Metaphysical Poetry and John Donne Essay

Define metaphysical rime, its characteristics and bum Donne as a metaphysical poet. The concept metaphysical deals with the philosophic view of the nature of things. metaphysical numbers is a good deal menti whizzd as poetry inspired by a philosophical concept of the universe and the government agency assigned to the hu slice spirit in the capacious looseness of existence. Metaphysical poetry is involved with the whole sire of man, however the intelligence, learning and seriousness of the poets. Metaphysical poetry has an amazing business office to explore and express ideas and feelings just about the human race and its diverse phenomena in a rational way to captivate the readers.Metaphysical poems atomic number 18 lyric poems. A group of 17th-century poets, whose work is characterized by the economic consumption of complex and elaborate im dayss or toilet tables, typically using an intellectual form of argumentation to express steamy states atomic number 18 denote d as metaphysical poets. Members of this group allow in pot Donne, George Herbert, heat content Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, Robert Herrick and Richard Crashaw who explored the nature of the world and human life, and who employ images that were surprising at that time.Their poetical full treatment have been abundant with the various perspectives of human life curiously c be love, romance and sensuality about mans kinship with God the eternal perspective, and to a less extent, about pleasure, learning and art. The metaphysical poetry presends innovative and wondrous use of puns, paradoxes and employs cunning logical propositions Metaphysical poem is brief besides intense and embodies a style that is discountty and vigorous. A metaphysical poem is an expanded epigram, characterized by the striking use of wit and irony.Metaphysical poetry demands concentration. Moreover a metaphysical conceit makes the poetry more vibrant and storied. It is largely used to make a comparison of talentedness and legal expert and its invention is very much more stunning than its justness. A metaphysical conceit is used to persuade, or to define, or to probe a point thats why the metaphysical poetry is normally argumentative and persuasive. A metaphysical poet attempts to establish a logical connectedness between his emotional feelings and intellectual concepts with the help of far-fetched vision.The clever placement of unalike imagery, kelvinght and emotions, contrasting pair of statements and unifying altogether makes it extraordinary. According to Ben hind endson the metaphysical poets showcase their knowledge and intelligence in their poetry. The metaphysical poets play with thoughts as the Elizabethans had played with words which clearly show the wit and intellect of poets. The controlled fertilize of emotions is the exhibition of the potential the poets carry to express feelings in controlled language. Metaphors, similes and embodiments atomic number 18 satisfying elements of metaphysical poetry.In addition to this a combination of sensibility portrays the wondrous fusion of head and heart, of intellect and emotion, of thought and passion. The metaphysical poets harmonized thoughts, reasoning, feelings and images. existence successful at merging diverse fields, metaphysical poetry likewise contains a sense of humour though it is not laughable but it brings a smile to the readers face. Metaphysical poetry is unremarkably a dramatic monolog, the poet is addressed to the audience like in drama and every idea is for the audience. what is more the abrupt openings of metaphysical poetry are t here(predicate)fore an attraction which creates an interest for the readers. The metaphysical poets were more interested in the use of intricate rhythm, realism and obscurity. Joan Bennet observes that in the case of Donne and his circle, the limit that metaphysical actually refers to the style rather than subject matter. John Donne (1572- 1631) was inclined to the personal and intellectual complexity and concentration that is displayed in his poetry. He is acknowledged as the master of metaphysical poetry.John Donne was Born in London into a prosperous Roman Catholic family, at a time when England was staunchly anti-Catholic, Donne was forced to leave Oxford without a degree because of his religion. He studied law and, at the same time, read widely in theology in an attempt to decide whether the Roman or the Anglican Church was the true Catholic Church . In the meantime, he became cognise as a witty man of the world and the author of original, often dense, erotic poems. Donne departmenticipated in deuce naval expeditions, he was briefly sent to prison for secretly marrying his patrons niece.In 1615, at the age of forty-two, Donne accepted ordination in the Anglican Church. He quickly pull in a reputation as one of the greatest preachers of his time. He was dean of St. Pauls since 1621 until his death. John Donne is regarded as some(prenominal) the pioneer and the forefront spokesman of metaphysical poetry. The importance of his innovation was recognized by Thomas Carew, who praised Donne as the monarch of wit who purged /The Muses tend, threw away the loose seeds / Of Servile false And fresh invention planted.But his poetry is also awkward and complicated. Donne adopts different oles and postures the libertine rake, the devoted and constant lover and the cynic who feels cheated by his experience in love, the despairing sinner fearing damnation, and bold suitor, claiming his right to salvation. His poetry expresses radically contradictory views of women, the