About the contributions made by John Donne

[rex_yuan]

What contributions do you think have been made by John Donne? to the development of British Literature? Can you illustrate your point with examples?:o

[Munro]

I honestly have no idea, but if it helps, I've heard that T.S. Eliot wrote some essays about how important a contribution he (and the Metaphysical Poets) made to the English Language, before Eliot wrote about them apparently they were written off as insignificant. So maybe you could check some of them out, I dunno.

[putty]

From what I have read, I think Eliot praised Donne and the so-called metaphysical poets because they communicated their ideas with sharp, images that conveyed the meanings and more--that is a reader could recall a diversity of associations and thus the poetry enriched his mind. Eliot admired how Donne showed rather than told, as Eliot thought art should do. Poetry should be like a painting, not like a dissertation as Wordsworth made it. Meaning should come by association with the reader's experience and other things in the world.