Metaphysical Poetry

What is Metaphysical Poetry? 

• 17th Century 

• relationship between spirit to matter or the ultimate nature of reality 

• terminology often drawn from science of law 

• form of an argument 

• relationship between the soul and the boyd/union of lovers’ souls 

• embraces sexuality 

Metaphysical poems

• lyric poems

• characterized by striking use of wit, irony, and wordplay

• Beneath the formal structure (of rhyme, meter and stanze) is the underlying (and often hardly less formal) structure of the poem’s argument

• Use of ordinary speech mixed with puns, paradoxes, and conceits

Metaphysical Conceit

• extended metaphor 

• unexpected or shocking analogies, offering elaborate parallels between apparently dissimilar things 

• Analogies from science, mechanics, housekeeping, business, philosophy, astronomy, ect. are common 

• reveal a play of intellect 

• the metaphors sometimes take over the poem and control it 

John Donne 

• born in 1572 to Roman Catholic parents, when practicing that religion was illegal in England 

• Spent the 3 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 

• In 1598, Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton 

• 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, along with his cohorts Samuel and Christopher Brooke who had aided the couple’s clandestine affair.

• Doone was dismissed from his post, and for the next decade had to struggle near poverty to support his growing family

Donne’s Work 

• distinguished by its emotional and sonic intensity, and its capcity to plumb that paradoxes of faith, human and divine love, and the possibility of salvation 

• often employs conceits, or extended metaphors, to yoke together “heterogeneous ideas,” in the words of Samuel Johnson, thus generating the powerful ambiguity for which his work is famous 

• Donne’s love poetry was written nearly 400 years ago; eyt one reason for its appeal is that it speaks to us as directly and urgently as if we overhear a present confidence

• Donne’s style, full fo elaborate metaphors and religious symbolism, his flair for drama, his wide learning and his quick eit soon established him as one of the greatest preachers of the era 

Donne’s Imagery

• eclectic (not wide-ranging) and obscure

• did not write for publication, but to friends assumed to be well-read enough to understand references

• Imagery draws on the new (in the late 16th century) learning of the English renaissance and on topical discoveries and exploration

Donne’s Imagery cont’d 

• we find references to sea-voyages, mythology and religion (among many other things)

• alchemy - especially the mystical beliefs associated with elixir - and cosmology, both ancient and modern (references both to spheres and to the world of a “sea discoveries”)