Block-3 The Metaphysical Poets & their Period

IGNOU MEG01 Block-3 The Metaphysical Poets: Donne, Herbert

Unit-12 Poetry and Society in the seventeenth Century (Pre- Restoration)

Metaphysical poets and their Period-

THIRTY YEARS' WAR (1618-48) 

 

Politico-religious

France and Poland were Catholics, 

Britain, Holland and Scandinavia were Protestants. 

Germany both faiths were in conflict

Lot of bloodshed

neither the Protestants nor Catholics won this war

Visual Arts:

 

Despite financial difficulties, Charles spent a lot of money on the collection of art-objects.

Mannerism

 

The word "mannerism" means the angularity of speech or behaviour, particularly a habitual trait peculiar to a person. It also implies an excessive use of a distinctive manner in literature.

 

Conceit:

 

To compare something incomparable

 

Baroque:

 

It refers to the crisis of sensibility in the late Renaissance.

The baroque thus helps the poets to present and surmount the chaotic state prevailing in the Continent. Some poets who want to come to grips with the conflict between the body and the spirit harness their senses in the service of God.

 

For eg. in Crawhsaw’s Poetry:

 

Blood drop = Rubies

Tear drop = pearls

 

Turning horrifying things to nice things.

 

SCIENCE: AN INTRODUCTION:

 

Copernicus: 1473-1543 Earth Revolves around the sun

Tycho Brahe: 1546-1601 Sun revolves around earth but planets around Sun partially correct

Kepler: Three laws of motion elliptical path of planets not circular

Galileo: 1564 1642 Invented telescope. 7 is a sacred number. So far there were believed to be only seven heavenly bodies: the five planets, the sun and the moon. So the number of seven was regarded sacred

Newton 1642-1727 Newton believed that heavenly bodies attract one another with force

 

Francis Bacon In his book, I The Advancement of Learning (1605) he talks of the scientific method which involves the making of experiments, the drawing of general conclusions from them and the  testing of these generalizations in further experiments. 

 

Hobbes and Locke are also eminent scientific thinkers of the time. They were not practising scientists, but their ideas were scientific.

 

Most of these discoveries does come in conflict with established religious belief

 

The Spenserian:

 

The period under discussion is dominated by the Metaphysicals. Brit some poets of the time still write in Spenser's vein. The Sperserian poetry is generally allegorical, pastoral and pictorial. There are four important poets in the group: Phineas Fletcher, Giles Fletcher, George Wither and William Browne.

 

Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650)

 

a clergy by profession, noted for his allegorical poem, The Purple Island. 

 

An allegory is a narrative in the guise of something that is suggestively similar. It also has a moral bearing. 

 

Giles Fletcher (1585-1623) 

 

Clergyman. Poems are allegorical, paradoxical and full of sensuousness. Works:  Christ 's Victory and Triumph (1610)

 

Wither (1588-1667)

 

Puritan. he is in the habit of changing sides in politics. He is now a Royalist and now a Parliamentarian. The Royalists imprison him.  Satirical, pastoral and religious  poetry. Works: Juve~zalia (1 622). His other notable poems are The Shepherd's Hunting (1615), Fidelia (161 5) and Faire Virtue(I624), Christmas. 

 

William Browne (1591-1643)

 

sweet tempered. Chaucerian spirit, jollity and mirth in the lap of nature. Works:The Shepherd's Pipe

 

THE CAVALIER POETS 

 

'The Tribe of Ben'. seek inspiration from Ben Jonson and like to call themselves his 'sons'. Still they are distinctively individual in their perception. All these poets were associated with the Court of Charles I. They were also known as Cavalier Poets.Tribe of Ben was a part of the cavalier group. All cavalier poets did not belong to the tribe.

 

His Poetry: Ben Jonson's poetry is a blend of classical discipline and sturdy native inspiration. Ben Jonson is prized for poise, maturity and civilized grace in his non-dramatic poetry. In his poetry the stress is on the centre of emotion: but control does not mean the suppression of genuine feelings. He wants a critical control of emotional experience. 4 main poets:

 

Robbert Herrick (1591-1674) 

 

Herrick's poetry falls into three groups : anatomy poems, religious poems and epigrams.Though he proclaims himself to be the 'Son of Ben', he does not appear to possess the Jonsonian attribute of control over emotion. Works: The poetry of dress, To Dianeme, To Daffodils,The Funeral Ribs of Rose, Thanksgiving to God for his House and Litanie to the Holy Spirit.

 

Thomas Carew (1594-1639) 

 

Carew may not have the freshness and spontaneity of Herrick, but he outstrips him in terms of workmanship. He has two poetic masters - Ben Jonson and Donne. Works: Maria Wentworth.

 

Sir John Suckling (1609-42) 

 

court poet. But he is far less urbane and polished than Carew. However, he is witty and generous. Works: Song, Sonnet, My dearest Rival.

