Loving John Donne

Loving John Donne begins with Sir Henry Wotton and Izaak Walton fishing in the Thames and sharing memories about the enigmatic John Donne. Wotton recalls the witty young poet and man about town, while Walton remembers from his later life Donne's persuasive power as a preacher. This novel celebrates the complexities of Donne's character, from the playful satirist to the deeply spiritual Dr. Donne and explores the often-troubled relationship between Donne as an individual and the culture he inhabited. One of its aims is to capture the special energies inherent in the bond between Donne and Ann More, the young woman he clandestinely married in 1601. The narrative includes quotations from Donne's poetry and prose: sometimes Donne is shown in the act of composition or revision, sometimes a text of his is read years later by a friend or admirer, but in either case the link between writing and life is likely to be a riddle. Friends and lovers of Donne tried to solve this riddle in his own day, as this novel shows, and it is a tribute to his enduring impact that readers continue to do so today.