John Donne was born in London in 1572, probably in January, though the exact day remains uncertain, and he died in London on 31 March 1631. Few English writers have seemed so divided within themselves, or have turned division into such memorable art. He was at once a Catholic child in a Protestant state, an ambitious courtier whose prospects were ruined by love, a husband burdened by debt and bereavement, a poet of e…
“Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
John Milton, born in London on 9 December 1608 and dead there on 8 November 1674, lived through one of the most violent and intellectually fertile passages in English history. He was a poet, polemicist, scholar, civil servant, religious controversialist, educator, translator, and theorist of political liberty. To many readers he is above all the author of Paradise Lost, the English epic that retells the rebellion of…
“For books are not absolutely dead things, but do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Hymn Writers, Metaphysical Poets, Political Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Spirituality, Wonder
