Metaphysical poetry

 In the early 17th century poetry the themes

which Edmund Spenser had fused–pastoral,
patriotic, didactic, allegorical- are found distinctly
apart in the poets who came under his influence.
 The didactic strain which affected the Elizabethan
imagination meant the production of patriotic
historical verses (Michael Drayton -1563-1631,
England’s Heroical Epistles-1597) as well as of a
considerable variety of educational and
philosophical verses.
 One of the most successful philosophical poems
is The Nosce Teipsum of Sir John Davies (1569-
1626). It discusses the emptiness of human
knowledge and the importance of refining the
soul.
 Davies’s earlier poem Orchestra (1596) –the
Elizabethan view of universal order.
 In rhyme royal, this poem presents dance as the
principle of order in the universe. This can be
related to Milton’s view of the divine harmony
and the music of the spheres, as well as to other
neo-Platonic notions of life as dance-Yeats for eg.
 The Elizabethan didactic impulse found
expression in satire too with Horace inspiring a
line of wit and Juvenal suggesting a more violent
satire of direct abuse.
 The majority of the Elizabethan satirists
considered the iambic couplet the appropriate
verse form for their harsh, obscure and violent
satire
 Thomas Lodge wrote relatively mild satires,
more Horatian than Juvenalian in tone, John
Donne’s satires are violent and vivid,
whereas Joseph Hall moves between
Donne’s violence and the milder Horation
manner of Lodge.
 The epigram was a form much cultivated by
the Elizabethan with Sir John Harrington and
Sir John Davies as its most successful
practitioners.
 The Elizabethan epigram was a satire in
miniature and was a good opportunity for
the Elizabethans to exercise their
conciseness.
 The Elizabethan age is popularly regarded as the
great age of the musical verses. The mastery of
tempo and control over the modulation of tone,
the power over language which the Elizabethans
achieved is illustrated in a great variety of lyrics,
such as Thomas Campion (1567-1619)produced.
 Edmund Spenser drew together most of the
important trends in Elizabethan thought - The
Faerie Queen is one of the most remarkable
poetic syntheses in English
 Ben Jonson and john Donne represented in some
degree a revolt against the Spensarian tradition of
pastoral, allegorical, patriotic elements. Jonson
brought a sense of clarity and proportion in his
turn towards the classics (Martial, Horace)
 Against the highly ornamental Petrarchan
tradition, Jonson opposed classical rigour and
symmetry
 Donne set a poetry which combined personal
passion with intellectual resourcefulness
 The metaphysical school of poetry (the term was
first used for Donne and his followers by Samuel
Johnson in Lives of the English Poets: “The
metaphysical poets were men of learning and to
show learning was their whole endeavor.”) aims
to introduce a more vigorous intellectual strain
into poetry.
 George Chapman (ca 1559-1634) is considered
its first member-he brings to the treatment of
love and other themes an austere and obscure
philosophical note, both Stoic and Christian.
 General Features
 The distinguishing character of the
metaphysical poetry is not simply
philosophical subtlety or intellectual rigor;
 a blend of thought and passion; of
intellectual ingenuity and strong emotions;
 It appeared as a reaction against
Elizabethan poetry (exaggerated attention
to musicality and form to the detriment
of content)
 It aimed to introduce an intellectual strain
in poetry (poetry = a matter of reason)
 Concentration (the reader is held to a line of
argument; a metaphysical poem looks like an
expanded epigram-difficulty of meaning);
 fondness for conceits-a comparison between 2 two
dissimilar things which are not generally connected ;
 literalness of imagery- in order to understand an
image you have to visualize it; conceits are not used
just for ornamental purposes (argumentation);
 abrupt, personal opening- casual, familiar;
 combination between personal passion and
intellectual ingenuity, thought and feeling;
 main theme: relation between spirit and senses
( the favourite themes are love, death);
 baroque elements: eccentricity, witty argumentation,
radical oppositions, paradox, microcosmic privacy/
intimacy, brevity-stylistic obscurity, intellectual and
emotional learning.
