The Double Life of a Poet ; MICHAEL SCHMIDT Donne: The Reformed Soul by John Stubbs VIKING Pounds 25 (565Pp) Pounds 22.50 (Free P&p) from 0870 079 8897

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John Stubbs divides the life of the great metaphysical poet and divine John Donne into three parts. In the first he grows up and sows his famous wild oats. In the second he tries with increasing desperation for secular preferment. At last, pushed by his friends, patrons and by King James I, he takes holy orders and finds a religious vocation, becoming Dean of St Paul's.

Each phase has its attendant spiritual and psycho-sexual dimension. Donne's family had deep Roman Catholic roots. The ancestral tree included martyred Thomas More (his teeth and brain- pan cherished heirlooms) and other notable recusants and exiles, and Donne's mother in particular was an unwavering …