To Sir Henry Wotton Summary

To Sir Henry Wotton Overview

"To Sir Henry Wotton" is a poem by early modern English poet John Donne. The poem is part of a sub-genre of poetry called the verse letter, in which the poet crafts a letter – usually to a friend or close confidant – using traditional poetic devices. Wotton and Donne exchanged verse letters during a particularly fraught political period toward the end of Queen Elizabeth I's reign. This particular verse letter is believed to have been written in 1598.