Donne loved the trans- prefix: it’s scattered everywhere across his writing – ‘transpose’, ‘translate’, ‘transport’, ‘transubstantiate’. In this Latin preposition – ‘across, to the other side of, over, beyond’ – he saw both the chaos and potential of us. We are, he believed, creatures born transformable. He knew of transformation into misery: ‘But O, self-traitor, I do bring/The spider love, which transubstantiates all/And can convert manna to gall’ – but also the transformation achieved by beautiful women: ‘Us she informed, but transubstantiates you’.
