Metaphysical Poetry Donne, Herbert and Herrick Meaning of Metaphysical concerned with the fundamental problems of the nature

of the universe and mans function or place in life Main Characteristics Reflected the intellectual and spiritual crisis of the 17th century The poet was a man of wit, displaying his sensitivity, his knowledge and cleverness The leading poet was John Donne The Conceit An ingenious comparison of dissimilar things If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if thother do. (John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning) o The poet compares the souls of lovers to compasses illustrates and develops ideas in a detailed and over-complex way, often with an effect of shock or surprise Unusual images taken from all fields of knowledge: history, geography, astronomy, alchemy, mathematics, etc. Look, and tomorrow late, tell me, Whether both the Indias of spice and mine Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou sawst yesterday, And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay. (John Donne, The Sun Rising) Paradox: A statement which is apparently contradictory though in some sense true Take me to you, imprison me, for I Except you enthral me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. (J. Donne, Batter My Heart)

Dramatic Quality Most poems begin in medias res Go, and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me, where all past years are (John Donne, Song) Metaphysical Poems lyric poems 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. There may be two (or more) kinds of argument in a poem.

Poems analysed: John Donne: The Flea, The Sun Rising, A Valediction Forbidding Mourning (Intro II notes), Holy Sonnet XIV, Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness Andrew Marvell: To His Coy Mistress (Intro II notes) George Herbert: The Pulley Robert Herrick: To Virgins, To Make Much of Time