Metaphysical poetryUnknown artist (Ehglish School).

Portrait of John Donne, 1631. National Portrait Gallery, London.

Metaphysical poets

• The term "metaphysical," is applied to English poets of the seventeenth century. It was used by Augustan poets John Dryden and Samuel Johnson to reprove those poets for their "unnaturalness."

• They include: John Donne, George Herbert, and Andrew Marvell

concerned with the fundamental

problems of the nature of the

universe and man’s function or

place in life

1. Meaning of metaphysical

Metaphysical poetry

METAPHYSICAL

Then and now…

• The Metaphysicals were looked down upon and kicked out of the literary canon.

• Now Metaphysical poets constitute the highest achievement in English verse.

• Reflected the intellectual and spiritual crisis of the 17th century

2. Main characteristics

John Donne, after a miniature by Isaac Oliver, 1616.

Metaphysical poetry

• The poet was a man of “wit”, displaying his sensitivity, his knowledge and cleverness

• The leading poet was John Donne

• A particular type of metaphor or simile called conceit

2. Main characteristicsMetaphysical poetry

If they be two, they are two soAs stiff twin compasses are two,Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no showTo move, but doth, if th’other do. (John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning)

The poet compares the souls of lovers to compasses

2. Main characteristicsThe conceit

Illustrates and develops ideas in a detailed and over-complex way, often with an effect of shock

or surprise

Insists on the relationship between A (the tenor) and B (the vehicle)

Metaphysical poetry

• Unusual images taken from all fields of knowledge: history, geography, astronomy, alchemy, mathematics, etc.

Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,Whether both the Indias of spice and mineBe where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

(John Donne, The Sun Rising)

2. Main characteristicsMetaphysical poetry

Take me to you, imprison me, for IExcept you enthral me, never shall be free,Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

  (J. Donne, Batter my heart)

2. Main characteristicsParadox:

• A statement which is apparently contradictory though in some sense true

Metaphysical poetry

• Dramatic quality

• Most poems begin in medias res

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the Devil's foot,

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy's stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

(John Donne, Song)

2. Main characteristicsMetaphysical poetry

‘The Sun Rising’, John Donne

• BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,         Why dost thou thus,Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?         Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide         Late school-boys and sour prentices,     Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,     Call country ants to harvest offices ;Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. 

‘Love's Diet’ John Donne

To what a cumbersome unwieldiness

And burdenous corpulence my love had grown,

But that I did, to make it less,

And keep it in proportion,

Give it a diet, made it feed upon

That which love worst endures, discretion

‘Virtue’ by George Herbert

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridall of the earth and skie:

The dew shall weep thy fall to night;

For thou must die.

‘A Wreath’ by George Herbert

• A wreathed garland of deserved praise,Of praise deserved, unto thee I give,I give to thee, who knowest all my wayes,My crooked winding wayes, wherein I live,Wherein I die, not live : for life is straight,Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee,To thee, who art more farre above deceit,Then deceit seems above simplicitie.Give me simplicitie, that I may live,So live and like, that I may know thy wayes,Know them and practise them : then shall I giveFor this poore wreath, give thee a crown of praise.

• Experimentation with form and content

• Strong/dramatic beginnings

• Religion and secular/personal poetry

• The form and the content are inseparable

• References to science and inventions

• Intellectuality

• Challenging the reader by intellectual wit