Your First Impression of Metaphysical Poetry. Assignment
Answers
Explanation:
Topic: What is metaphysical poetry? Discuss John Donne as metaphysical poet. And illustrate his poems.
Name: Kaushal H. Desai
Department: M.A. English department
Semester: I
Roll No: 17
Submitted To: Dr. Prof. Dilip Barad
(Head of English Dept.
M.K.B.U. Bhavnagar University)
◘ What is metaphysical poetry? Discuss John Donne as metaphysical poet. And illustrate his poems.
► What is Metaphysical Poetry?
First of all the term “metaphysical poetry” refers to a specific period of time and a specific set of poets. In 17th-century England, there was a group of poets who, while they did form a formal group, have been considered the metaphysical poets. There are, in most lists, nine poets that belong, and they are as follows: John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Edward Herbert, Thomas Carew, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvel, Richard Lovelace and Sir John Suckling.
So, what is metaphysical poetry? Actually the answer lies in the composition of these pieces. The common thread is that they contain metaphors that are highly conceptual in nature. These metaphors are often tenuous, at best, in their comparisons of one thing to another, but they can leave the reader feeling enlightened. This type of metaphor is known as a metaphysical conceit. The way to tell a metaphysical conceit from a regular metaphor is that they often exhibit an analytical tone, contain double meanings, show logical reasoning, and have paradoxes, symbolism, and wit. While one or two of these elements might be missing from any given piece, there should be the majority of them present.
◘ Metaphysical Poets
It was Doctor Samuel Johnson, who for the first time used the term ‘Metaphysical poetry’. Metaphysical poems are lyric poems. For the poetry of John Donne and his followers, since Donne was the pioneer it is known as ‘The school of Donne’ or ‘the school of Metaphysical poetry’
Doctor Samuel Johnson while giving introduction to the life of ‘Abraham Cowley’ used the term Metaphysical poetry for the first time to identify the poetry of John Donne and his followers.
◘ What is metaphysical poetry? Discuss John Donne as metaphysical poet. And illustrate his poems.
► What is Metaphysical Poetry?
First of all the term “metaphysical poetry” refers to a specific period of time and a specific set of poets. In 17th-century England, there was a group of poets who, while they did form a formal group, have been considered the metaphysical poets. There are, in most lists, nine poets that belong, and they are as follows: John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Edward Herbert, Thomas Carew, Richard Crash Away, Andrew Marvel, Richard Lovelace and Sir John Suckling.
So, what is metaphysical poetry? Actually the answer lies in the composition of these pieces. The common thread is that they contain metaphors that are highly conceptual in nature. These metaphors are often tenuous, at best, in their comparisons of one thing to another, but they can leave the reader feeling enlightened. This type of metaphor is known as a metaphysical conceit. The way to tell a metaphysical conceit from a regular metaphor is that they often exhibit an analytical tone, contain double meanings, show logical reasoning, and have paradoxes, symbolism, and wit. While one or two of these elements might be missing from any given piece, there should be the majority of them present.
◘ Metaphysical Poets
It was Doctor Samuel Johnson, who for the first time used the term ‘Metaphysical poetry’. Metaphysical poems are lyric poems. For the poetry of John Donne and his followers, since Donne was the pioneer it is known as ‘The school of Donne’ or ‘the school of Metaphysical poetry’
Doctor Samuel Johnson while giving introduction to the life of ‘Abraham Cowley’ used the term Metaphysical poetry for the first time to identify the poetry of John Donne and his followers.
► Characteristics of the ‘Metaphysical Poetry’
• The first characteristic is that all metaphysical were the men of learning and they tried to display their learning and scholarship by becoming scholarly in the writing of their poems. They wanted to distinguish themselves from the former poets of the Elizabethan age and so they used difficult language in their poem. All the metaphysical were scholars and they could prove it. But they could not prove that they loved music.
• According to Samuel Johnson the poetry of Donne and his followers stood tired of their finger but not a trial of ear the meaning is they were scholars. In the writing of poetry but there is no music or rhyme in the metaphysical poetry.
• Far-fetched images and conceits is the most remarkable feature of the metaphysical poetry. Those poets where not happy with the routing images used by the Elizabethan. They wanted to bring new images to distinguish themselves. So they used their images from different field like biology, science, engineering and agriculture. Sometimes they depended upon geometry also to bring their images also to use them for the writing of their poems. George Herbert’s “Pulley” and Marvell’s poem with a title “To his coy mistress” are the best examples.
• One critic Helency white defends the metaphysical poets stating that was the demand of the time for Donne different way had they presented the same manner, just like the Elizabethans’. They would have been rejected. By the readers change was the demand of time and they gave that change in their poems.
• Helen Gardener mentions that Donne and his school changed the whole perspective of writing poetry they wrote poems. In a way in which it was not even imagined by others.
• Several metaphysical poets, especially John Donne, were influenced by Neo- Platonism . One of the primary Platonic concepts found in metaphysical poetry is the idea that the perfection of beauty in the beloved acted as a remembrance of perfect beauty in the eternal realm. Their work relies on images and references to the contemporary scientific or geographical discoveries. These were used to examine religious and moral questions, often employing an element of casuistry to define their understanding or personal relationship with God.
• Donne is, according to Eliot, in the direct line of English poetry. Eliot’s interest in Donne was neither academic nor modish. As a poet interested in finding a new medium for the expression of a complex sensibility, Eliot discovered in the metaphysical - in the kind of experience they were trying to convey and in their craftsmanship - valuable hints for the solution of his own problems.
In this way what to feel and how the poet give a window through the aspects that’s what to see, but in the different way to present and by this it gives a meaningful concept Herbert and Marvell (Bermudas), and consider God's love of man. Herbert considers man's duty to God in The Collar and The Pearl as does Marvell in The Coronet.