Unlike the other poets we have considered thus far, John Donne's poetry makes continual efforts to repress the whole idea of procreation, making sex an end in itself. Donne tries to persuade himself, his audience and his female addressees that sex can be free of consequences. We may see this as rooted in the generic conventions of the Ovidian love elegy with which he began his poetic career, but it also reflects a habit of mind that persisted throughout his poetry and that even leaves traces in his sermons. Significantly, it is only when he writes for publication – in the Anniversaries – that he uses the common trope of poems as children. Surprisingly, for a poet whose work might be thought almost definitively ‘conceited’, Donne does not use the words ‘conceit’ or ‘conceive’ for his verse; the reason for this is not far to seek: other poets consider conceit or conception as a way to connect with the wider world, but for Donne ‘Wee are all conceived in close Prison’, and can never get out. Generally, he is a private poet, choosing genres and tropes that emphasize the self-sufficiency of the poet and his love. Whereas Sidney, Spenser and Shakespeare used ideas of paternity to impose unity on their works, Donne sees reproduction as compromising the integrity of the self; the love-connections he makes must develop the self without removing anything from its substance; love, for Donne, is a zero-sum game which cannot create anything new.