"A Copy, to learne by": John Donne's "Writing Death"

Death is everywhere in Donne's work and there is no need to demonstrate anew to what extent it haunts an outstanding number of his texts (Ellrodt, 1973, 1:146-52 and in particular n. 63, 146). Donne's deep fascination with death is indeed amply evidenced in his poetry as well as in his prose works amongst which was his brave treatise on suicide, Biathanatos (1608), although that particular work was never published in his lifetime. Donne, who was an expert in self-dramatization, loved to imagi..