John Donne (pronounced /ˈdʌn/ "dunn"; 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English Jacobean poet, preacher and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works are notable for their realistic and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially as compared to those of his contemporaries.

Despite his great education and poetic talents he lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. In 1615 he became an Anglican priest and, in 1621, was appointed the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. John Donne was born on Bread Street in London, England, in the year 1572, into a Catholic family at a time when Catholicism was illegal in England.

Donne was the third of six children. His father, also named John Donne, was of Welsh descent, and a warden of the Ironmongers Company in the City of London. Donne's father was a respected Roman Catholic who avoided unwelcome government attention out of fear of being persecuted for his religious faith.

Donne's father died in 1576, leaving his wife, Elizabeth Heywood, the responsibility of raising their children. Elizabeth Heywood, also from a noted Roman Catholic family, was the daughter of John Heywood, the playwright, and sister of Jasper Heywood, the translator and Jesuit. She was a great-niece of the Roman Catholic martyr Thomas More.

This tradition of martyrdom would continue among Donne’s closer relatives, many of whom were executed or exiled for religious reasons. Despite the obvious dangers, Donne’s family arranged for his education by the Jesuits, which gave him a deep knowledge of his religion that equipped him for the ideological religious conflicts of his time. Donne's mother married Dr John Syminges, a wealthy widower with three children, a few months after Donne's father died.

The next year, 1577, his mother died, followed by two more of his sisters, Mary and Katherine, in 1581. Before the future poet was ten years old he had thus experienced the deaths of four of his immediate family, including both parents.

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