METAPHYSICAL POETRY

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METAPHYSICAL POETRY
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Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned
with explaining the natural world. It is the
study of being and reality. It asks fundamental
questions such as Is there a God? and What
is mans place in the universe? This study also
includes questions of space, time, causality,
existence, and possibility.
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York Notes

• Metaphysical poetry was a result of excitement of
  new scientific discoveries, affecting how people
  saw themselves in relation to one another, to the
  world, the universe and God.
• Galileos telescope confirmed the earth was not
  the center of the universe
• The known world was growing
• American continent discovered 100 years before
• Bitter divide in The Church
• Between Roman Catholics (old religion) and
  Puritans (new religion)
• the middle were the Anglicans (Church of
  England)
• Period of violence and civil strife
• English Revolution

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Metaphysical poetry was written in the 17th
century by British poets. These poets did not
term themselves metaphysical poets the name
came much later as Samuel Johnson attempted to
classify the type of poetry that came from this
period.
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Metaphysical Poets

• John Donne
• George Herbert
• Henry Vaughan
• Andrew Marvell
• Wrote on divergent subjects and points of view

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What is a metaphysical poem?

• Metaphysical poetry is concerned with the whole
  experience of man, but the intelligence, learning
  and seriousness of the poets means that the
  poetry is about the profound areas of experience
  especially about love, romantic and sensual
  about man's relationship with God - the eternal
  perspective and, to a less extent, about
  pleasure, learning and art.

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• Metaphysical poems are lyric poems.
• They are brief but intense meditations,
  characterized by striking use of wit, irony and
  wordplay.
• Beneath the formal structure (of rhyme, meter and
  stanza) is the underlying (and often hardly less
  formal) structure of the poem's argument.
• Note that there may be two (or more) kinds of
  argument in a poem.

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LOOKING AT THE POEMS ARGUMENTS

• Looking at the poets' technique should, perhaps,
  begin with a consideration of argument.
• In a way all of the poems have an argument, but
  it is interesting or striking in some more than
  others.

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Conceit

• A conceit is an extended, elaborate metaphor. An
  extended metaphor is a metaphor that carries on
  through the entirety of the poem.

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Metaphysical Conceit

• A metaphysical conceit is a conceit where the
  objects of comparison have no apparent
  connection.
• the assertion that things apparently quite
  dissimilar are are alike (York Notes)
• The author of a metaphysical conceit sets out to
  prove the justness of an improbable comparison
• For example, in George Herberts poem Praise, he
  compares Gods generosity to a bottle full of
  endless tears. Another example is John Donnes
  poem The Flea.

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IMAGERY

• You can also consider the imagery used by the
  poets. Do NOT become bogged down in discussion of
  single images
• Consider, rather, the whole range of sources of
  imagery each uses.

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DONNES IMAGERY

• Donne is eclectic (not wide-ranging) and
  apparently obscure
• He did not write for publication, but showed
  poems to friends whom he supposed to be well-read
  enough to understand these references
• Donne's imagery draws on the new (in the late
  16th century) learning of the English renaissance
  and on topical discoveries and exploration
• We find references to alchemy (transformation of
  matter), sea-voyages, mythology and religion
  (among many other things).
• Certain images or ideas recur so often as to seem
  typical

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HERBERTS IMAGERY

• Herbert's imagery, by way of contrast, draws on
  the everyday and familiar
• reason is like "a good huswife
• spirit is measured in "drammes (small quantity
  of alcohol)
• God's grace is a "silk twist
• suffering is a harvest of thorns or blood-letting
• Paradise is a garden where winter never comes
• It will be seen, however, that many of these
  images are found in Christ's teaching, while
  others (or the same ones) may have acquired
  religious connotations.
• The reference to "thorn" and "bloud" in The
  Collar ironically seem to ignore the conventional
  religious symbolism of these terms.

