I was just watching an episode of Firefly, and saw in the credits that one of the actors was named "John Dunn". This name is incredibly familiar to me. At first I thought that it was an author, maybe from the Elizabethan period, maybe earlier. A google search on the name isn't turning up anything though. So...who am I thinking of? Am I just thinking of John Dee, the famous alchemist and astrologer of the Elizabethan era, or is it someone else.
I could swear he was an author. A poet. Definitely not modern. Gah! This is driving me insane! Any help?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
John Donne
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Oh! Thanks kat! Of course!
You have no idea how relieved I am that you responded so quickly--that was really driving me nuts.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Great, great poet.
quote:NOW thou hast loved me one whole day, To-morrow when thou leavest, what wilt thou say ? Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow ? Or say that now We are not just those persons which we were ? Or that oaths made in reverential fear Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear ? Or, as true deaths true marriages untie, So lovers' contracts, images of those, Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose ? Or, your own end to justify, For having purposed change and falsehood, you Can have no way but falsehood to be true ? Vain lunatic, against these 'scapes I could Dispute, and conquer, if I would ; Which I abstain to do, For by to-morrow I may think so too.
In the interest of full disclosure, he was on a crossword puzzle I did the other day, so I have been newly reminded how to spell it.
[ September 02, 2004, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
How is that pronounced, anyway? I don't think I ever had a class in which he was studied, so I don't know that I've ever heard his name pronounced. I've always pronounced it "Dunn" in my head, but I have no real reason to think that that's right. Actually, I'll bet it's not.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I think it is pronounced "dun." At least, that's how I've always pronounced. I wonder if Google knows.
Posted by Space Opera (Member # 6504) on :
It's pronounced "Dunn." He was a metaphysical poet.
space opera
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I'm in the process of looking, but I got kind of hung up on what looks like a fairly good page devoted to him, that unfortunately doesn't seem to contain any pronunciation guide.
The whole site looks pretty good, actually. Hm. I sense another night of going to bed too late looming.
Posted by the master (Member # 6788) on :
cool, because late night noemon does write the best emails.
Posted by Space Opera (Member # 6504) on :
Read "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning." It's a beautiful poem!
space opera
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Does that mean that there's one to reply to?
::off to check::
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
In fact no.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Oh, Space Opera, that is beautiful! I think this is my favorite verse:
Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to aery thinness beat.
Posted by the master (Member # 6788) on :
*snickers*
i had to get a dictionary out to read the last one, i'll get around to responding Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
You know, I did *tell* you I was going to be making typos and misspellings.
Reading over it, though, I'm suprised at how many there were. I felt kind of smug about their total absence in that message, after I was through. Ha!
Posted by Dante (Member # 1106) on :
Donne's great, one of my favorites. Last year I wrote a(n obviously brilliant) paper on corporality/textuality in his poetry. His prose is fantastic, too, though.
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
We read some Donne in my AP literature class last year. I really liked it, and I'm not big on poetry usually.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
He is one of my favorites as well.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Donne made God all sexy.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
This is so weird! I read "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" just last night! I was reading my old college literature course text, (I couldn't sleep) and just browsed through the poetry section.
Nothing like a little John Donne (and I always pronounced it like "dun" also), and Dylan Thomas at 2 AM. Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
That is an interesting coincidence Belle. Funny how stuff like that happens, isn't it?
Here's something trivial, but kind of odd. War Stories, the episode of Firefly that I was watching, features and actor named John Dunn, whose name, it would seem is pronounced identically to John Donne, and an actor named Johnny Shakespear.
Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
John Donne is, if not my favorite poet, among my top ten. I just can't get enough. If I were to get a doctorate in literature, I'd probably choose to specialize in him and become like Vivian in W;t.
Edit after seeing Noemon's: There's a Shakespeare professor at BYU named Bill Shakespeare.
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