AUDIOBOOK
About
Although the poet John Donne lived so long ago, some phrases from his writing still linger with us today, such as “no man is an island,” “death, be no proud,” and “for whom the bell tolls,” the last of which provided the title for one of Ernest Hemingway's novels. Donne used poems as a means of metaphysical inquiry and meditation, as well as for very sensual expression. His daringly original use of imagery and conceits to lead the mind to profound understandings marked a new, intellectual approach to poetry. Like Shakespeare, Donne was a genius at making common words yield up rich, poetic meaning. His thought is complex, but his poems unfold in a logical way. This collection includes songs, satires, elegies, selections from The Anniversaries, and divine poems.
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Reviews
"We have only to read [Donne] to submit to the sound of that passionate and penetrating voice, and his figure rises again across the waste of the years more erect, more imperious, more inscrutable than any of his time."
Virginia Woolf
"He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love."
John Dryden, poet