id author title date pages extension mime words sentences flesch summary cache txt en-wikipedia-org-3858 John Donne - Wikipedia .html text/html 6815 781 76 John Donne (/dʌn/ DUN; 22 January 1572[1] – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England.[3] Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631).[2] He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. Dryden had written of Donne in 1693: "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."[24] In Life of Cowley (from Samuel Johnson's 1781 work of biography and criticism Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets), Johnson refers to the beginning of the seventeenth century in which there "appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets". ./cache/en-wikipedia-org-3858.html ./txt/en-wikipedia-org-3858.txt