ABSTRACT
John Donne's earliest recorded thinking about religious faith is contained in some of the so-called secular verse he wrote in the 1590s: Satire III, the prime example, is an unwaveringly serious poem about the absolute importance of the search for 'true religion'. The knowledge of the exact timing and motivation of his apostasy, however, is so meagre that we have no idea to what extent he followed what would seem to be the normal trajectory of those who change denomination, with dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the old object of allegiance yielding to enthusiasm for the new, coupled with a degree of disorientation and, sometimes, guilt. In view of the potent brand of Catholicism that Donne had imbibed and the rest of his family's continuing loyalty to it, we might well expect him to have felt disorientated, even nostalgic for the old certainties—and the verse dating from the early to mid-1590s does appear to reflect some very convoluted feelings.
