John Donne, 1573 – 1631, author of some of the greatest poems of the 17th century, is buried in St Paul’s cathedral, where he was Dean for a number of years. He coined many a famous phrase.
‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.’
‘No man is an island.’
And for ages I thought that second one was a Simon and Garfunkel lyric.
Also a busy public man, John Donne sat as an MP in Elizabeth I’s last parliament before taking holy orders.
Towards the end of his life he commissioned his own monument, a life size marble statue showing the poet in his shroud (the shroud he was buried in) peeping gloomily out from the folds of its hood.
He kept the monument in his house. When he died it was placed in old St Paul’s. Nearly half a century later St Paul’s burned down, destroying pretty much everything, with the one exception of John Donne’s monument. Today, you can still see the blackened lower parts of the marble, the only visible evidence of the Great Fire of London that consumed so much of London in 1666.
He wrote his own epitaph, the words are still there on the effigy, John Donne, Undone.
In 2012, a less imposing bronze bust of John Donne was unveiled in the newly completed garden to the south of the cathedral.
‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.’
‘No man is an island.’
And for ages I thought that second one was a Simon and Garfunkel lyric.
Also a busy public man, John Donne sat as an MP in Elizabeth I’s last parliament before taking holy orders.
Towards the end of his life he commissioned his own monument, a life size marble statue showing the poet in his shroud (the shroud he was buried in) peeping gloomily out from the folds of its hood.
He kept the monument in his house. When he died it was placed in old St Paul’s. Nearly half a century later St Paul’s burned down, destroying pretty much everything, with the one exception of John Donne’s monument. Today, you can still see the blackened lower parts of the marble, the only visible evidence of the Great Fire of London that consumed so much of London in 1666.
He wrote his own epitaph, the words are still there on the effigy, John Donne, Undone.
In 2012, a less imposing bronze bust of John Donne was unveiled in the newly completed garden to the south of the cathedral.
The bust points due west but shows Donne turning to face east towards his birthplace on Bread Street, just yards from the cathedral. The directions of the compass were important to Donne in his metaphysical work: east is the Rising Sun, the Holy Land and Christ, while west is the place of decline and of death.
St Paul’s Treasurer Rev. Mark Oakley said, "To be challenged with these thoughts in an energetic, busy and too often anonymous City is timely. Our recent study event in St Paul’s on Donne attracted over 1,600 people to attend and clearly showed how people continue to be drawn to his resonance as both poet and preacher.’
St Paul’s Treasurer Rev. Mark Oakley said, "To be challenged with these thoughts in an energetic, busy and too often anonymous City is timely. Our recent study event in St Paul’s on Donne attracted over 1,600 people to attend and clearly showed how people continue to be drawn to his resonance as both poet and preacher.’
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