Tuesday Apr 26, 2022

Katherine Rundell: John Donne, Super-Infinite (1601)

This week we head back to Renaissance England to immerse ourselves in the world of John Donne, one of Britain’s most ingenious poets. We visit playhouses, bear-fighting pits and the poet’s marital bed to better understand Donne’s life and work.

John Donne led many lives, from a young rake in his early years to archdeacon of St Paul’s in his old age. Born into a grand Catholic family who had suffered persecution under Protestant monarchs, he was intimately acquainted with the cruelty of sixteenth-century England. In particular, the tragic death of his younger brother who, aged just nineteen, was thrown into prison for hiding a Jesuit priest and subsequently caught the plague.

However Donne’s poetry isn’t defeatist – he was famous in his time for his unusual, intelligent and imaginative work, which used fleas to talk about sex and violence to talk about God. And in the view of our guest today, Katherine Rundell, Donne should be considered alongside William Shakespeare as one of the finest wordsmiths this country has ever produced. That’s why she has written a sparkling new biography of the poet: Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne.

Katherine Rundell is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Her bestselling books for children have been translated into more than thirty languages and have won multiple awards. She has written for, amongst others, the London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times: mostly about books, though sometimes about night climbing, tightrope walking, and animals.

This episode is sponsored by ACE Cultural Tours, the oldest and most experienced provider of study tours and cultural travel in the United Kingdom. Find out more via their website at www.aceculturaltours.co.uk or speak to their friendly team on 01223 841055.

Show Notes

Scene One: 1601. John Donne composing rakish poetry as a man about town - including almost certainly Love’s Growth - attending bear baiting

Scene Two: 1601. The first performance of Hamlet - which Donne would, perhaps, as a great attender of plays, have gone to see

Scene Three: 1601. John Donne marries the 17 year old Anne and is thrown in the Fleet prison by her father, amid ice-cold winds and lice

Momento: John Donne’s Commonplace book.