METAPHYSICAL POETRY: JOHN DONNE, GEORGE HERBERT, ANDREW MARVELL.

1. the origin of term

The term "metaphysical" is used to designate the work of 17th-century writers who were part of a school of poets using similar methods and who are generally in rebellion against the highly conventional imagery of the Elizabethan lyric(love poetry), in patricularPetrarchan conceit. It includes a certain anti-femenist tradition.  The poems tend to be intellectually complex, and (according to the Holman Handbook), "express honestly, if unconventionally, the poet's sense of the complexities and contradictions of life."  The verse often sounds rough in comparison to the smooth conventions of other poets; Ben Jonson once said that John Donne "deserved hanging" for the way he ran roughshod over conventional rhythms.  The result is that these poems often lack lyric smoothness, but they instead use a rugged irregular movement that seems to suit the content of the poems

. John Donne was the acknowledged leader of the poets today identified as "metaphysical" (though they themselves would not have used the term, nor have considered themselves to constitute a "school" of poetry). No exact list of "metaphysical poets" can be drawn up. Crashaw and Cowley have been called the most "typically" metaphysical. Some were Protestant religious mystics, like Herbert, Vaughan and Traherne; some Catholic, like Crashaw; one was an American clergyman, Edward Taylor. While less easily assimilatable, Marvell shares certain affinities with the "metaphysical" poets. The "metaphysicals" are popular with modern readers because of their realism, their intellectualism, and their break with their immediate literary past.

b) characteristic features of metaphysical poetry

Some characteristics of metaphysical poetry include:

 a tendency to psychological analysis of emotion of love and religion

 a penchant for imagery that is novel, "unpoetical" and sometimes shocking, drawn from the commonplace (actual life) or the remote (erudite sources), including the extended metaphor of the "metaphysical conceit"

 simple diction (compared to Elizabethan poetry) which echoes the cadences of everyday speech

 form: frequently an argument (with the poet's lover; with God; with oneself)

 meter: often rugged, not "sweet" or smooth like Elizabethan verse. This ruggedness goes naturally with the Metaphysical poets' attitude and purpose: a belief in the perplexity of life, a spirit of revolt, and the putting of an argument in speech rather than song.

 The best metaphysical poetry is honest, unconventional, and reveals the poet's sense of the complexities and contradictions of life. It is intellectual, analytical, psychological, and bold; frequently it is absorbed in thoughts of death, physical love, and religious devotion.

A "metaphysical conceit" is a far-fetched and ingenious extended comparison (or "conceit") used by metaphysical poets to explore all areas of knowledge. It finds telling and unusual analogies for the poet's ideas in the startlingly esoteric or the shockingly commonplace -- not the usual stuff of poetic metaphor.

It is often grotesque and extravagant, e.g. Donne's comparison of his union with his lover to the draftsman's compass in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" it gives us a perception of a real but previously unsuspected similarity that is therefore enlightening.

This is a figure of speech through which the poet creates a long, elaborate comparison between two dissimilar objects. It is used by these poets to enhance their poetry and to exhibit their wide range of knowledge of everything from commonly found objects to concepts that are more esoteric or obscure. For instance, in John Donne's poem "The Flea" (1633), the poet compares a flea bite to the act of making love.

Typical metaphysical conceits come from a wide variety of areas of knowledge: coins (mintage); alchemy; medieval philosophy and angelology, meteorology (sighs are blasts, tears are floods); mythology , government , traveling, astronomy; metallurgy , geometry, law; geography.

The best metaphysical poetry is honest, unconventional, and reveals the poet's sense of the complexities and contradictions of life. It is intellectual, analytical, psychological, and bold; frequently it is absorbed in thoughts of A "metaphysical conceit" is a far-fetched and ingenious extended comparison (or "conceit") used by metaphysical poets to explore all areas of knowledge. It finds telling and unusual analogies for the poet's ideas in the startlingly esoteric or the shockingly commonplace -- not the usual stuff of poetic metaphor.

