Super-Infinite, Part 3 and John Donne - Two Satires

Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects two programmes featuring John Donne: Super Infinite - a biography, and John Donne - Two Satires.

**And Daljit reads from his Poetry Extra Book of the Month - Gravity Archives by Andrew Motion.

***Super-Infinite ep 3/5

Katherine Rundell’s biography of the poet and "alchemist" of words John Donne. Today, the loss of his brother Henry, and the loss of his faith.

This prize-winning biography of John Donne reveals him as an “infinity merchant”, a man whose preaching could make his congregation weep, a poet whose “beauty deserved walk-on music”.

Rundell's engaging, witty and often thrilling book champions an impossible to categorise man: pirate, soldier, scholar, priest, inventor of new words and author of some of most intensely and intimately passionate poetry in English. Donne was a Catholic who lost - or left - his faith, from a family of martyrs, whose career led him to become Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

Reader - Blake Ritson

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2023

***John Donne - Two Satires

Donne the law student is tempted away from his books by the humorist. He satirises with great wit the indulgent members of the middle class. This poem is followed by one of Donne's great elegies, Elegy 5 - in which Donne leaves a portrait of himself with his lover before he embarks on a long sea voyage.

In Satire 3, Donne magnificently explores our responsibility in finding the good, the spiritual life away from one of temptation.

Produced by Peter Fozzard

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1991.