John Donne

John Donne (1572–1631), born into a persecuted Roman Catholic family during the Elizabethan era, studied at Oxford and Cambridge without receiving a degree due to his refusal to take the Oath of Supremacy. In his youth, as a worldly rake and law student at Lincoln's Inn, he penned sparkling, sensual love elegies and satires celebrating erotic intimacy (*Songs and Sonnets*).

His secret marriage to Ann More in 1601 caused his dismissal from court and imprisonment ('John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done'). Converting to the Church of England, he was ordained in 1615 and became Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in 1621, famed as England's most eloquent preacher. In his Holy Sonnets and Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624), he channeled metaphysical passion into cosmic meditation, penning the immortal reflection: 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent... therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'