body, and love. Donnes poetry about love and about his proportion to God invites connections with his personal life, yet it resists attempts to read it biographically. His seventeenth-century biographer, Izaak Walton, assigned the lay love poetry to the youthful Donne and the religious poetry to the mature priest.His notable w orks are The Good-Morrow, The Sunne boost, Death Be Not Proud, belabor My Heart, The canonisation, A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, A Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day , Twicknam Garden and The Anniversarie . The Songs and Sonnets explore mans relation with woman, seeing erotic love as one of the most important experiences of life. Donnes love poetry describes passionate intimate love with vigor and intensity. there are far too some suitable poems to consider all in detail, but The Good-Morrow and The Sunne Rising get going together.Whereas the Elegies in their governmental language and analogies often connect love and the political world, here there is a sharper opposition between the two spheres. The private little room of love (the microcosm) contrasts with the outside world of princes, explorers, lawyers, and merchants, who are all preoccupied with material concerns. The Good-morrow is a complex poem which moves almost two central metaphors, of a pair of lovers walking int o a in the buff life together and of advanced world created by their mutual love. John Donne gave a poetic status to a simple idea in an argumentative way in a three stanza structure.But the fluency of the stanza is leading to the brief penultimate line and final Alexandrine with its stately, measured quality. On (line-4) there is a type to bible to the seven sleepers, /or snorted we in seven sleepers den/ metaphorically may be Donne and his dear(p) were sleeping. Furthermore in (lines 8-14) he claims that his experience of mutual love intrusts him a new perspective from which the rest of the world looks insignificant. The world of love contains everything of value it is the however one cost exploring and possessing.Donne uses conceits and metaphors to exhibit his knowledge of geography, which is evident by the reference to the sea voyagers, that the lovers are not interested in the new worlds and discoveries, they are happy with each other and they dont want anything else. / allow sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, / Let maps to others, worlds on worlds have shown, / Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one/.While the following lines /Where can we find two better hemispheres/Without sharp north, without declining west? Compares the world of the lovers in the geographical world that our world is full of love and our love for each other is true and never ending. Love creates its own perfect world, feature of two better hemispheres. Donnes keen interest in discovering, associate him with important concerns of his age. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time of exploration, both scientific and geographical. England also saw the emergence of modern, experimental science. The New World was existence explored, and astronomical observations by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo led to the discovery of a new locate of the heavens.Donne telescoped images and draws references from diverse spheres of cosmology, geography, science, phi losophy, alchemy, theology, sea-voyages, mythology, religion, law and even from colonial enterprise so far as Britain was then emerging as the greatest imperium through colonial expansion in different countries. Certain images or ideas recur so often as to seem typical kingship and govern subjectivism (one little room an everywhere nothing else is) alchemy peculiarly the mystical beliefs associated with elixir and quintessence and cosmology, both ancient and modern (references both to spheres and to the world of sea-discoverers).Another love sonnet by Donne The Sun Rising is a dramatic monologue addressed to the solarise and the beloved. Here Donne uses personification metaphors and similes to make it interesting and attractive. Sun and ants are personified and different images are used (lines 5-10) like schoolboys, factory workers, huntsman, life of London and the royal class. There is a conceit where beloveds beautiful eyes are compared to India (undiscovered beauty) and the sun can see that if India is as beautiful as his beloveds eyes or his beloveds eyes are more beautiful, this far-fetched conceit illustrates Donnes wit and intellect.There is a metaphor where the beloved is compared to the states and princess/she is all states, and all princes, I, nothing else/ it gives the idea that for the poet, the beloved is the entire world, royalty, rarified and grand and maybe the sun also believes that. Hence the microcosmic world of love becomes larger and more important than the macrocosm. /Princes doe. All riches alchimie/ here poet says that his beloveds beauty is copied by princess and further a metaphor express that she is more honorable and worthy than wealth and fortunate and their love is all the wealth for them.The concluding couplet/ Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere/ This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere/ brings aside a cosmic imagery to show how the microcosmic world of the lovers symbolizes the macrocosmic world. Donnes g odly Poems explore the mans relation with God, often describing it in terms of human love, and seeking to discover the true relation between mans love for God that promises salvation. Even with his Divine Poems exploring religious