Metaphysical poetry

#Metaphysical_Poetry
#charateristics_Of_Metaphysical_Poetry

⚽ The term metaphysical or metaphysics in poetry is the fruit of renaissance tree, becoming over ripe and approaching pure science.

⚽ “Meta” means “beyond” and “physics” means “physical nature”.

⚽ Metaphysical poetry means poetry that goes beyond the physical world of the senses and explores the spiritual world.

⚽ Metaphysical poetry began early in the Jacobean age in the last stage of the age of Shakespeare.

⚽ John Donne was the leader and founder of the metaphysical school of poetry.

⚽ Dryden used this word at first and said that Donne “affects the metaphysics”.

⚽ Among other metaphysical poets are below.
1) Abraham Cowley,
2) Henry Vaughan,
3) Richard Crashaw,
4) Andrew Marvell,
5) George Herbert,
6) Robert Herrick etc.

#Characteristics_of_Metaphysical_Poetry

⚽ Dramatic manner and direct tone of speech is one of the main characteristics of metaphysical poetry.

⚽ In the starting line of the poem “The_Canonization” there is given a dramatic starting
“For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love”.

⚽ Concentration is an important quality of metaphysical poetry in general and #Donne’s poetry is particular.

⚽ In his all poems, the reader is held to one idea or line of argument.

⚽ Donne’s poems are brief and closely woven.

⚽ In “The_Extasie”, the principal argument is that the function of man as a man is being worthily performed through different acts of love.

⚽ He continues with the theme without digression. For instance,

✒ “As ‘twixt two equal armies,
     Fate Suspends uncertain victorie,
     Our souls, (which to advance their state,
     Were gone out,) hung ‘twixt her and me”.

⚽ An expanded epigram would be a fitting description of a metaphysical poem.

⚽ Nothing is described in detail nor is any word wasted.

⚽There is a wiry strength in the style.

⚽ Though the verse forms are usually simple, they are always suitable in enforcing the sense of the poem.
🎁 For_instance.

✒  “Moving of th’earth brings harms and fears
       Men reckon what it did and meant,
       But trepidation of the spheres,
       Though greater far, is innocent”

⚽ Fondness for conceits is a major character of metaphysical poetry.

⚽ Donne often uses fantastic comparisons.

⚽ The most striking and famous one used by Donne is the comparison of a man who travels and his beloved who stays at home to a pair of compasses in the poem “A_Valediction_Forbidding Mourning”

✒   “If they be two, they are two so
       As stiff twin compasses are two,
       Thy soul fixt foot makes no show
       To move, but doth, if th’other do”.

⚽ We find another conceit in the very beginning couple of lines of “The_Extasie”

✒   “Where like a pillow on a bed,
       A pregnant bank swel’d up,”

⚽ Wit is another characteristic of metaphysical poetry.

⚽ So, here we find various allusions and images relating to practicality all areas of nature and art and learning- to medicine, cosmology, contemporary discoveries, ancient myth, history, law and art.

🎁 For_instance in “The_Extasie”, Donne uses the belief of the blood containing certain spirits which acts as intermediary between soul and body.

✒  “As our blood labours to get Spirits,
      as like souls, as it can,
      Because such fingers need to knit
      That subtle knot, which makes us man:”

⚽ In the same poem, the Ptolemaic&system of astrology is also used when he says,

✒ " We are The intelligences, they the sphere”

⚽ Metaphysical Poetry is a blend of passion and thought.

⚽ #TS_Elliot thinks that “passionate_thinking” is the chief mark of metaphysical poetry.

⚽ There is an intellectual analysis of emotion in Donne’s Poetry.

⚽ Though every lyric arises out of some emotional situation, the emotion is not merely expressed, rather it is analyzed.

⚽ Donne’s poem
“A_Valediction:Forbidding Mourning” proves that lovers need not mourn at parting.

🎁 For instance,

✒  “So let us melt, and make no noise,
      No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
     ‘Twere profanation of our joys
      To tell the laity our love”.

⚽ Metaphysical Poetry is a fusion of passionate feelings and logical arguments.

🎁 For_example, in “The_Canonization”, there is passion expressed through beautiful metaphors:

✒ “Call us what you will, we are made such by love;
Call her one, me another fly,
We are tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us, find the eagle and the dove”.

⚽ But at the same time, the tone of the poem is intellectual and there is plenty of complexity involved in the conceits and allusions, such as the “Phoenix_riddle”.

⚽ Metaphysical Poetry is the mixture of sensual and spiritual experience.

⚽ This characteristic especially appears in Donne’s poetry.

⚽ Poems such as “The_Canonization” and
“The_Extasie”, even though they are not explicitly discussed, the great metaphysical question is the relation between the spirit and the senses.

⚽ Often Donne speaks of the soul and of spiritual love.

⚽ “The_Extasie” speaks of the souls of the lovers which come out of their bodies negotiate with one another.

🎁 For_instance,

✒ “And whilst our souls negotiate there,
      We like sepulchral statues lay;
      All day, the same our postures were,
      And we said nothing, all the day”.

⚽ Usage of satire and irony is another characteristic of metaphysical poetry.

⚽ Donne also uses this in his poems.

🎁 For_example, in “The_Canonization”, there is subtle irony as he speaks of the favoured pursuits of people – the lust for wealth and favours.

✒   “Take you a course, get you a place,
       Observe his honour, or his Grace”.

⚽ As far as Donne is concerned, the use of colloquial speech marks the metaphysical poetry.

⚽ This is especially apparent in the abrupt, dramatic and conversational opening of many of his poems.

🎁 For_instance,

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

Or

“Or the King’s real, or his stamped face”
(The_Canonization)

⚽ Carelessness in diction is another characteristic of metaphysical poetry.

⚽ These poems reacted against the cloying sweetness and harmony of the Elizabethan Poetry.

⚽ They deliberately avoided conventional poetic expression.

⚽ They employed very prosaic words, if they were scientists or shopkeepers.

⚽ Thus, we find, in their poetic works, rugged and unpoetic words.

⚽ Their versification and their dictions are usually coarse and jerky.

⚽ Affectation and hyperbolic expression is another character of metaphysical poetry.

⚽ It is often hard to find natural grace in metaphysical writing, abounding in artificiality of thought and hyperbolic expression.

⚽ The writer deemed to say “something_unexpected_and_surprising".

⚽ What they wanted to sublime, they endeavored to supply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limit, they left not only reason but fancy behind them and produced combination of confused magnificence”.

🎁 For_instance, the lines of
“A_Valediction:Forbidding_Mourning”

✒   “Our two souls therefore, which are one,
       Though I must go, endure not yet
       A breach, but an expansion,
       Like gold to ayery thinness beat”.

⚽ The lyrics of the metaphysical poems are very fantastic and peculiar.

⚽ According to A.C.Word,

✒ “The metaphysical style is a combination of two elements, the fantastic form and style and the incongruous in matter and manner”.

⚽ Therefore, so far we discussed the salient features of metaphysical poetry, it is proved that #John_Donne is a great #metaphysical_poet.