1.

2 THE METAPHYSICAL POETS

THE METAPHYSICAL POETS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
In poetry selection set at a level, as few as two and as many as seven of the Metaphysical poets may be represented. Donne is often set alone,
and single selections from Herbert or Marvell are also sometimes set. In any case the student can generally expect Donne, Herbert, Vaughan
and Marvell to be favoured in any choice from Metaphysical poets.

Definitions

Definitions of Metaphysical poetry or other significant material in the introductions to anthologies or single poet selections are always worth
reading with a view to preparing material for your answers. Examination questions often rely upon the ideas put forward in such introductions,
and you can use them as critical clues and leads. For example, you could consider the following definition, thinking of illustrations from the
poems you are studying:

“The essence of a Metaphysical poem is a vivid imagining of a moment of experience or of a situation out of which the need to argue, or
persuade or define arises.”

If questions on the style or language are set, they are likely to hinge on that aspect which gives this type of poetry its title – Metaphysical.
You should understand this term thoroughly, know the characteristics of the Metaphysical conceit and have plenty of examples ready. The term
“Metaphysical” was established in this connection by Dr. Johnson. He was referring to Donne’s habit of drawing images from all the sources of
knowledge: scientific, theological and philosophical. Dr. Johnson disapproved of school, referring to the poets’ “heterogeneous” images
“violently yoked together” (Lives of the Poets 1779-81). You should ask yourself whether the imagery in the poems you were studying is, in your
opinion, unjustifiably extreme, farfetched or moderate. You should examples of types of imagery, showing how and where they were used in
the poems.

A typical example of questions relating to the “Metaphysical” label, what it means, and how far one or more of these poets confirm to any
definition is:

From three poems in your selection, show how they represent the main characteristics of Metaphysical poetry.

Perhaps the question itself may select one or two of the characteristics, thus:

“Metaphysical poetry is concerned with the lack of coherence and certainty in this world.” Discuss.

Or:

“The Metaphysical poets set out to express and explore ideas and feelings about the complex and changing world in which they live and also
about their own natures”. Of which poet do you think this is most true?

Themes

The variety of the work of different poets and that of the work of a single poet, is commonly touched upon in a level questions. For example:

“Poetry which has much variety must lack sincerity. ‘ Discuss.

It would be the business of the essay to demonstrate, while showing a good understanding of the implication of the question, that “sincerity.”
in Donne or Marvell, for example, need not be lacking though it is shown in poems which display a variety of forms, themes, and tones. Donne
wholly changes from a man really interested in secular matters and earthly love, to one devoted to divine matters and love of God.

It is useful to prepare material on common themes in the work of the Metaphysical poets. A typical short list you might isolate, with
illustrations, may include:

.Love . Sin . Grief

.Nature . Hope
Love is especially important in Donne; nature in Vaughan (where it is used to express God), Marvell and Herrick (where the pastoral convention
survives); and sin, hope and grief in Herbert where there is always a Christian context for them.

Sometimes special characteristics of the religious poems are asked for in A-level questions, e.g. their vividness, sincerity or the personal
nature, of most of them. If Donne’s sonnet Batter my heart, Three Person’d God is studied in depth it will yield a good deal in answer to such
generalized questions: its passionate tone and its appeal to God as though he were a great but familiar man. (Herbert also addresses God like a
friend or a lover.) The close line of argument and bold but consistent imagery may be noted and the firm, decisive final line. Last lines make an
interesting study if compared with first lines, in poems by Donne and Herbert.

The theme of love in Donne

When studying Donne’s commonly set Songs and Sonnets and Elegies, you should make a special analysis of every facet of their treatment of
the beloved. There is a wide range of devices-arguments, celebrations, complaints, use of “wit” (of which Donne is said to be “the monarch”),
despair, jokes and playfulness. Dryden said of Donne, “He affects the metaphysics not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where
nature only should reign and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy,” (Discourse of the Origin and Progress of
Satire, 1629)

The loved one seems at times merely to be the occasion for a string of extraordinary conceits; one poem (The indifferent) begins jauntily:

I can love both faire and browne

And so on, listing other types – so long as

She be not true.

It proceeds with the idea the fidelity in love is a vice; and Venus, having heard that two or three lovers are daring to grow constant, goes off to
let them know that,

Since you will be true

You shall be true to them, who’re false to you.

