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metaphysical poets
metaphysical poets. Poets generally grouped under this label include Donne (who is regarded as founder of the ‘school’), G. Herbert, Crashaw, H. Vaughan, Marvell, and Traherne, together with lesser figures like Benlowes, Herbert of Cherbury, H. King, A. Cowley, and Cleveland. The label was first used (disparagingly) by Dr Johnson in his ‘Life of Cowley’ (written in 1777). Dryden had complained that Donne ‘affects the metaphysics’, perplexing the minds of the fair sex with ‘nice speculations of philosophy’. Earlier still W. Drummond censored poetic innovators who employed ‘Metaphysical Ideas and Scholastical Quiddities’. The label is misleading, since none of these poets is seriously interested in metaphysics (except Herbert of Cherbury, and even he excludes the interest from his poetry). Further, these poets have in reality little in common: the features their work is generally taken to display are sustained dialectic, paradox, novelty, incongruity, ‘muscular’ rhythms, giving the effect of a ‘speaking voice’, and the use of ‘conceits’, or comparisons in which tenor and vehicle can be related only by ingenious pseudo-logic.
With the new taste for clarity and the impatience with figurative language that prevailed after the Restoration, their reputation dwindled. Their revival was delayed until after the First World War when the revaluation of metaphysical poetry, and the related downgrading of Romanticism and Milton, was the major feature of the rewriting of English literary history in the first half of the 20th cent. Key documents in the revival were H. J. C. Grierson's Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century (1921) and T. S. Eliot's essay ‘Metaphysical Poets’, which first appeared as a review of Grierson's collection (TLS, 20 Oct. 1921). According to Eliot these poets had the advantage of writing at a time when thought and feeling were closely fused, before the ‘dissociation of sensibility’ set in about the time of Milton. Their virtues of difficulty and tough newness were felt to relate them closely to the Modernists—Pound, Yeats, and Eliot himself. |
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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "metaphysical poets." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "metaphysical poets." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-metaphysicalpoets.html MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "metaphysical poets." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-metaphysicalpoets.html |
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metaphysical poets
metaphysical poets name given to a group of English lyric poets of the 17th cent. The term was first used by Samuel Johnson (1744). The hallmark of their poetry is the metaphysical conceit (a figure of speech that employs unusual and paradoxical images), a reliance on intellectual wit, learned imagery, and subtle argument. Although this method was by no means new, these men infused new life into English poetry by the freshness and originality of their approach. The most important metaphysical poets are John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Thomas Traherne, Abraham Cowley, Richard Crashaw, and Andrew Marvell. Their work has considerably influenced the poetry of the 20th cent.
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"metaphysical poets." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "metaphysical poets." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-metaphys-p.html "metaphysical poets." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-metaphys-p.html |
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metaphysical poets
metaphysical poets a group of 17th-century poets whose work is characterized by the use of complex and elaborate images or conceits, typically using an intellectual form of argumentation to express emotional states. Members of the group include John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Andrew Marvell.
The application of metaphysical to these poets is first recorded from the mid 18th century. The genesis of the specific use, however, can be found a century earlier, in a reference by William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649) to ‘Metaphysicall Ideas’. |
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ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "metaphysical poets." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "metaphysical poets." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-metaphysicalpoets.html ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "metaphysical poets." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-metaphysicalpoets.html |
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Metaphysical Poets
Metaphysical Poets. A group of 17th-cent. poets including J. Donne, G. Herbert, R. Crashaw, Henry Vaughan, St Robert Southwell, F. Quarles, and T. Traherne. The term was originally used in a pejorative sense, implying a pretentious display of learning, strained images, and wit leading to wilful obscurity, but since the end of the 19th cent. their positive qualities have won admiration.
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E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "Metaphysical Poets." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "Metaphysical Poets." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O95-MetaphysicalPoets.html E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "Metaphysical Poets." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O95-MetaphysicalPoets.html |
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Metaphysical(s) Poets
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JOHN BOWKER. "Metaphysical(s) Poets." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. JOHN BOWKER. "Metaphysical(s) Poets." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-MetaphysicalsPoets.html JOHN BOWKER. "Metaphysical(s) Poets." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-MetaphysicalsPoets.html |
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