‘No man is an island’ – is one of those oft-quoted sayings. Not many people know, or maybe care about, what follows on in John Donne’s poem. The first two lines of this poem, one of the ‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’, are ‘No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main’. anniversary of John Donne’s birth is celebrated this year.
John Donne lived in interesting, and possibly dangerous, times, in the First Elizabethan era. In those turbulent times, characterised by reformation in Europe and the creation of the Church of England in this country, Donne was born into a Roman Catholic family that staunchly remained Roman Catholic after the English reformation. His mother was a great-niece of Sir Thomas More.
John Donne spent three years in Oxford as an undergraduate and a further three years in Cambridge University, but notably did not receive a degree from either University because at that time one had to take an Oath of Supremacy (that is, of allegiance to the monarch as the ‘Supreme Governor of the Church of England’) to be able to graduate, or hold responsible positions. He went on then to become a lawyer.
During and after his student days, he is said to have squandered his inheritance on women, literature, pastimes and travel. He fought against the Spanish and on his return, at the age of 25, was appointed to be chief secretary to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas Egerton. However, his secret marriage to Egerton’s niece was against the wishes of her family and resulted in his imprisonment. He was soon released but it took several years before there was a reconciliation with his father-in-law and he could receive a dowry.
The death of his brother of bubonic plague, after being imprisoned in Newgate prison for harbouring a Roman Catholic priest, made him question his Roman Catholic faith, and he eventually became active as an anti-Catholic. He had no intention of being ordained, wishing rather to be reinstated to the court of King James, but he was persuaded to take holy order instead by the King! After serving as a priest in England and Germany, he was appointed Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1620 and remained there for over ten years.
Just three years after arriving at St Paul’s, one of his daughters died at the age of 18, and he himself became severely ill. It was during his convalescence that he wrote his collection of works, ‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’, mainly reflections on pain, loss, grief and love. ‘No man is an island’ appears in that collection. Ernest Hemingway chose another phrase from that same poem* as the title of one of his novels, For Whom the Bell Tolls. The phrase comes from the last line: ‘And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’
There is a monument in Westminster Abbey for the Very Rev. John Donne: poet, soldier, theologian, preacher and scholar.
The poem in full:
No man is an island, Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, As well as if a promontory were, As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
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