399 years ago, John Donne, following his recovery from a serious illness, wrote and subsequently published Devotions or to give its full title, ‘Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and several steps in my Sickness’
This prose work contained the following passage:
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee
Can we just acknowledge how modern and crisp this after 399 years!
The sentence, “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind” would be a wonderful, wonderful sentence today. It needs no elaboration or context. Nevermind how important and humanistic the ideas remain.
My students and in The Wire class were reading an essay about Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell (portrayed by Idris Elba) entitled “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and we got to chatting about Hemingway and John Donne and one of my students informed that the rapper J.Cole has a sone called ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ - LINK
399 years, Donne’s bars are still bangers.