English Metaphysical Poetry In Context

Document Type : Research Paper

10.22111/jllr.2012.979

Abstract

It was in the late 16th and 17th centuries, at a time of political turmoil, new ideas and exciting discoveries, that the poetry we now call ‘metaphysical’ came to be written. The term ‘metaphysical poets’, coined by Samuel Johnson (following John Dryden, who first applied the adjective metaphysical to Donne specifically), came into being long after the poets to whom we apply it were dead.
The first part of the paper looks at the ways in which the Renaissance, religious controversy, political conflict and contemporary culture influenced the lives of the poets and their poetry. It then gives brief biography of the major metaphysical poets’ lives.
The second part provides an introduction to its cultural and historical context at a time when the Church was bitterly divided into increasingly extreme factions from Roman Catholicism to Puritanism. It also provides some introduction to the rediscovery of classical culture and learning and its influences on metaphysical poetry with its forms and themes.
The last part deals with the nature of metaphysical poetry which makes demands upon the reader and challenges him to make it out with its strong lines, concentration and fondness of far-fetching metaphors called conceits. This figure of speech always associates John Donne and his followers. The strength of the religious poetry of the metaphysical poets is that they bring to their praise and prayer and meditation so much experience that is not in itself religious. They tried to be phenomenal in their thought and were careless of their diction.

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References

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Journal of Lyrical Literature Researches
Volume 10, Issue 19 - Serial Number 19
December 2012
Pages 77-102

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