Metaphysical Poetry: Examine Major Metaphysical Poets

"In the seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in from which we have never recovered."

T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)

U.S.-born British poet and playwright.

Selected Essays, "The Metaphysical Poets"

 Introduction

It was Dr. Samuel Johnson who first christened Donne and his followers the metaphysical poets in his Life of Cowley. About the beginning of the 17^th century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets. Johnson derived the term from Dryden’s disparaging remark that Donne "Affect the metaphysics”. So in current literary criticism ‘Metaphysical’ underlies the special feature of Donne’s poets –The lively play of intellect, the alliance of passion and playfulness and a reorganization of many-sidedness of human passion -complex and dramatic and unusual in syntax and imagery. The poetic practice of Donne started a powerful movement which unfenced a large body of poetry in the first halt of 17^th century and brought about a revival of metaphysical poetic tradition in the modern era. 

Characteristics of Metaphysical Poetry

After careful evaluations of metaphysical poets a few common traits are found. first of all it's Complex Conceits. Metaphysical poetry employs intricate and unconventional metaphors, often combining disparate ideas to explore profound philosophical or spiritual concepts. added to that there is Intellectual Wit. The poets often use wit and wordplay to engage readers intellectually, creating intricate and thought-provoking verses that require deep contemplation. Their poetry is Paradox and Ambiguity, sometimes even ludicrously unwanted.  However majority of the Metaphysical poets embrace paradox and ambiguity, using contradictory ideas and images to challenge conventional wisdom and explore the complexities of existence. this school of poetry combines Intellectual and Emotional Elements, often veiling intense emotions beneath the surface of elaborate metaphysical conceits. They never stop experiments with Unconventional verse Forms, such as irregular rhyme schemes and meter, to match the complex and unconventional ideas expressed in the poems.

Now let us examine major metaphysical poets under the following heads.

John Donne

John Donne (1572-1631) 

Known for his complex metaphysical conceits, Donne's poetry explores themes of love, spirituality, and mortality with intellectual rigor and emotional depth. He is the most independent of the Elizabethan poets revolted, as Albert says, against the easy faced style, stock imagery and pastoral conventions of follower of Spenser. He aimed at reality of thought and vivid nests of expression. “Wit, the soul of metaphysical poetry, makes Donne a poet of exceptional brilliance. It is his very genoas that fashions his feelings and his thought” (Legouis) His poetry embraces principally themes of love and religion, metaphysical in his conception and vigorous expressions of his intensely perennial feeling and reveals a powerful and complex being. They are profoundly sensuous and very often sublimated by the thought of death. The Anniversary, The Flea, The Good Morrow, A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day, A valediction: Forbidding Mourning , The Sun Raising, The Canonization, Holy Sonnets are of his most typical metaphysical poems. They all display intellectual complex imagery and irregularity of form. He frequently employed the conceit, an elaborate metaphor making striking syntheses of apparently unrelated objects or ideas. His intellectuality, introspection, and use of colloquial diction, seemingly unpoetic but always uniquely precise in meaning and connotation, make his poetry boldly divergent from the smooth, elegant verse of his day. His passion, feeling and sensuality are couched in wit and conceits.

 In portraying these characteristics and sudden flight of mood from the material to the spiritual, Donne resort to breath- taking, farfetched and fantastic images; parted lovers are like the legs of a pair of compasses, lovers is a spider  which ‘transubstantiates’, all his sick body is a map, his physician is a cosmographers and death his south-west discoveries,. He religious poems comprising the ‘Holy smock are the expressions of a deep and trouble soul. Intense and personal as the sonnets are, they are characterized by the intellectual subtlety, the scholastic learning and the wit and conceits of the love poems. However, inspire of ‘affecting the metaphysics,’ as Dryden alleged, there is no doubt that Donne enriched poetic tradition in the way he refined thought. Donne exerted considerable influence on his followers, their poetry has lyrical beauty, love or religions subject, metrical felicity of speech.

George Herbert (1593-1633)

 He is remembered chiefly for his religious poems The Retreat, The Temple and The Collar. Comparing Donne he has a simple and unimpeded devoutness but shows his metaphysical quality in his usual conceits and in the blending of thought and felling. His poetry combines religious devotion with intricate metaphors and imagery, expressing his deep faith and exploring the complexities of human experience.

Thomas Carew (1598-1639)

The lyrics of Thomas Carew show the influence of Donne but have a gravity and wit of their own. He fuses intense religious imagery with metaphysical exploration, often employing paradoxes and vivid sensory language to express spiritual longing and ecstasy. His long poem The Raptures is, however, marred by sex and bad taste.

Richard Crashaw (1613-49)

Richard Crashaw, the Roman Catholic poet, shows the influence of Donne in his best wrote poem steps to The Temple. His poems are not always metaphysical inspire of his preference for the stricken conceits. They lack complexity of mind, conflict and tension and his approach is more emotional then thoughtful and his images are pictorial than intellectual 

Henry Vaughan(1622-95)

 Vaughan's metaphysical poetry delves into themes of nature, spirituality, and the human soul, blending complex metaphors with a profound sense of wonder and contemplation. Henry was influenced by Donne and Herbert. He has a mysticism as revealed in such poem The Retreat and I saw Eternity The other Night. Vaughan was more successful in his love poems. However he anticipated words, words in his mystic regard for nature.

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

Marvell's metaphysical poetry encompasses themes of love, politics, and nature, characterized by his wit, intellectual depth, and imaginative use of language. Marvell's intellectually rigorous and finely balanced lyric verse include the well-known lyric works  The Garden, To His Coy Mistress, The Definition of Love,  and  Bermudas. 

Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)

Traherne is often considered as the last of the Metaphysical poets. Traherne's metaphysical poetry explores the relationship between nature, God, and human existence, often reflecting a sense of wonder and celebrating the beauty and interconnectedness of the world.

Ardhendu De 

References

 1.ALBERT. (2000). History of English Literature (Fifth Edition) [English]. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.

2. Legouis & Cazamian’s : History of English Literature - in 5 Vols. (n.d.). Legouis & Cazamian&Rsquo;S : History of English Literature - in 5 Vols. https://www.shreepublishers.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1190

3.Full text of “Johnson’s Lives of the poets.” (n.d.). Full Text of “Johnson’s Lives of the Poets.” https://archive.org/stream/johnsonslivespo02napigoog/johnsonslivespo02napigoog_djvu.txt