Opinion Today: What this poet knew about death can teach us a lot about life

To live a joyful life, John Donne insists that we cherish our mortality. [View in browser](~/AAAAAQA~/RgRk_wHSP4QoAWh0dHBzOi8vbWVzc2FnaW5nLWN1c3RvbS1uZXdzbGV0dGVycy5ueXRpbWVzLmNvbS90ZW1wbGF0ZS9vYWt2Mj9jYW1wYWlnbl9pZD0zOSZlbWM9ZWRpdF90eV8yMDIyMDkxMCZpbnN0YW5jZV9pZD03MTYxMiZubD1vcGluaW9uLXRvZGF5JnByb2R1Y3RDb2RlPVRZJnJlZ2lfaWQ9Nzc2NzQ5NTImc2VnbWVudF9pZD0xMDU5NTcmdGU9MSZ1cmk9bnl0JTNBJTJGJTJGbmV3c2xldHRlciUyRjQ0ZDY1NGFmLTFjZWEtNTE5NS1hMjg3LTZhN2JjMWY5NmIxYyZ1c2VyX2lkPWFhNDkxZWY3ZjFkOTY0ZTQ5NzlmYjc4NGU3NGUwMWQ3VwNueXRCCmMX0nwcY4_rK6tSG3RyaXN0cmFtYmFsZHdpbjkwQGdtYWlsLmNvbVgEAAAAAA~~)|[nytimes.com](~/AAAAAQA~/RgRk_wHSP0SwaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vP2NhbXBhaWduX2lkPTM5JmVtYz1lZGl0X3R5XzIwMjIwOTEwJmluc3RhbmNlX2lkPTcxNjEyJm5sPW9waW5pb24tdG9kYXkmcmVnaV9pZD03NzY3NDk1MiZzZWdtZW50X2lkPTEwNTk1NyZ0ZT0xJnVzZXJfaWQ9YWE0OTFlZjdmMWQ5NjRlNDk3OWZiNzg0ZTc0ZTAxZDdXA255dEIKYxfSfBxjj-srq1IbdHJpc3RyYW1iYWxkd2luOTBAZ21haWwuY29tWAQAAAAA)[Continue reading the main story](#a11y-skip-ad-marquee) ~/AAAAAQA~/RgRk_wHSP0RtaHR0cHM6Ly9saXZlaW50ZW50Lm5ld3lvcmt0aW1lc2luZm8uY29tL2NsaWNrP3M9MTYyMTM5JmxpPVRZJm09YWE0OTFlZjdmMWQ5NjRlNDk3OWZiNzg0ZTc0ZTAxZDcmcD1UWV8yMDIyMDkxMFcDbnl0QgpjF9J8HGOP6yurUht0cmlzdHJhbWJhbGR3aW45MEBnbWFpbC5jb21YBAAAAAA~ [Read more from Opinion](~/AAAAAQA~/RgRk_wHSP0S_aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vc2VjdGlvbi9vcGluaW9uP2NhbXBhaWduX2lkPTM5JmVtYz1lZGl0X3R5XzIwMjIwOTEwJmluc3RhbmNlX2lkPTcxNjEyJm5sPW9waW5pb24tdG9kYXkmcmVnaV9pZD03NzY3NDk1MiZzZWdtZW50X2lkPTEwNTk1NyZ0ZT0xJnVzZXJfaWQ9YWE0OTFlZjdmMWQ5NjRlNDk3OWZiNzg0ZTc0ZTAxZDdXA255dEIKYxfSfBxjj-srq1IbdHJpc3RyYW1iYWxkd2luOTBAZ21haWwuY29tWAQAAAAA) September 10, 2022 His writing about sex is explicit, joyful and strange: a bodily salute to life. Getty Images By Katherine Rundell I was bribed into loving John Donne. My parents pinned poetry on the bathroom wall next to the sink where my siblings and I brushed our teeth and paid us for each poem we memorized. I was a mercenary child, with expensive taste in small plastic dog figurines; the exchange rate was roughly four poems per dog, and so I learned a great deal of Donne. I learned, not realizing it at the time, some of the finest love poetry ever written in the English language. I did not wholly understand the poems, but I understood that I loved them, for the way their vividness took root. And I know now that the poetry you learn as a child comes back to you as an adult. Two and a half decades later, I’m a fellow of All Souls College in Oxford, and I think that much of what attracted me to Donne was his insistence on our strangeness. Donne — the rakish, penurious poet whose preaching earned him celebrity, fortune and a captive audience in early 17th-century London — lived and wrote at a time when courtly convention was awash in clichés, when women were roses, birds or fawns. Philip Sidney, an Elizabethan poet born a generation before Donne, compared his lady’s shoulders to “two white doves”; Walter Raleigh, one of Queen Elizabeth’s favorite courtiers, hailed her as, variously, a goddess, a flower and a valley of everlasting summer. [Continue reading the main story](#a11y-skip-universal-0) ADVERTISEMENT ~/AAAAAQA~/RgRk_wHSP0RsaHR0cHM6Ly9saXZlaW50ZW50Lm5ld3lvcmt0aW1lc2luZm8uY29tL2NsaWNrP3M9NTk3ODUmbGk9VFkmbT1hYTQ5MWVmN2YxZDk2NGU0OTc5ZmI3ODRlNzRlMDFkNyZwPVRZXzIwMjIwOTEwVwNueXRCCmMX0nwcY4_rK6tSG3RyaXN0cmFtYmFsZHdpbjkwQGdtYWlsLmNvbVgEAAAAAA~~ Donne refused to play that game. He insisted instead on the peculiarity