John Donne had a remarkable intellect. We live in a visual culture, but the early modern period was very much a literary culture, and the breadth of learning de

John Donne had a remarkable intellect. We live in a visual culture, but the early modern period was very much a literary culture, and the breadth of learning demonstrated in just a short poem by Donne or Marvell continues to astonish. Donne's ruminations on suicide parallel those of Hamlet around the same time. Whenever I walk past St Pauls in London, I think of Donne, giving his regular 2 hour plus sermons in the old cathedral.