SOURCE: Cain, Tom. “Donne and the Prince D'Amour.” John Donne Journal: Studies in the Age of Donne 14 (1995): 83-111.

In the following essay, Cain examines Donne's Satyres in historical context to shed light on Donne's political and religious coming of age.

Despite his involvement with such figures as Essex and Egerton, and his membership of two parliaments, Donne remains politically enigmatic. For those many readers who still see his poetry as characterized by the very fact that it transcends its time and its roots in history this has never been a problem. Until recently, however, almost all those who have refused to cut Donne off from his times and his first audience have seen him as a conservative monarchist. Whether presented as ideologically committed, as a timeserver, or as the helpless voice of the dominant discourse of power, he sounds much the same in his absolutist attitudes when ready...