son’s sword in the funeral procession And from our tattered sails, rags drop down so, at Chester Cathedral. In 1601 he made Donne member of Parliament As from one hanged in chains, a year ago. for one of the boroughs that he controlled. It seemed as if John Donne was destined to play an important role in the world of Elizabethan politics. There is a feeling that Donne may have gone on these voyages hoping to Perhaps he had found his certainty at last. find that elusive certainty he craved, but came home with the realisation that it was not to be found in the role of adventurer.