Literature Focus IV. The Metaphysical Poets

T he term ‘metaphysical poets’ is generally applied to a distinctive group of 17^th-century English poets, including John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and Andrew Marvell. Their poetry was marked by highly complex extended metaphors, avoidance of smooth or regular meter, and a fondness for unconventional imagery often drawn from philosophy, theology, science, or the arts.

T he 18^th-century Neoclassicist writer Samuel Johnson, who was highly critical of the “unnatural” images and rhythms of John Donne’s verse, gave it the name “metaphysical poetry,” a term that has since been used by Donne’s admirers as well as by his detractors. Johnson used the term to describe poetry that dealt with philosophical, abstract, and highly theoretical topics.

The Metaphysical Style Although the metaphysical poets derived inspiration from the rich legacy of Elizabethan verse, their poetry was in part a reaction against the stylized conventions of the 16^th-century sonnet sequence. Instead of using regular meters and “poetic” images drawn from nature, poets such as Donne often used irregular rhythms and unusual, often startling, figurative language. Donne’s tone is less formal and his word choice is simpler than those of most Elizabethan poets, but his verse makes far greater demands on the reader’s intellect.

The Characteristics of Metaphysical Poetry Like the Elizabethan poets, the metaphysical poets wrote about love and the physical attraction between men and women, but they were also attracted to darker or more somber subjects, such as death, the brevity of human life, and the individual’s relationship with God. A philosophical approach to everyday subjects and experience expressed in a witty, conversational style is a hallmark of metaphysical poetry. The similarities and differences between the Elizabethan and metaphysical styles may be summarized as follows.

• Use of Argument Like much Elizabethan verse, metaphysical poetry often takes the form of an argument, but the argument in a metaphysical poem appeals to the intellect as well as to emotions.

• Use of Conceits Elizabethan poets were fond of conceits, or elaborate extended metaphors. Often these conceits compared the beauty of a woman to the beauty of a natural object, such as a star. The metaphysical poets took the use of conceits a significant step further, creating arresting comparisons between very dissimilar objects or ideas that demand thought and imagination to unravel.

• Use of Language Elizabethan poets usually wrote in a “high style,” using melodious words, elegant phrasing, and poetic inversions of typical speech patterns. By contrast, the metaphysical poets often wrote in a “plain style” that more closely resembled speech. The first line below exemplifies the high style; the second exemplifies the plain style.

“With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb’st the skies!”

—Sir Philip Sidney, Sonnet 31

“For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love”

—John Donne, “The Canonization”

• Use of Unconventional Forms Most Elizabethan poets were content with traditional forms; the metaphysical poets often were not. In many of their poems, lines do not scan regularly, rhyme schemes cannot be predicted, and vocabulary and syntax are not elevated. The result, however, is a directness of language that often captivates the reader.

The Legacy of the Metaphysical Poets Because of changes in literary taste, metaphysical poetry was undervalued throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the early twentieth century, however, poets such as William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden praised the metaphysical poets for their ability to appeal to the mind as well as to the heart. When Modernist poets were overturning the values and conventions of Romanticism, the metaphysical poets were at last praised and recognized for their substantial contributions to English literature.