The phrase No man is an island is often assumed to be Shakespearean or from the Bible but it’s neither. John Donne (pronounced ‘Done’) was among the greatest of English posts and wrote some of the most beautiful love poetry of all time. However, this isn’t originally a poem at all; it’s from a sermon given by Donne when he was the Dean of St Pauls, London.
No Man is an Island by John Donne, written in 1623
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell
tolls;
It tolls for thee.
It was originally published in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. Its subject is the interconnectedness of all mankind and, more subtly, examines the relationship between man and God and enquires what it means to be alive. Donne is saying that people are social creatures and that no one can be truly self-sufficient; people need each other and are better together than they are apart. He argues that “any man’s death diminishes me” and tells the reader not to ask "for whom the bell tolls." That is, they don’t need to ask who death is coming for, because it’s coming for everyone. Another implicit point here, then, is that people should cherish being alive, and, while alive, embrace being part of the wider human family. Donne uses an extended metaphor, comparing the joining together of all people to a geographic land mass; each separate part belongs to a whole.
I'm listening to another poet; Bob Dylan's It's All Over Now Baby Blue, a song from a lifetime ago! You can listen to it here.
7 comments:
No Man is an Island was a very clever poem, and one to be expected by a man of literature.
However I didn't know that Donne was the Dean of St Pauls in London. Why did he give up a secure church position, even if it was not overly well paid, to go into the more shaky financial world of literature?
Actually I might have guessed it. His sexual and religious elements were not handled separately.
Hello Bazza, Although the basic meaning of Donne's famous lines cannot be denied, he apparently anticipated hippies and "togetherness" by several hundred years. I think we all have moods in which we feel strong agreement with Donne and attachment with all people, but on the other hand I could think of a number of 'clods' that I would willingly have "washed away by the sea". By the way, the portrait in your article shows him as a dashing Jacobean gentleman, but if you look at Nigel Boonham's 2012 bust in the Wikipedia article, he looks (in my opinion) like a dapper 19th century French composer.
--Jim
Hi Bazza - thanks for this ... I've some books to read on Donne - which need to be picked up! Grateful to have this ... thanks - cheers Hilary
Hels: It's hard to know these things but we DO know that it's nt really a poem despite being in beautiful poetic language. It really was from a sermon!
Jim: Well, from 400 years away (almost exactly) his image may have been transformed into a more modern realisation. I believe that his original intention was religious more than anything else. He obviously touched a nerve with his words!
Hilary: You are ever the student ready to learn on all topics! Donne is worth looking at in my opinion.
What about the Isle of Man ? ;)
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