and carnality of our desire, showing us that linguistic originality is necessary to express the rampant originality of each human heart. He conjured images of compasses, fleas, taxes, concentric circles, hairy diadems, tongues as sucking fish, women as countries, as newly discovered worlds. He invented words, broke rhythms and scandalized his colleagues. And he could be bitter and cruel, acknowledging the feverishness, disappointment and spite in love. His work, the focus of [my guest essay](~/AAAAAQA~/RgRk_wHSP0TYaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vMjAyMi8wOS8xMC9vcGluaW9uL2pvaG4tZG9ubmUtZGVhdGguaHRtbD9jYW1wYWlnbl9pZD0zOSZlbWM9ZWRpdF90eV8yMDIyMDkxMCZpbnN0YW5jZV9pZD03MTYxMiZubD1vcGluaW9uLXRvZGF5JnJlZ2lfaWQ9Nzc2NzQ5NTImc2VnbWVudF9pZD0xMDU5NTcmdGU9MSZ1c2VyX2lkPWFhNDkxZWY3ZjFkOTY0ZTQ5NzlmYjc4NGU3NGUwMWQ3VwNueXRCCmMX0nwcY4_rK6tSG3RyaXN0cmFtYmFsZHdpbjkwQGdtYWlsLmNvbVgEAAAAAA~~) this week, is sharp, funny, mean, both flippant and deadly serious; and it is therefore that we can believe him when he writes of transformation, and of joys. Many people read Donne’s work in high school — accompanied by the smells of lunch meat and other teenagers, a difficult setting to make poetry fly — and don’t return to him. But, as I write in my essay this week, his work is worth revisiting: Because in his boldness, his peculiar sexy and unruly mysticism, he prompts us to consider that humans are both miracles and catastrophes, and that in order for there to be joy, there must also be a cherishing of death. READ KATHERINE’S ESSAY HERE [Guest Essay What John Donne Knew About Death Can Teach Us a Lot About Life He thought humans a disaster, the most spectacular disaster there has ever been. By Katherine Rundell](~/AAAAAQA~/RgRk_wHSP0TYaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vMjAyMi8wOS8xMC9vcGluaW9uL2pvaG4tZG9ubmUtZGVhdGguaHRtbD9jYW1wYWlnbl9pZD0zOSZlbWM9ZWRpdF90eV8yMDIyMDkxMCZpbnN0YW5jZV9pZD03MTYxMiZubD1vcGluaW9uLXRvZGF5JnJlZ2lfaWQ9Nzc2NzQ5NTImc2VnbWVudF9pZD0xMDU5NTcmdGU9MSZ1c2VyX2lkPWFhNDkxZWY3ZjFkOTY0ZTQ5NzlmYjc4NGU3NGUwMWQ3VwNueXRCCmMX0nwcY4_rK6tSG3RyaXN0cmFtYmFsZHdpbjkwQGdtYWlsLmNvbVgEAAAAAA~~) [Article Image](~/AAAAAQA~/RgRk_wHSP0TYaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vMjAyMi8wOS8xMC9vcGluaW9uL2pvaG4tZG9ubmUtZGVhdGguaHRtbD9jYW1wYWlnbl9pZD0zOSZlbWM9ZWRpdF90eV8yMDIyMDkxMCZpbnN0YW5jZV9pZD03MTYxMiZubD1vcGluaW9uLXRvZGF5JnJlZ2lfaWQ9Nzc2NzQ5NTImc2VnbWVudF9pZD0xMDU5NTcmdGU9MSZ1c2VyX2lkPWFhNDkxZWY3ZjFkOTY0ZTQ5NzlmYjc4NGU3NGUwMWQ3VwNueXRCCmMX0nwcY4_rK6tSG3RyaXN0cmFtYmFsZHdpbjkwQGdtYWlsLmNvbVgEAAAAAA~~) [Continue reading the main story](#a11y-skip-universal-1) ADVERTISEMENT ~/AAAAAQA~/RgRk_wHSP0RtaHR0cHM6Ly9saXZlaW50ZW50Lm5ld3lvcmt0aW1lc2luZm8uY29tL2NsaWNrP3M9MjAxODEyJmxpPVRZJm09YWE0OTFlZjdmMWQ5NjRlNDk3OWZiNzg0ZTc0ZTAxZDcmcD1UWV8yMDIyMDkxMFcDbnl0QgpjF9J8HGOP6yurUht0cmlzdHJhbWJhbGR3aW45MEBnbWFpbC5jb21YBAAAAAA~ THE WEEK IN BIG IDEAS [Article Image](~/AAAAAQA~/RgRk_wHSP0TuaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vaW50ZXJhY3RpdmUvMjAyMi8wOS8wOC9vcGluaW9uL3VyYmFuLWhpZ2h3YXlzLXNlZ3JlZ2F0aW9uLmh0bWw_Y2FtcGFpZ25faWQ9MzkmZW1jPWVkaXRfdHlfMjAyMjA5MTAmaW5zdGFuY2VfaWQ9NzE2MTImbmw9b3Bpbmlvbi10b2RheSZyZWdpX2lkPTc3Njc0OTUyJnNlZ21lbnRfaWQ9MTA1OTU3JnRlPTEmdXNlcl9pZD1hYTQ5MWVmN2YxZDk2NGU0OTc5ZmI3ODRlNzRlMDFkN1cDbnl0QgpjF9J8HGOP6yurUht0cmlzdHJhbWJhbGR3aW45MEBnbWFpbC5jb21YBAAAAAA~) [Mr. Biden, Tear Down This Highway If urban highways enforce racial barriers between neighborhoods, why do officials keep spending so much to expand them? 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