 

Richard Lovelace (1618-58) 

 

poet of finer sensibility than Suckling. His indulgence into vulgarity is only casual. He makes an unbridled(Uncontrolled) use of emotion in his poem. Works: The Scrutinie,To Lucasta, Going beyond the Seas, To Lucasta, Going to the Warres, and To Althea, from Prison breaths.

 

THE METAPHYSICAL POETS  

 

The 17th century was the emergence of religious poetry.

 

long discussions on Donne, Herbert and Marvell later in the block. 

 

Henry Vaoghan (16 21/22 - 95) 

 

born at Newton St. Bridget, Brecknockshire in 1621/22. He was the elder of the twins. His father came from an illustrious Welsh family.Henly did not get his B.A. degree. He studied law and medicine, too. He was a Royalist and participated in the Civil War. He had the experience of being wounded in battle and also of imprisonment.  two of his close friends died in military operations. His suffering was exacerbated with the untimely death of his brother and he also became vulnerable to illness, references to which are there in many poems. Works: Translations   Guevara's The Praise and Happiness of the Courtly-life, Flores Soliliides by Nieren~bergin, Anslen's Man aizd Glory, The World Conroe, Nolius's Hel.nzetical Physick.

 

Henry Vaughan's poetic career into three phases:

 

 gay and elegant love lyrics which were published in 1646.

 the core of Vaughan's poetry stretching from 1647 to 1650

 The third phase is known as "Thalia Redeviva". This was published in 1678. This group is considered to be of little value.

 

Generally death is considered to be a terrible reality of which we are afraid. But for Vaughan death has got a splendour of its own.He views death as a benign force which enfranchised the captive soul and enables it to experience felicity:

 

Dear, beauteous death! the jewel of the just. 

 

The star is the soul and the tomb is the body. If the strlr is put into the narrow confines of a tomb, its light is circumscribed, but if it comes out of the cribbed and confined cell of the tomb; its light increases. In a similar manner, the soul comes out of the body after death and finds itself in its full Metaphysics glory. But this glorification of death need not be taken as a morbid preoccupation of Poles of a psychopath, it should rather be viewed as a desire for a richer life of the spirit. The view of death as the release of the spirit from the bondage of material existence has hardly anywhere been expressed so glowingly. 

 

Criticism: Vaughan's is a nature-mysticism. Vaughan's mystical vision is sometimes supposed to be vague and shadowy. It is thought that his picture is hazy and there is nothing to clutch at. 'It is generally believed that Vughan's poems have a brilliant beginning and a brilliant ending, whereas in between the two thel-e is a lack of a sustained development of the idea from the beginning to the end. Vaughan is also accused of being loose in the texture of his structure. His poetry has beautiful phrases or purple patches. But he lacks the compression of Herbert. Vaughan's vocabulary is limited and somewhat monotonous.

 

In many of his poems he talks about the radical failure of the rational faculty in man to comprehend the dynamics of the universe shrouded in mystery. He has an intense desire for cleansing the dusky and blurred glass of life so that he may have a glimpse of the bright face of God.

 

Works: "Man", "Peace", "Regeneration", "Cock-crowing", "The Retreat" and "The Night", 

 

Richard Crashaw (1612/13-49)

 

Was born in England in 1612/13. He was the son of William Crashaw, a famous Anglican preacher and writer of conspicuous Puritan sympathies. When he was three or four years old, his mother died. But the step-mother was there to supplant tenderness and affection. His father also died a premature death, leaving Richard under the guardianship of two distinguished lawyers who were the friends of his father's. The tragic incidents in the family made him highly sensitive. 'The first turning point in his life after his father's death was his acceptance for admission to the Charter house in 1629. His stay at Charterhouse had a lot to do with the formation of his religious sensibility. Sunday exercises were a part of the curriculum, and as a part of this course, seniors were required to make verses in Latin and Greek on the Gospel and the Epistle of the day. Finished his matriculation from Cambridge in 1632.

 

The poetry of Crashaw falls into these groups:

 

The first group is called "Epigrammata Sacra". This was published in 1634.

The second anthology "steps to the Temple" was published in 1646 and was enlarged in 1648. 

The third collection is known as "The Delights of Muses" 

The fourth anthology was titled "The Carmen Deo Nostro." It was published in 1652.

 

Crashaw's idea of God is different from Donne's and Herbert's. Donne has got the conception of a wrathful . God intends to punish those who go against His commandments. Donne suffers from deep anguish resulting from his nagging sense of sin and is, generally, afraid that the wrathful God will not absolve him of his sins. The sense of sin is also the prime alienation of man from God in Herbert's poetry. But Crashaw is altogether a different breed. He is a radiant spirit who feels perfectly assured of his salvation in God.

