Poems by John Donne and Ben Jonson

Poems by

John Donne and Ben Jonson

John Donne Personal Life: He was born January 22, 1572 in London.

He was catholic when that religion was illegal in England.

He was the third of 6 children.

He studied in Oxford and Cambridge, but he didn’t had a title because of his religion.

He married in secret to his wife Anne More.

He had 12 children.

He was a priest.

He died March 31, 1631.

Major Accomplishments in poetry: He is the major representant of metaphysical poets. Metaphysical poets were English poets from the 17 century that used long metaphors and the usual topics that they used were love, sexuality, religion and mortality.

A disease that he had in 1609 make his do some religious poems.

Donne became one of the first poets to write formal verse satires in a classical mode.

Some of the poems that John Donne wrote are: The Flea, woman’s constancy, the indifferent, the good morrow, The sun rising, Go and catch a falling star and a lot of sonnets in a book called Holy Sonnets.

Analysis Personally I think this is a very beautiful love poem. I believe that this is a poem of a guy that is very in love with a girl, and when she leaves he feels like dying because he loves her so much.

Also he talks about how that girl is so special for him that without saying or doing anything, stole her heart and left it with other type of heart, but the real one is always with her.

Ben Jonson Personal Life: He was born June 11, 1572 in London.

He never knew his father because he died before time.

He married a girl called Anne Lewis.

He was very well educated.

He died August 6, 1637.

Major Accomplishments: He was a poet, actor, critic and he wrote plays.

He liked controversy and satire, so he used it a lot in his plays.

He is known as one of the most important poets and dramatist of his time.

A lot of the poems that he wrote were directed to his supposed friends like John Donne and William Shakespeare, who he felt was very different than him., but he admired in a way.

Some of his most know drama creations are: The Case is Altered, Every Man In His Humour, Every Man Out of His Humour,Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair Some of his poems are: His Excuse for Loving, An Elegy, A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme, On My First Daughter and others.

Analysis Personally I believe that is very obvious that this poem it’s about how the author and his wife lost her daughter and he is handling the pain by writing a poem. Also he believes that her is in heaven because of her innocence. With a little bit of research I found out that Ben lost his daughter called Mary that was only 6 months old.

Comparison between John Donne and Ben Jonson work I think that their work has major differences. One that I notice with the research and information I found, is that the poems that Ben does are usually based in a specific person, and he lets us know in the title for example On My First Daughter, On my first son, to John Donne and others. But the poetry of John Donne is inaccurate to say about who is he talking about. Other main difference is that Jonson usually poems and plays are based on satire and sometimes comedy, because is what he likes; but in the case of Donne he talks about serious topics in a serious way. And also John makes really big metaphors and Ben not quite as much.

More information on: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ben-jonson https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/ben-jonson https://www.poemhunter.com/ben-jonson/ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne https://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/d/donne.htm https://www.poemhunter.com/john-donne/