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JOHN DONNE

• Born in London in 1572 to a prosperous Catholic
  family. Well educated.
• Donne's father died suddenly in 1576, and left
  the three children to be raised by their mother,
  Elizabeth.
• At the age of 11, Donne and his younger brother
  Henry were entered at Hart Hall, University of
  Oxford, where Donne studied for three years. He
  spent the next three years at the University of
  Cambridge, but took no degree at either
  university because he would not take the Oath of
  Supremacy required at graduation
• swearing allegiance to the monarch as Supreme
  Governor of the Church of England renouncing
  faith

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• He was admitted to study law as a member of
  Thavies Inn (1591) and Lincolns Inn (1592)(big
  party school),
• He wants in English society and government
• Wants to get a job.
• In 1593, Donne's brother Henry died of a fever in
  prison after being arrested for giving sanctuary
  to a proscribed Catholic priest.
• Donne felt guilty about brothers death
• This made Donne begin to question his faith. His
  first book of poems, Satires, written during this
  period of residence in London, is considered one
  of Donne's most important literary efforts.
• Although not immediately published, the volume
  had a fairly wide readership through private
  circulation of the manuscript.
• Same was the case with his love poems, Songs and
  Sonnets, assumed to be written at about the same
  time as the Satires.

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• Having inherited a considerable fortune (at age
  21), young "Jack Donne" spent his money on
  womanizing, on books, at the theatre, and on
  travels.
• In 1596, Donne became involved in naval
  expeditions in service to Sir Thomas Egerton,
  lord keeper of England
• Upon his return to England in 1598, Donne was
  appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton
  and afterward Lord Ellesmere.

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• Donne was beginning a promising career. In 1601,
  Donne became MP (Member of Parliament) for
  Brackley, and sat in Queen Elizabeths last
  Parliament.
• In the same year, he secretly married Lady
  Egerton's niece, seventeen-year-old Anne More,
  daughter of Sir George More, Lieutenant of the
  Tower, and effectively committed career suicide.
• Sir George had Donne thrown in Fleet Prison for
  some weeks for clandestine affair.
• Donne was dismissed from his post, and for the
  next decade had to struggle near poverty to
  support his growing family

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• Though Donne still had friends left, these were
  bitter years for a man who knew himself to be the
  intellectual superior of most, knew he could have
  risen to the highest posts, and yet found no
  preferment. 
• It was not until 1609 that a reconciliation was
  effected between Donne and his father-in-law, and
  Sir George More was finally induced to pay his
  daughter's dowry.
• In the intervening years, Donne practiced law,
  but they were lean years for the Donnes
• What he wanted more than anything was to regain
  his social position

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• As Donne approached forty, he published two
  anti-Catholic polemics Pseudo-Martyr (1610) and
  Ignatius his Conclave (1611).
• They were final public testimony of Donne's
  renunciation of the Catholic faith.
• Donne had refused to take Anglican orders in
  1607, but King James persisted, finally
  announcing that Donne would receive no post or
  preferment from the King, unless in the church.
• In 1615, Donne reluctantly entered the ministry
  and was appointed a Royal Chaplain later that
  year.
• Eventually elected dean of St. Pauls

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• Donne's style, full of elaborate metaphors and
  religious symbolism, his flair for drama, his
  wide learning and his quick wit soon established
  him as one of the greatest preachers of the era.
• Just as Donne's fortunes seemed to be improving,
  Anne Donne died, on 15 August, 1617, aged
  thirty-three, after giving birth to their twelfth
  child, a stillborn.
• Struck by grief
• Donne continued to write poetry, notably his Holy
  Sonnets (1618), but the time for love songs was
  over.

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• Donne's private meditations, Devotions upon
  Emergent Occasions, written while he was
  convalescing from a serious illness, were
  published in 1624. 
• The most famous of these is undoubtedly
  Meditation 17, which includes the immortal lines
  "No man is an island" and "never send to know for
  whom the bell tolls It tolls for thee." 
• He also preached what was called his own funeral
  sermon, Deaths Duel, just a few weeks before he
  died in London on March 31, 1631.
• The last thing Donne wrote just before his death
  was Hymme to God, my God, In my Sickeness.

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John Donne

• The Flea p. 967
• A Valediction forbidding mourning p. 678

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Robert Browning

• My Last Duchess p. 700
• My Ex- Husband handout

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Andrew Marvell

• To his Coy Mistress