Poetry Out Loud

John Donne (1572-1631)

There are two John Donnes: the brilliant, pleasure-seeking man-about-town who, in his youth, wrote frank love poems to various women along with satires that jeered his fellow men, and the sober, serious Dean of St. Paul’s, an Anglican reverend famed for his moving sermons and profound “Holy Sonnets.” One of the Metaphysical poets (John Dryden coined the term half a century later), Donne was known for his razor wit and his extended comparisons, also called conceits.

POEMS
A Hymn to God the Father
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Break of Day
Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd God
Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud
Hymn to God, My God, in my Sickness
Lovers' Infiniteness
Song: Go and catch a falling star
The Canonization
The Good-Morrow
The Sun Rising

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