Two more hot dead guys

John Donne

I don’t know that I consider him to be hot, really, but he has a very nice face and he wrote some very lovely poems. Anyone who’s ever taken a college-level English class has probably read something by John Donne. One of his most famous works is “Meditation 17” from a collection called Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. This is the poem with the lines, “No man is an island” and “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.” It inspired Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, written more than 300 years after Donne’s death. And if they ever decide to cast a period film with Donne as one of the characters, I think Robert Downey Jr. should play him.

Voltaire

I’m not a fan of the hair. But other than that, Voltaire, born François-Marie d’Arouet, was a pretty handsome fella. He was a writer and philosopher who was well known in French high society for his clever bon mots. But his particular brand of snark wasn’t appreciated by all. His habit of loudly criticizing the goverment, the royal family, the Catholic church, and prominent members of society, got him into trouble a lot. He did a stint at the Bastille, followed by exile to England, followed by various other bans and exiles throughout his life. Quite the dashing troublemaker, non?