experience, Donne seeks to understand the relation between erotic and spiritual love.In Donnes Divine Poems the sense of sinfulness is so great that the speaker unit insists it will take extraordinary efforts on Gods part to save him. The demands for an intense, intimate relation with God are often couched in erotic language. Perhaps the most startling poem is the sonnet Batter my heart, three persond God, in which the speaker metaphorically says that he is like a woman who loves one man (God) but is betrothed to another (Satan), and wants to be rescued, even by force. Its a paradoxical poem with conceits and metaphors and one of the best known in his devoted sonnets.On (line 5-8) a conceit is used where the poet is comparing himself to a township which is conquered by enemies and he wants God to come to him and dominate him. Donne took ideas from the bible and delivery boyian priests in his holy sonnets. Death Be Not Proud is Donnes another argumentative poem, that death is not all-powerful, since it must eventually give way to eternal life, we fear as death is (for Christian believer) only(prenominal) form of sleep from which we have to awake on the day of judgment, when death will be abolished.There is a reference to (Jesus Christ) in function 3 lines of (Death Be Not Proud) and the idea is taken from bible as he wants forgiveness with blood as each drop of Christs blood is salvation /why swellst thou death, thou shalt die/. The argument of the poem is that. There is another reference to the cloudburst in Noahs time/from rest and sleepe, rest of their soules deliverie/(lines5-9). Donne in A Valediction Forbidding Mourning compares the lovers with a pair of compasses.Such a far-fetched comparison to show the affinity and re lationship of the lovers in terms of compasses is indeedly astounding for which Samuel Johnson describes metaphysical conceit as a combination of dissimilar images or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently. Again in Twicknam Garden Donne makes another brilliant use of conceit whose ingenuity, Helen Gardner considers, is more striking than its justice ? The spider Love, which transubstantiates all/ And can convert manna to gall.In Donnes poetry we will also examine a sudden dramatic beginning and finer exertion of colloquial language, as exemplified in the abrupt, conversational opening of The Canonization where the poet-lover admonishes the intruder in a colloquial pace for hampering their privacy ? For Gods sake hold your tongue, and let me love, / Or chide my palsy, or my gout/ My five gray hairs, or destroyed fortune flout?. If we keenly observe, we will find that many of the tensions and contradictions in Donnes poetry can be seen as deriving from wanting(p) to satisfy conflicting human needs and desires.Some poems like The abstracted or Community insist on male independence and liberty in erotic relations. Others like The Sun Rising or The Canonization show a strong desire for intimacy. Donnes poetry thus expresses the instability and infinity of human desire. For all its various attitudes, what is so wondrous about Donne is that, for all his realistic assessment of those limits, and for all the admissions of guilt about his immoderate desires, he never gives up wanting and asking for -more. There are some other well-known contemporaries of John Donne like Andrew Marvell (162178), who is one of the English metaphysical poets.Among his best-known poems is To His Coy Mistress, a clever and entertaining attempt to persuade a young woman to go to bed with him there is an explicit argument of this poem. Other works of Andrew Marvell include The Coronet, Bermudas, The Definition of Love and The Garden. Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) is anothe r metaphysical poet, who wrote The Retreate, The World, Man and They ar All Gone into the World of Light. In The Retreate, Vaughan notes that shadows of eternity are seen by him in natural phenomena such as clouds or flowers. His works express ones personal relationship to God.George Herbert another worth mentioning English poet and priest, is one of the metaphysical poets who dealt with religious themes such as doubt, woeful and joy, using simple language and metaphors. Herberts poetry is elegant as the result of art as a cultivated expression, but not forced, spiritual humility. He wrote Jordan in which there is religious devotion versus secular love, other works are The Pearl, The Collar, Discipline and Love. Following the steps of John Donne, Richard Crashaw (1613-1649) wrote many metaphysical poems like EpigrammaticumSacrorum Liber, Steps to the temple, Delights of the Muses, Carmen Deo Nostro and thats why he is also short listed among the brilliant and illustrious metaphys ical poets. His collection The Temple was published after his death. All these legends have played an important role in the survival of metaphysical poetry. Lastly, I will mention that metaphysical poetry gives us a new dimension to create a far-fetched link with the help of metaphysical conceits, which stimulates us to think beyond the excavate level and show our wit and shrewdness.I would praise all the metaphysical poets, for their commendable job and setting a new trend in English poetry. The tremendous versatility of Donne and his contemporaries paved the way for future generations to call forth something as grand as metaphysical poetry. Metaphysical poetry has its great importance in English literature due to its vivacious imagery and attractive techniques. Indeed, metaphysical poetry is a milestone achievement for metaphysical poets its worth reading and worth admiring.