|
|
Biographie
Prêtre et poète anglais, chef de file des poètes métaphysiques.
Né à Londres de parents catholiques, il descendait de Thomas More. Ayant l'ambition de faire carrière dans
les services de l'État, il commença des études de droit à Thavies Inn en 1591 et, avant ou après 1593,
date à laquelle son frère cadet, Henry, mourut en prison pour avoir donné asile à un prêtre catholique,
rallia l'Église anglicane. Ayant accompagné Essex à Cadix (1596) puis aux Açores (1597), il devint
le secrétaire, très estimé, du garde des Sceaux Thomas Egerton (1598), mais n'en fut pas moins congédié
par son protecteur (1601), pour avoir épousé en secret la nièce de celui-ci, Ann More. Destitué,
un temps emprisonné, Donne partagea alors avec sa femme, qui lui donna douze enfants, quatorze années
difficiles où se succédèrent en vain les oeuvres de circonstance pour gagner la faveur de personnages
influents. Sa participation à la propagande anglicane (Pseudo-Martyr, 1610), sa satire contre les
Jésuites (Conclave d'Ignace, 1611) marquèrent le glas de ses ambitions profanes?; en signe de reconnaissance,
Jacques Ier ne lui accorda l'accès qu'à une seule carrière: l'Église. Ordonné prêtre (1615), prédicateur
à Lincoln's Inn (1616-1621), doyen de Saint-Paul (1621), Donne acquit, grâce à ses Sermons (160 recueillis),
une fulgurante renommée. En 1617, le décès de sa femme accrut son obsession de la mort mais
aussi sa ferveur religieuse. Il mourut en février 1631 après avoir prononcé devant Charles
Ier sa dernière prédication, "le Duel de la mort".
Composée pendant sa jeunesse mondaine, tumultueuse et riche en paradoxes, la majeure partie de l'oeuvre
poétique de Donne (Satires, 1595-1598; la Litanie, 1609; Élégies, Chants et sonnets, 1611; les Anniversaires,
1611-1612; le Nocturne, 1612; les Lamentations de Jérémie, 1631), suscita aussitôt l'étonnement et
l'admiration de ses lecteurs par ses innovations formelles et thématiques. Métaphysique par excellence,
la poésie de Donne cultive l'un des procédés fondamentaux de la poésie baroque, le conceit, qui,
en rapprochant deux ordres de réalité, matière et esprit, humain et divin, visible et invisible,
projette l'esprit dans un monde de l'immédiateté, temporelle et spatiale, où la distance s'abolit
dans le mouvement, et où l'éternité devient concrète. Outil épistémologique pour Donne, le conceit
témoigne de sa quête, insoutenable, d'une union de la matière et de la forme, de la chair et de l'esprit,
mais aussi de sa hantise de la mort, souhaitée car elle relie enfin l'être à l'éternité, ou redoutée
car elle le précipite dans le néant. De même, acharné à se connaître, Donne soumet sa propre personne
à l'analyse: dans l'alternance de l'autodérision et de l'autosanctification, se lit la vérité. Innovant
avec une absolue modernité, il substitue aux conventions pétrarquistes, aux règles métriques et à la scansion
alors en vigueur, les tournures et les inflexions de la langue parlée, des sonorités rauques et une prosodie
cahotante qui banalisent des thèmes graves. Prenant le contre-pied d'une tradition qui avait fini par éthérer
l'amour, il célèbre l'amour charnel en disant les choses crûment, mais sans jamais exclure la dimension
spirituelle de l'union des amants. Admiré de Coleridge, pour qui il est celui qui sut "tresser en lacs
d'amour des tisonniers de fer", apprécié de Pope, Donne fut"redécouvert"au XXe siècle, notamment par Pound,
Yeats et T.S. Eliot.
Tiré de:"Donne, John", Encyclopédie Microsoft® Encarta® 2000. © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation.
|
Biography
John Donne was born in 1572 in London, England. He is known as the founder of the Metaphysical Poets,
a term created by Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth-century English essayist, poet, and philosopher.
The loosely associated group also includes George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, and John
Cleveland. The Metaphysical Poets are known for their ability to startle the reader and coax new perspective
through paradoxical images, subtle argument, inventive syntax, and imagery from art, philosophy, and religion
using an extended metaphor known as a conceit. Donne reached beyond the rational and hierarchical structures
of the seventeenth century with his exacting and ingenious conceits, advancing the exploratory spirit of his time.
Donne entered the world during a period of theological and political unrest for both England and France;
a Protestant massacre occurred on Saint Bartholomew's day in France; while in England, the Catholics were
the persecuted minority. Born into a Roman Catholic family, Donne's personal relationship with religion
was tumultuous and passionate, and at the center of much of his poetry. He studied at both Oxford and
Cambridge Universities in his early teen years. He did not take a degree at either school,
because to do so would have meant subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles, the doctrine that defined Anglicanism.
At age twenty he studied law at Lincoln's Inn. Two years later he succumbed to religious pressure and joined
the Anglican Church after his younger brother, convicted for his Catholic loyalties, died in prison.
Donne wrote most of his love lyrics, erotic verse, and some sacred poems in the 1590's, creating two major
volumes of work: Satires, and Songs and Sonnets.
In 1598, after returning from a two-year naval expedition against Spain, Donne was appointed private
secretary to Sir Thomas Edgarton. While sitting on Queen Elizabeth's last Parliament in 1601,
Donne secretly married Anne More, the sixteen-year-old niece of Lady Edgarton. Donne's father-in-law
disapproved of the marriage. As punishment, he did not provide a dowry for the couple and had Donne
briefly imprisoned. This left the couple isolated and dependent on friends, relatives, and patrons.
Donne suffered social and financial instability in the years following his marriage, exacerbated by
the birth of many children. He continued to write and published the Divine Poems in 1607. In Pseudo-Martyr,
published in 1610, Donne displayed his extensive knowledge of the laws of the Church and state, arguing
that Roman Catholics could support James I without compromising their faith. In 1615, James I pressured
him to enter the Anglican Ministry by declaring that Donne could not be employed outside of the Church.
He was appointed Royal Chaplain later that year. His wife, aged thirty-three, died in 1617, shortly
after giving birth to their twelfth child, a stillborn. The Holy Sonnets are also attributed to this
phase of his life.
In 1621 he became dean of Saint Paul's Cathedral. In his later years, Donne's writing reflected his
fear of his inevitable death. He wrote his private prayers, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions,
during a period of severe illness and published them in 1624. His learned, charismatic, and
inventive preaching made him a highly influential presence in London. Best known for his vivacious,
compelling style and thorough examination of mortal paradox, John Donne died in London in 1631.
This bio was last updated on Jul 11, 2001.
Référence: The Academy of American poets
|
|---|