 John Donne (1572-1631)
 His poetry was influenced to a great extent by his Catholic
education
 His poetry, which was not published during his lifetime but
was known to a limited circle through circulation in
manuscripts, consists of five satires, 20 elegies and the Songs
and Sonets.
 Written in rough couplets, the satires combine colloquial
exuberance with ingenious reasoning and provide glimpses
of London and of Donne’s concepts about religion.
 Written also in iambic pentameter couplets, the elegies deal
with the theme of love from a variety of points of view: some
deal in a cynical way with the paradoxes of love, some
celebrate/contemplate love with uneasy realism, some are
simple exercises in wit.
 The 12th and the 16th elegies are powerful love poems where
Donne substantiates the undisguised experience of love
directly into poetry
 The Songs and Sonets are love poems written in
different moods and addressed to different
persons, to casual mistresses or to someone the
poet truly and passionately loved, his wife, Anne
More.
 The opening of these poems shock the reader
into attention, sometimes by a question
 the ingenious development is characteristic of
Donne’s method.
 Donne’s major quality rests in his blending of
passion and thought.
 The shocking opening question leads to an
original development of thought in terms of ideas
derived from scholastic philosophy or scientific
notions.
 The opening, conversational and unexpected,
innovatively projects the readers into the poems.
 The readers are held by the complex and twisted
development of thoughts
 Besides the cynical and the genuinely passionate
love poems, some like “ A nocturnal upon Saint
Lucy’s Day” picture the poet as reduced to a
state of absolute emptiness by the death of the
lady.
 The strange poem “ The Progress of the Soul”
initially intended to trace the progress of the soul
from its original appearance in Eden through all
the great heretics of history, becomes a satirical
and pessimistic reflection on moral values.
 The two Anniversaries written as funeral elegies
are poetic arguments about the decline of the
world and the sufferings of earthly life.
 The 1st An Anatomy of the World -1611
ingeniously illustrates the decay and disorder of
the world, the 2nd Of the Progress of the Soul -
1612 deals in a similar manner with “the
incommodities of the soul in this life and her
exaltation in the next”
 In the Divine Poems, written after his wife’s death,
Donne puts aside the worldly and the sensuous
life to fiercely probe for the right relationship
with eternity . They fiercely explore the
paradoxes involved in man’s relation to God.
 The nineteen Holy Sonnets contain the core of
Donne’s religious poetry and they apply Donne’s
typical combination of passion and argument.
 Passion is the mixture of hope and agony
characterizing the religious man in search for the
right relationship with God, aware both of his
contemptibility and of God’s infinite greatness.
 Donne reversed the cult of woman from the
traditional sonnet where women appeared as
goddesses or nymphs
 Donne descended women from the pedestal the
Renaissance poets put them. His poetic images
bring together highly remote elements: he
ingeniously mixes the sublime and the trivial, the
mean and the lofty.
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
 combines true metaphysical wit with classical refinement and
balance.
 His best poems were written in the early 1650’s and were
not published in his life time
 His best poems are those in which a daring wit perfectly
combines with the serene musicality of verses to produce a
poetry both meditative and exciting.
 Marvel displays an acute sense of nature , but everything is
subsumed to his seriousness. ‘
 On a drop of Dew begins with the accurate description of a
dewdrop on a rose and this picture becomes a symbol of the
soul’s relation to earth and Heaven.
 He dwells on turbulent emotions and intense passions, so
that in “To His Coy Mistress” he subtly handles wit and he
wonderfully manipulates images of exaggeration.
 The carpe diem theme is
unconventionally treated as the poet
implores the mistress to renounce her
pride because time passes quickly.
 In “The Garden” the thought progresses
cunningly until the lonely garden becomes
symbol of the unfallen life in Eden.
 “The Horation Ode” the rich poetic
images and the modulations of thought
and the variations of tone are carefully
controlled