Another characteristic of metaphysical poetry is the attention put on trying to catch readers off guard. Other poets of the same time period as the metaphysical poets follow a rather predictable path. They state what their poems are going to be about and then elaborate on those points. The metaphysical poets, however, want to surprise their readers. Also in contrast to some of the poets who came before them, the metaphysical poets do not believe in the worship of the lover as a topic for their poetry. They look at love and sex through the lens of reality. Their poetry does not place women on some unreachable pedestal. The metaphysical poets are also interested in the deeper aspects of love, such as the psychological analysis of the emotions. John Donne, one of the more important of the metaphysical poets, often sets the pattern of his poems in the form of an argument. These arguments could be with anyone, from a mistress to God. The metaphysical poets went out of fashion for a hundred years or so, but thanks, in part, to the interest of T. S. Eliot, the work of the metaphysical poets regained popularity and influenced poets of the twentieth century.

c) recurrent motifs

Donne took metaphors from all spheres of life, especially from crafts and the sciences, and made frequent use of the 'conceit': a surprising, ingenious, far-fetched turn of ideas. Often a whole poem is an extended 'conceit', and frequently a poem ends with a final 'conceit' in the last two lines. Donne developed his technique writing love poetry, and later adapted it to the writing of religious poetry.

Unlike Donne, Herbert wrote no love poetry, having decided, when he began writing poetry at Cambridge, to devote his poetic works to God. He seems to have had less difficulty in adjusting from court life to a religious life than did Donne, and his faith seems to have been more secure than that of Donne.

Donne's Holy Sonnet 'Batter my Heart' and Herbert's 'The Collar' are both poems about the struggle to maintain faith in God, and a comparison of the two will illustrate some of Herbert's particular characteristics.

Donne's 'Batter My Heart' shows the poet involved in a deep-rooted and desperate struggle with his own soul. He almost seems to doubt whether God exists at all, and the power of the diction and imagery is indicative of serious turmoil.

Donne, having begun his poetic career writing love poems in which the ingenuity of thought, and originality of 'conceits', were the main criteria by which they were to be judged, employed the same methods when he turned to religious poetry. Herbert puts less emphasis on conceits, exotic imagery, and ingenious thought, and looks to another source for stylistic inspiration - the Bible, or, more specifically, the language of Christ and the Parables. Where Donne goes out of his way to find an exotic or striking image - a globe, beaten gold, a pair of compasses for example, Herbert looks for the homeliest commonplace image he can find. In 'The Collar' for example we have a thorn, wine, fruit, and cable. We can see the reason for this preference in Herbert's own observations on Christ's use of common imagery:

George Herbert’s poem, ‘The Search’, demonstrates, through differing lineal geometric conceits, and the subsequent use of specific circular conceits, the imperfect nature of love between a human persona and the divine God. This imperfection of love, whilst ordinarily seen in secular human interactions, may also be observed in religious relationships, especially in a seventeenth century, British Renaissance context.

In John Donne’s ‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’ and ‘The World’ by Henry Vaughan, the geometric figure of the circle, adapted into the literary form of a conceit, is successful in demonstrating the perfection of love in a British, seventeenth century context. Adapted from Aristotelian times and developed through to the early Renaissance period, this symbol of perfection conveys a sense of unity and eternity in many varying forms of love affinities. Further, the use of the geometric conceit in exemplifying this perfection is utilised not only in mortal human love, but may also be adapted to encompass spiritual and religious relationships accordingly. In contrast, Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Definition of Love’ and George Herbert’s ‘The Search’, offer the lineal geometric conceit so as to demonstrate the imperfect qualities of love in both human and spiritual relationships. These imperfections, commonly attributed to a lack of knowledge and understanding of what primarily constitutes the emotion of love, is frequently demonstrated through the emergence of a circular, and thus perfect geometric conceit.