Debra Bronstein
English 46A
Metaphysical Poetry handout
Poetical changes in the Jacobean Period: (Period of James 1603-1625)
 No longer interested in long allegorical or mythological narratives
 No longer interested in sonnet sequences
 Not as much emphasis on pastoral poetry (switch to country house poems)
 Not as much emphasis on nature imagery, flowery ornamentation (ornamentation
becomes more baroque/layered) and lyricism
 Coming into style: short, concentrated poems written in a plain style
 Generic shift: love elegy and satire, epigram, verse epistle, dramatic monolgue,
meditative religious lyric and country house poetry
Metaphysics: The term was first used by Andronicus of Rhodes, the editor of Aristotle's
works, as a name for that part of his writings which came after the Physics. That division
of philosophy which includes ontology, the science of being, and cosmology, or the
science of the fundamental causes and processes in things; in a looser sense, all of the
more abstruse philosophical disciplines, in a narrower sense, ontology alone.
Metaphysical: abstruse or highly theoretical thinking/ abstract reasoning
Metaphysical Poetry: Relating to the poetry of a group of 17th-century English poets
whose verse is characterized by an intellectually challenging style and extended
metaphors comparing very dissimilar things.
Dryden of Donne (1693): He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his
amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex
with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain
them with the softness of love
Samuel Johnson: nicknames this group of poets “The metaphysical poets”
Influences on Metaphysical Poetry: An inherited body of concepts and images was still
available to be used by Donne, Burton and others, even as they were being questioned or
displaced: the Ptolemaic universe with its nine concentric spheres whose movements
produce music, its circling sun and fixed earth, and its assumption of perfection above the
moon and corruption beneath; the four elements—fire, air, water, earth—that comprise
the matter of all things; and the four humors of the body—choler, blood, phlegm,
melancholy –that determine temperament and in great imbalance make for disease,
mental and physical. These images were available even though being challenged by
Bacon’s emphasis on scientific method, Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the
blood (the emergence of anatomy theatres), Galileo’s telescope and Copernican
astronomy.
Rhetorical terms:
 Dissociation or unity of sensibility: coined by TS Eliot in his essay, “The
Metaphysical Poets” (1921): Donne and other poets of the earlier seventeenth
century, “possessed a mechanism of sensibility which could devour any kind of
experience.” The manifested “a direct sensuous apprehension of thought,” and felt
“their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose.” But later the dissociation of
sensibility set in and intellect is divorced from emotion and sense perception
 Conceit: Extended metaphor: images which establish a striking parallel, usually
elaborate, between two very dissimilar things or situations.
 Petrarchan conceit (think Sidney/Petrarch/Wroth): used in love poems,
detailed, exaggerated comparisons applied to the disdainful mistress (or in the
case of Wroth, the mister!, as cold and cruel as she is beautiful and to the
distresses and despair of her worshipful lover (think of Sidney’s horse)
 Metaphysical conceit: poets exploited all knowledge—commonplace or
esoteric, practical, theological or philosophical, for the vehicles of these
figures. Comparisons are witty and novel, and at best, startlingly effective.
Discordia Concors: combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult
resemblances in things apparently unlike…most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by
violence together
Paradox: Statement on its face seems to be logically contradictory or absurd, yet turns out
to be interpretable in a way that makes good sense
Epigram: Statement in verse (or prose) which is terse, pointed and witty.
Donne:
 Poetry was designed to be read by few, rather than a larger public (the assumption
was not everyone could understand them!) Emphasis on coterie circles rather than
dissemination.
 Characteristics of Donne
o fond of the macrocosm/microcosm parallel.
o Explore the relationship between the worlds of love and religion
o Passionate dialectical arguments
o Style is characterized by learned terms and images
o Speechlike and often unmelodic verse/dramatic language that evokes a
scene in progress
o Witty/paroxical/ironic
Donne vs. Ben Johnson:
 Two schools: The metaphysical versus Cavalier Poets (also known as the Sons of
Ben)
 Donne’s followers: Herbert, Crashaw, Traherne, Cowley,
 The Sons of Ben: Herrick, Suckling, Vaughan