Metaphysical and Cavalier Poetry
I. 17th Century Metaphysical Poetry:
 http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/English_Literature/period/metaphysicals.html
 http://www.unm.edu/~aobermei/Eng221/metaphysicals.html
What is metaphysical poetry? What are its (6) characteristics?
What is Platonic Love? How does this concept play into metaphysical poetry?
Who first coined the term “metaphysical poet”? What have critics said about these poets?
II. Cavalier Poetry:
 http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/cavalier.html
What values, subjects, and theme are characteristic of Cavalier poetry?
How did it get its name?
How does Cavalier poetry differ from Metaphysical poetry?
III. Figurative Language and Rhetorical Devices:
 http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl331/figurative.html
Familiarize and use these terms when explicating and discussing poetry.
IV. Historical Background: England’s Period of Political and Religious Upheaval
During the reign of Charles I (1625-1649), son and successor to James I (1603-1625), there was a Civil War between the
supporters of the King Charles and his court (known as “Cavaliers”) and the supporters of Parliament (known as “Roundheads,”
possibly because they wore their hair short). In general, Roundheads were hostile to anything associated with the court -- including
its refined literary forms. The conflict was part political (if Parliament gained more power, the monarch and court had less), part
religious (the Roundheads tended to be extremely Puritan(ical), and were shocked at the laxity and frivolity of the court), and part
cultural: poetry had traditionally been an aristocratic pursuit and thus was not to be trusted. Poems were mostly written within court
circles, for court audiences; poetry tended to be circulated in manuscript form rather than published; skill in writing verses was to a
certain extent a sign of good breeding, like dressing well or using the right fork at dinner.
The Puritans revived the anti-poetry attitudes that Sir Philip Sidney reacts to in his “Defense of Poesie,” in which “poetry” is
understood in the general sense as “literature,” including prose; and had two purposes, to “instruct” and to “delight.” Not
surprisingly, during the years of the Puritan Protectorate, following the Puritan revolt and the execution of Charles I (lost his head;
very messy business revolution), very little poetry appeared.
In the years leading up to the Revolution, however, there was a great deal of poetic activity, primarily centered on the court
or aristocratic circles. The two main “groups” of poets were the “metaphysical” poets, of whom the greatest was John Donne, and
the so-called “Sons of Ben, ” poets who admired and emulated England's first (unofficial) Poet Laureate, Ben Jonson. The latter group
to a certain extent overlapped with the “cavalier” poets, so called because most of them were aristocrats who gallantly supported the
lost cause of Charles Stuart (loyalty to the monarch was a part of their aristocratic code). Their subject matter tends to emphasize
gallant virtues and aristocratic values; the style and tone are witty and light, and not infrequently there is a thematic connection with
the poems of erotic seduction.
Further Critical Reading: Concentrate on Civil Wars and Religious Upheaval
 http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/17century/welcome.htm
V. The Poets & Poetry: For each poet, read all poems, but explicate only the focus poem. Some poems will be read and discussed inclass.
John Donne (1572-1631)
1. Collect basic biographical information
 http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/donnebio.htm
2. Poems for Analysis:
 Broken Heart (In Class/Homework analysis)
 The Baite (In Class/Homework Analysis)
 The Canonization (In Class/Homework analysis)
 The Flea (In Class/Homework analysis)
 The Good-Morrow (Focus Poem)
Holy Sonnets:
 X. Death, be not proud (In Class/Homework analysis)
4. Chief Literary Characteristics:
 Masculine persuasive force (Ben Jonson accused Donne of overdoing it. Thomas Hobbes called them “no better than
riddles.”)
 Notoriously obscure: designed to resemble the mind at play; instantaneous expression of thinking; rhythm of thought; his
audience enjoyed this
 Conceits: (usually metaphors) A combination/comparison of dissimilar images.
 Love poems, secular poem, divine poems (Holy Sonnets)
 A total of 19 Holy Sonnets (unsure of the correct order).
 1-6 focus on death (“Death Be Not Proud” also categorized under VI)
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7-12 focus on God’s love
12-19 have a penitential theme (regretful pain or sorrow for sins).
Sonnets reflect Donne’s interest in the formal meditative exercises of the Jesuits (the Jesuits were considered the most militant
of the counter-reformation)
Themes of the Holy Sonnets also reflect Calvinistic influences
In many ways, the Holy Sonnets flip flop the emphasis of the love poems: in the Holy Sonnets, Donne uses the language of
love to talk about his relationship with God.
George Herbert (1593-1633)
1. Collect basic biographical information
 http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/herbbio.htm
Brief Biography: George Herbert was born at Montgomery Castle, Wales (Welsh border country). His father died in 1596. His
mother, Magdalen Herbert was a patroness of John Donne. Donne preached her funeral when she died in 1627. In 1629 Herbert
married Jane Danvers, a relative of his stepfather, Sir John Danvers. He had been ordained a deacon (a lay position) and sent to Little
Gidding to restore the ruined church there: he raised the money and did so. In 1630 he was ordained priest in the Anglican Church
and became the vicar of Bemerton, a small country church. He ministered to rural folks, Donne to kings. According to the Norton
Anthology, Herbert was recognized as “a learned, godly and painful [painstaking] divine” who “preached and prayed; he rebuilt the
church out of his own pocket; he visited the poor, consoled the sick, and sat by the bed of the dying-administering true pastoral care
to the plowman and peer alike.” He died of tuberculosis in 1633, just three years after beginning the work at Bemerton. He began
writing most of his religious poetry in 1627, the year his mother died. He destroyed his secular verse (Donne did not). His primary
concern in his poetry is not salvation, which he never doubts (Donne does at times).
