John Donne

John Donne (1572–1631) was the leading English metaphysical poet, known for the intellectual wit of works like “The Flea” and the “Holy Sonnets.” After a turbulent early life he took orders in the Church of England and became Dean of St Paul’s in 1621. He wrote the Devotions upon Emergent Occasions in December 1623 while gravely ill, and its Meditation XVII — “No man is an island… for whom the bell tolls” — became his most quoted prose.