Let’s Get Metaphysical

“That’s a super-good idea” used to be an expression I used and sometimes still do but the world has moved on and now it’s not even cool to say cool or super-cool; mega-cool might cut it.

Long before Johnson and Furnivall compiled dictionaries, new words and expressions were being used as they still are today. Computers, the Internet and all things digital have created a cyber-vocab. Chaucer was a creative neologist but that was because he expressed himself on paper. It’s most likely he wasn’t inventive but was setting down things he had picked up on the street or at the inne – “through thick and thin” and “piping hot” are credited to him – but there are about two thousand Chaucerisms.

Shakespeare wasn’t far behind (1,700 expressions and words): “Break the ice,” “good riddance,” “wild-goose chase,” “one fell swoop,” “elbow room,” “heart of gold,” “star-crossed lovers” etc. But let’s get metaphysical. Shakespeare’s contemporary, John Donne (1572-1631) was numerically less inventive, only about 340 new words are chalked up to him, but they are words he invented not street argot.

I read Donne as part of my English course at Durham but the only evidence I retain is a selection of his poems. I forgot about him until I was given Katherine Rundell’s biography, Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne. She is not how I imagine a typical fellow of All Souls; she was already a successful author of novels for children and adults before she did Donne. But fellows of All Souls are not of a type and nor was Dr Donne. He was born a Catholic starting him off on the wrong foot but after Cambridge (no degree because of being Catholic), travel and service against Spain at Cadiz and in the Azores he slipped into a diplomatic role. This was abruptly curtailed when he secretly got married to the anger of the bride’s father and Donne’s patrons. He was briefly put in prison on account of this. As Donne may have put it – “John Donne, Anne Donne, Undone”.

Twelve children and no proper employment left him impecunious and often writing begging letters. When a child died in infancy it was one less mouth to feed but he reflected on the expense of burials. All in all he had no prospects so it was a turn up when he took Holy Orders in the C of E and pretty soon James I chose him to be Dean of St Paul’s. With a few Livings scattered around the country he suddenly became a rich man.

Throughout he wrote poetry and latterly sermons. Kathryn Hughes, reviewing Super-Infinite in The Times, writes:

“Not that there was anything easy or basic about Donne’s verse. Its choppy rhythms, complete with linguistic puzzles, meant that some readers found it heavy-going or “harsh”. Instead of turning away, though, they felt compelled to lean in until they had puzzled out the meaning and made it their own.”

One of his longest and strangest poems is Metempsychosis. Rundell says “it is so peculiar and arduous that almost nobody has read it, including some professors of John Donne. So that’s why I don’t remember much about his poetry.

* * *

When I was in Estonia I had what you might call a cream bun but in Estonian a vastlakukkel. It is traditional fare on Shrove Tuesday and delicious.