ABSTRACT
John Donne was set apart from the world he later tried to join by his Catholic upbringing. While Donne was finding himself as an entertaining companion and fine spirit among those who expected to play a part in the world, he was naturally much occupied with the Catholicism that kept him out of it. Donne’s military service would not be an irrevocable step away from a career at the Bar, but certainly he was trying a more adventurous course. Like Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole or looking glass, death in Donne is the entry to a counterworld where the imagination can sport freely, released from the rules of life. Though Donne’s is an utterly singular voice, though it gives expression to his singularity, his feelings of isolation, his self-centredness, his poetry puts a public face on these things and not just by making poetry of them but by stamping them with so extravagant and unconvivial a personality.
