Daniel Swift

A pure original: the inventive genius of John Donne

Donne created new words by breaking apart and recombining old ones, making the English language fresh and different

Soulful and seductive: portrait of Donne in his early twenties by an unknown artist. [Bridgeman Images] 
issue 16 April 2022

Perhaps it was all because of his name. John Donne: for a poet this must have felt a little like destiny, and even in the most unlikely of moments he couldn’t resist making puns. He sat down to write a letter to the enraged father of the teenage girl he had just married in secret.

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