 

Criticism:  Unlike Donne and Herbert, Crashaw, in his devotional poetry, talks least about his personal agony. His poetry is fundamentally contemplative and effective. This is because his poetry gives rise to a charge against him that his poetry has little intellectual content. But this charge is not rooted in fact. Crashaw is a profound scholar and is trained in theological disciplines.His poems are full of religious contemplation and full of intellectual content. Some critics see in excess of sentimentality in Crashaw's poetry. His poetry abounds in abstractions.

 

Works: The Weeper, A letter to the Countess Denbigh, Christus Nimh, Our Lord in his Circumcision to His Father,

 

Thomas Traherne (1636 - 74)

 

Very little is known about his life. Probably from the family of shoemakers of Hereford. The Traherne family was well off and prosperous and that Thomas Traherne had the fortune of having a happy boyhood. On March 1,1652 hc entered Brasenose College, Oxford. He did his B.A. from there in 1567.In 1661, he did his M.A. and in 1669 he did Bachelor of Divinity.

 

He was satisfied with the austere and spartan life of the country. He spoke of his firm determination to be content with ten pounds a year, some leather clothes, bread and water. In this strict regimen, he was in quest of felicity(Extreme happiness or the ability to find appropriate expression for one's thoughts.).

 

Traherne is one of the most intensely personal poets of the time.The impression is that of a poet who is obsessed with the compulsive course of self-articulation in the lyrical form. Traherne is a man of revelation, and the heart of that revelation is his own experience. He is both a prophet as well as a poet. He tells us about the experience of innocence either of childhood or of life before birth. This experience is Edenic(relating to or characteristic of the garden of Eden.). His insatiable desire for recapturing the felicity which has something celestial about it endows his poetry with a mystical dimension. In his poetry, the reader feels confronted with the overwhelming consciousness of the presence of God in His Creation.

 

Henry Vaughan compares the body to a tomb and the soul to a star and says that the star remains eclipsed in the tomb. But Traherne's faith in God makes him declare that the walls do not have the power to keep the soul from sending out light. This shows that the poet's faith in God is unflinching. Traherne's mystical experience gives him a distinctive character. He feels that the joy and illumination he experiences is not self-regarding. He believes that the joy of this ineffable order increases by common sharing and does not, like goods of this world, diminish by use.

 

Work: Shadows and water, Heavenly Eye (From Centuries of Meditation), On News, Hosanna, Roman Forgeries (1673), Christian Ethics (1675) and A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation (1699)

THE EARLY AUGUSTANS 

 

By the mid 70’s they perceived a change in the sensibility of the people and made an artistic reflection of this changed awareness in their poetry. Their poetry points to a change in favour of order and decorum both literary and social. In their poetry we have a predominance of reason and this preoccupation with reason, becomes the hallmark of the poetry of the eighteenth century. It is in this sense that these poets are called the precursors of Augustan poetry.

 

Edmund Waller (160516-87) 

 

He puts his emotional experience to scrutiny. 

 

In his poem, The self-banished poet languishes in love with a lady for some time. But his wooings evoke no response. His attempt to distance himself from her proves futile. The memories revive and hurt him. We have an impression that the poet has been wronged by the lady-love, but the penultimate stanza springs a surprise. 

 

The last line, 

 

The vow I made to love you too 

 

brings the cat out of the poet's bag. It is now clear that the poet has affairs also with another woman. 

 

In the Metaphysical the stress is on the presentation of individual experiences, but in the hands of poets like Waller the personal experience merges into the experiences of the common people. Waller also wrote divine poems.

 

Sir William Davenant (1606-68) 

 

wrote both secular and religious poems.  Works: the Lady, Olivia Porter (gift  to wife, diamond = eyes, pearl = tears from her eyes), The Christian's reply to the Philosopher

 

Sir John Denhim (1615-69) 

 

Denham goes in for correctness and decorum. His primary concern is for common sense and good form. The measured and deliberate movement of his verse proclaims the advent of a new era. Work:Cooper's Hill,

 

Abraham Cowley (1618-67)

 

Cowley stands at the crossroads of transition, and as such, his poetry shows the traits of both - the Metaphysical poetry and the Augustan poetry. He has a fondness for the Metaphysical conceit. He also has a growing taste in physical science and rationalism.

 

He is one of the founding members of the Royal Society. The Society aims at the acquisition of scientific knowledge. It also aims at the invention of a style that is simple, natural, precise and concentrated, bringing all things as near the mathematical plainness as they can. A language is a common man's language. It is not the language of wits. 

 

Works: Ode of wit, The change, On the Death of Mr. Crashw, On the Death of Mr. William Hewey

 

You can check out my YouTube videos on the same topic where I have explained everything in Hindi in detail. Links are below-

 

Block-3 The Metaphysical Poets: Donne, Herbert

Metaphysical poets Part 1 

Metaphysical poets Part 2

Life of John Donne 

 

More related and helpful links in the description box of my YouTube channel.

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