Early 17th c. Verse

• A Tale of Two Schools?

• “The Cavalier Poets”---Sons of Ben

• John Donne and the “Metaphysicals”

Some Traditional “Cavalier” Characteristics

• Balance//Parallelism

• Polite Courtly Diction and Tone

• Octosyllabic Couplets and Caesurae

• Example—”Still to be Neat” (p. 1444/)

Still to be neat, still to be dressed, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powdered, still perfumed: Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

“Metaphysical Poets”

• Origin of term

• Some characteristics– Colloquialism (Jonson: “Donne, for not

keeping of accent deserved hanging”)– Intellectual complexity– Argumentation– Anti-Petrarchanism– Metaphysical conceits (discordia concors—

harmonious discord)

How I’ve Organized this Unit

• Religion, Politics, Love– Elegy 19 (p. 1283/1393)

• The Two “Schools”

John Donne

John Donne

• Jack Donne/Dr. Donne

• Keep track of poetic persona

“The Flea” (p. 1263/1373)

• Argumentation

• Metaphysical conceit

• Mixture of secular and religious language

Secular/Religious language

• The Canonization (p. 1267/1377)

• The Relic (p. 1280/1390)

“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”(p. 1275/1385)

• Blending of religious and secular

• Colloquial, intellectually complex, argumentative

Carpe Diem Poems

• Herrick: “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” (p. 1659/1762)– Trochaic tetrameter– (Trochee: stressed, unstressed)– Flow, movement– Classical sources

Carpe Diem

• Marvell: “To His Coy Mistress” (p. 1703/1796)

• Iambic tetrameter couplets

• (iamb: unstressed, stressed)

• Begins with familiar courtly elements—hyperbole, blazon

• A darker turn

Jonson, “To Penshurst” (p. 1434/1546)

• Sidney family home

• Country house poem

• How is this poem structured?– Shaped through description of the estate– Awareness of social hierarchy

• (peasants to king—Jonson’s background)

– Time also adds order

• Negative contrast—classic Jonson?

Lanyer “Cookham” (1319/1436)

• Elegiac (ll. 7, 9, 14, 128)

• How do pastimes differ from “Penshurst”?– (line 161)

• Virtuous women (l. 81 ff)

• Preserving the estate through poem (lines 205-210

Open Review Session/Q and A

• Sunday 12/8

• WLH 2205 from 2:00-3:50

Marvell

• An Horatian Ode p. 1712/1806– What’s an ode? An Horatian Ode?– Historical situation– Cromwell as a force of Nature– Depiction of execution– Comparison to Rome– Whose side is he on?

Marvell

• Bermudas p. 1698/1791

About a group of Puritan exiles

What’s left out of this poem?

Donne’s Holy Sonnets

• Calvinism

• Sonnet 1: 1295/1410

• Sonnet 9: Direct Address to God p.1296/1412

• Sonnet 10: Personifying Death

• P. 1296/1412

• Sonnet 14: Violent relationship to God– P. 12971413

Herrick: Corrina’s Going A-Mayingp. 1658/1760

• Archbishop Laud

• The Book of Sports

• May Day

• Elements of Carpe Diem/Pastoral

Herbert: The Collar p. 1619/1720

• Shifts in voicing

• Shifts in tense

• Order and outburst—expressing spiritual struggle

• Children of God

• Multiple meanings of the title