2. Poems for analysis:
 Easter Wings (In Class/Homework analysis)
 Redemption (In Class/Homework analysis)
 The Collar (Focus Poem)
3. Literary Characteristics:
 Problems he deals with are:
1. Subduing his will to God's;
2. Feeling he should be of some use to God;
3. Difficulty accepting what God has done for him.
 Herbert's poetic method is what most critics deal with. He experimented with stanza form. Many of his poems are inspired by
hieroglyphs or emblems, popular in the 17th century and earlier. An emblem: a motto with a picture with allegorical
significance & poem commenting on it.
 There are three types of hieroglyphic poems in Herbert:
1. Title replaces picture. Poem works out the significance. “The Pulley”
2. Visual. Verse itself becomes the picture. “Easter Wings,” “The Altar”
3. Semi-visual and auditory. Works with rhyme itself, so poem becomes a “sounding picture. “Denial”
 Stylistic Features:
1. Conceits. Often draws upon unusual sources of imagery, but usually only one at the time. The conceit often
appears in the title. “The Pulley,” “The Collar”
2. Puns
3. Paradoxes- basic to religious and metaphysical poetry
4. Irony of understatement
5. Recurrence of certain images-stone, music
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
1. Collect basic biographical information
 http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herrick/herribio.htm
Biography: Robert Herrick, son of a well-to-do London goldsmith, took two degrees at Cambridge. He formed his poetic style by
study of classic lyrists and contact with Ben Jonson, whom he called “Saint Ben.” After some court and military experience, he took
orders and was made rector of Dean Prior in Devonshire, of which he says:
More discontents I never had
Since I was born than here.
An Anglican minister, he was ejected from his living at Dean Prior by the Puritan government in 1647, restored in 1662, and finally
buried there at age 83. There is little evidence that he affected his contemporaries much. Only one book was printed, in 1648. Fame
from this volume grew in the 19th century. Some twenty lyrics have made him immortal; the rest are not really inferior, just
repetitive. “Corinna's Going a-Maying” is one of the most successful poems ever written in immortalizing a mood and depicting a
contemporary scene. In it Herrick praises pagan love and pastoral beauty.
“He is the poet of strawberries and cream, of fairy lore and rustic customs, of girls delineated like flowers and flowers mythologized
into girls.”
2. Poems for Analysis
 To the Virgins to Make Much of Time (In Class/Homework analysis)
 Delight in Disorder (Focus Poem)
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
1. Collect basic biographical information.
 http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/marvbio.htm
Biography: Andrew Marvell attended Cambridge, graduating with a B.A. in 1638. After a decade of oblivion, he reappeared in 1650
as a tutor to the daughter of Sir Thomas Fairfax, Lord-General of the Parliamentarian forces. In 1657 he was appointed assistant to
John Milton, Latin Secretary of the Commonwealth, and is given credit with at least saving Milton from a long jail term and possibly
with saving him from execution after the Restoration. In 1659 Marvell was elected to Parliament, a position he held with
competence until his death. A moderate Puritan, Marvell supported individual liberty and tolerance. His poetic output is small but of
high quality and remarkable diversity. His poetry, which has been described as "the most major minor verse in English," is witty and
playful, like Robert Herrick's, but much more profound. During his lifetime he was known as author of satires in prose and verse.
His "serious" poetry was published in 1681, three years after his death, by a woman who claimed to be his widow but who probably
had been his housekeeper.
2. Poems for analysis:
 To His Coy Mistress
VI. Metaphysical Mini Explication Assignment: For each of the focus poems, you are to write a mini explication. Explications must be
typed, double spaced and about 1½ - 2 pages in length.
Definition of Explication:
An explication usually goes line-by-line (or by syntactical units) through a poem or short passage of prose and interprets its
meaning (a/k/a THEME). It is a commentary, literally an “unfolding” or a “spreading out” of a text. Since literary language is
denser, richer than ordinary writing, explications work to bring to the surface the deeper meanings of the text, meanings that may
not be readily apparent unless one is reading closely and thinking carefully about a text.
Your task is to make an arguable statement (THESIS) and PROVE that your interpretation is valid. To do so, you will need to go
beyond a literal paraphrase of the poem and explain not only its symbolic meaning, but also examine the following elements in the
play:
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Voice: speaker and tone
Diction
Syntax
Imagery
Figures of Speech: simile, metaphor, personification,
hyperbole, etc.
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Symbolism and Allegory
Sound: rhyme (end and internal, alliteration, assonance, etc.)
Rhythm and Meter
Structure
Additionally, because you are explicating metaphysical poetry, you will also need to consider its various characteristics:
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Use of ordinary speech mixed with puns, paradoxes and 
conceits
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The exaltation of wit and originality in figures of speech
Abstruse terminology often drawn from science, medicineor
law
Often poems are presented in the form of an argument (what
is the argument?)
In love poetry, ideas drawn from Renaissance
Neo-Platonism to show the relationship between the soul and
body and the union of lovers’ souls
They also try to show a psychological realism when
describing the tensions of love.