John Donne is known today as being the chief writer of verse known as metaphysical poetry, which features elaborate conceits and surprising symbols, wrapped up in original, challenging language structures. John Donne was born to a Roman Catholic family in 1572 on Bread Street in London. Although he was born to a well-known Catholic family, he later converted to Anglicanism during the 1590s. His father died when he was only four and left him and his other two siblings to be raised by their mother. Donne learned his first years of education form Jesuits, but at the age of 11, he entered the University of Oxford. He only studied there for three years before transferring to the University of Cambridge, where he spent the next three years studying. However, he did not receive a degree from either of these universities because he could not take the Oath of Supremacy required to graduate. He began to question his faith when his brother gave shelter to a proscribed Catholic priest and was arrested. His brother died in prison due to a fever in 1593. Soon after, he began his first writings and first book of poems, Satires, which is considered one of his most important literary works. By 1598, his career in law was becoming successful, however, in 1601, he secretly married seventeen-year-old Anne More, and thus destroyed his flourishing career. For the next twelve years, he struggled to support his growing family. He made a meager living as a lawyer, but received some assistance from friends and family to make ends meet. Donne continued to write and as he approached forty, he published two anti-Catholic polemics Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius His Conclave. In 1615, Donne unwillingly joined the ministry and later that year was appointed Royal Chaplain. 160 of his sermons survive in completion today. Anne Donne died just two years later after she gave birth to the couple's twelfth child, a stillborn. Only 7 of their children actually outlived ...