Fantastical and Wildean as this may appear, there is a serious point, passionately held even if disguised by Donne. The passion is expressed in
the detail, the elaborations:

Will it not serve your turn to do, as did your mothers?

The point is his favourite theme of “no woman can be true”, so brilliantly expressed in direct terms in Song (Goe and catche a falling starre).

Love’s Growth as an example of Donne’s general manner

Love’s Growth

1 I scarce believe my love to be so pure

As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude and season, as the grass;

5 Me think I lied all winter, when I swore,

My love was infinite, if spring make it more.

But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow

With more, not only be no quintessence,

10 And of the Sun his working vigour borrow,

Love’s not so pure and abstract, as they use

To say, which have no Mistress but their Muse,

But as all else, being elemented too,

Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.

 15 And yet no greater, but more eminent,

Love by the Spring is grown;

As in the firmament,

Stars by the Sun are not enlarg’d, but shown.

Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough,

20 From love’s awakened root do bud out now.

If, as in water stirr’d more circles be

Produc’d by one, love such additions take,

Those like so many spheres, but one heaven make,

For, they are all concentric unto thee;

25 And though each spring do add to love new heat,

As princes do in time of action get

New taxes, and remit them not in peace,

No winter shall abate the spring’s increase.

The poem Love’s Growth offers the simple proposition that in spring love grows, a theme dear to the hearts of medieval people, although they
would not have much appreciated Donne’s handling of it, Donne begins by affecting surprise that what he thought was already infinitely great
in winter, actually grows further in spring, like the grass—he must have “lied” a pure abstraction as poets (whose only mistress is their Muse)
like to suppose. Since love has material substance it will at times be passive and at other times, active. Returning to the main subject, he
reflects that love does not become any bigger, but becomes more evident, in the way that stars are revealed by the sun(the reflected light of
the planets), not enlarged by it. Then (in a couplet, 19—20, like one from a Shakespeare’s song), he compares love’s deeds to blossom in the
spring, opening from the “awakened root”. Love increases as rings in water do, when the water is “stirr’d”, making many “spheres” but still one
universe (“heaven”) all concentric to love itself. Donne concludes with an image not taken from nature: each spring causes an increase in love,
just as princes raise new taxes in wartime. Princes do not cancel the sources of expanded revenue when peace comes , and no winter reduces
spring’s growth.

The proposition is teased out in a mock-serious way, sustained by a series of images that surprise and yet compel acquiescence in
their validity, indeed their choice is psychologically right, ecen if on the surface incongruous. It is like hearing a brilliantly persuasive lawyer
prove a point with frequent recourse t metaphor and simile, with this difference: a real lawyer needs to establish a conclusion and so will not
break up the direct flow of his argument till he has made his point; the poet has already won his point by declaring it; he now appear to hold up
or break up or break up the process of proving the point, because it is already accepted.

Further than this, the images are actually integral to the argument; the beginning or middle do not exist for the end, any part exist for any
other. Thus in other poems the point, or series of points, may emerge as the poems proceeds, by way of the images; images and meaning
become fused as Donne writes in another context:

… Nor must wit

Be colleague to religion, but be it.

Particular themes of Marvell

Marvell’s verse shows many of the characteristics of Metaphysical poetry already discussed, particularly his use of wit and his theme of love as
a theme for many of his poems. (On pp. 43-4 there is a critical commentary on one of his love poems) there are two other areas which are
particular his: poetry in the pastoral tradition and political satire.

Marvell combines an instinctive liking for nature with the ready-made use of it as in pastoral poems like those of Spenser and Milton, which
themselves owe much to Greek and Roman eclogues. Rustic figures in rural settings may be made he mouthpiece of satire or mediation or even
wit in the Metaphysical manner. Like Donne, Milton, and to lesser degree, Herbert (although the last named was connected to a great
aristocratic family), Marvel was involved in public affairs. His poetry reflect this in satire which was formidable in its time, though less
interesting now, and in formal set pieces in honour of Admiral Blake and Oliver Cromwell, and of Lord Fairfax , his patron, whose daughter he
taught and whose great house and garden he describe. There is an interesting contrast, therefore, between the private, introspective musings
and relationships, and the public, man-o-affairs aspects in Marvell’s poetry.