ABSTRACT
John Symminges. Donne was educated at home by Catholic tutors, then sent to Hart Hall, Oxford, at the age of eleven. He may later have transferred to Cambridge but could not take a degree because of his religion. Little is known about his adolescence. It seems that when he was eighteen he wrote four poems to ‘T.W.’, which may have been addressed to Thomas Woodward, the 16-year-old brother of his friend Rowland Woodward. The poems are full of sexual puns and highly charged homoeroticism. Among his other poems ‘Sapho to Philaenis’ stands out as providing an early positive image of lesbian love. In ‘The Jughler’ Donne takes a dig at effeminacy. However, such poems apart, Donne seems to have led a heterosexual lifestyle. Together with Essex he sailed to sack Cadiz (1596), and with Raleigh he went to hunt Spanish treasure ships off the Azores (1597). Through one of his comrades-in-arms he became Sir Thomas Egerton’s secretary but lost his job and was briefly imprisoned when he secretly married the niece of his employer. Together they had twelve children. Donne eventually took holy orders in the Church of England and rose to the position of Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. His son published most of his poems after his death.
