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John donne made poetry out of his life; now it has been turned into a wonderful biography, finds jonathan bate John Donne: The Reformed Soul BY JOHN STUBBS VIKING, pounds 25, 592 pp T pounds 23 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4115

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From: The Sunday Telegraph London
Date: 20060813
Author:Jonathan Bate

John Donne loved paradoxes, but here is one that he would not have liked. It is impossible to write a good biography of Shakespeare because we lack the key documents - letters and autobiographical writings - that would give us access to his inner life. And yet the lives of Shakespeare keep on coming, at the rate of at least two per year. John Donne, by contrast, is the earliest English author of whom it is possible to write a good biography and yet they are few and far between.

He was the first major author in the language to make poetry out of his own life. Not until Wordsworth and the ...

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