Poetry

John Donne composed poetry over the span of several decades, from the 1590s through the early years of the seventeenth century, during a period of profound religious, political, and cultural change in England. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Donne didn’t publish any collections of poetry during his lifetime. Instead, his poems circulated privately in handwritten manuscripts among friends, patrons, and members of the educated elite, acquiring a wide readership long before they appeared in print. The first collected edition was published posthumously in 1633, two years after Donne’s death, and was followed by numerous expanded editions that included additional poems discovered in manuscript. This collection brings together all of Donne’s diverse body of work, from his youthful satires, elegies, and love lyrics, to his later religious verses and Holy Sonnets, illustrating the remarkable range and enduring influence of one of the greatest poets of the English Renaissance.

John Donne’s most popular poems include “The Flea,” “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning,” “The Sun Rising,” “The Canonization,” and “Holy Sonnet XIV.”