The term ‘Metaphysical Poetry’ was extended by a remarkable critic Dr. Samuel Johnson in a biographical work called ‘Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets with critical observations of their Works’ (a collection of 5 volumes) in a derogatory sense addressed to a group of poets emerged in the second half of seventeenth century who followed the style of writings of John Donne.
The theme of Metaphysical Poetry can be defined as,
“A distinct style of writing that tries to explain the natural world beyond the physical speculation with intellectualized feeling by comparing it with far-fetched objects.”
Chief Characteristics of Metaphysical Poetry-
• Intellectual Scholarship
Donne is commonly considered as the great literary inventor of his age; a poet who invented a much more individual style of writing. The metaphysical poets forced themselves into literary limelight by the sheer energy, impudence, and originality of writings. The poets tried to concentrate on a distinct style of writing which rarely seemed to be the pure Elizabethan genre. The serious issues of life are dealt with humor and the intensity of seriousness is made light.
For example, John Donne compares his ladylove with a compass, a geometrical tool in his poem ‘The Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’.
“If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.”
The “fixed foot” is his wife’s soul. Just as the fixed part of the compass, his wife would stay on the same center and he, if goes a way out (move round and round), will meet the end at last as the two feet of a compass end up being together.
The poem exhibits Donne’s scholarship in a particular dramatic occasion. The poet is about to start a long journey so he farewells his lady with advice not to be sad and shed tears. Donne begins by stating that the virtuous man leaves life behind so delicately that even his friends fail to describe the difference. The love is so much woven by the matrimonial strings that those who are outside their marriage bond won’t be able to even realize their threads. Though he goes out on a long way, he will soon return to her as both the ends of a compass eventually gets back together.
Sir Walter Scott rightly quoted on Metaphysical poets,
"They played with thoughts as the
Elizabethans had played with words."
• Witty, Ironical and conversational tone
The metaphysical poems are marked by subtle wit, pun, and irony. They are composed in a conversational style. Metaphors, puns, paradoxes & meter are used to create drama & tension. In Dryden’s phrase, the texts of metaphysical poets have seemed as if they
“torture one poor word ten thousand ways”.
For instance, Donne’s poem ‘The Anniversary’ begins with a serious tone but the paradox of the poem is in the central theme- the immortality of true love which transcends death itself.
The speaker of the poem says their day is an everlasting day of love which is beyond any worries of yesterday or tomorrow. Hence the tone is full of wit, is ironical and a complete paradox.
• Platonic Love
The concept of Platonic love is philosophical doctrine. Platonic love is simply loving that steps short of sexual gratification. As per M. H. Abrams, the platonic lover is irresistibly attracted to the bodily beauty of a beloved person, but reverses it as a sign of the spiritual beauty the spiritual beauty that it shares with all other beautiful bodies, and that at the same time regards it as merely the lowest rung on the ladder that leads up from a sensual desire to the pure contemplation of Heavenly Beauty in God.
‘The Good-Morrow’ by John Donne is a poem that goes from lusty love towards spiritual love. There are forceful comparisons between his love and the astronomy, geography and medieval alchemy in this poem. The lovers have reached the immortality in their love and hence the theme of Platonic love is very uniquely depicted in the poem.
• Unification of Sensibility
One of the most characteristic features of metaphysical poetry is what T. S. Eliot defines as “unification of sensibility”. The phrase denotes the fusion of thought and emotion. Unlike other poets, the metaphysical poets felt their thought and then recreate the beauty of their thought into feelings. Donne's poem "Song" is the correct illustration of unified sensibility.
‘Song: Sweetest Love, I do not go’ is a poem about death in love. The poem is a valediction.
‘Sweetest love, I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;
But since that I
Must die at last, 'tis best
To use myself in jest
Thus by feign'd deaths to die.’
In the first place, the poet’s passionate argument comforts his beloved that his absence will be a rehearsal of death.
‘When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the best of me.’
In the second place, it denotes the unified sensibility of emotion and feeling.
In a nutshell, some of the characteristics of metaphysical poetry – use of metaphysical conceits, the poets were learned University scholars who made a conscious attempt to differ in their style of writing poetry. Platonic love, a unification of sensibility and all these features help one to understand the metaphysical poetry in a much deeper way.
The best way for the metaphysical to differs from the previous poets and to be intellectual in the writing of their poetry was to used far-fetched images and conceits. They tried to avoid using using images from those fields which thickly associate with the theme of their poetry.
In order to express either love or their faith in Christianity they brought their images from different field just like biology, agriculture, engineering, architecture, geography, geometry and even political science. This gave unique identity to their poetry. The number of example can be given about how they brought images from distant and remote fields. The first example is of John Donne who made use of a biological image-the Flea, for the express of love in his poem. The title of that poem is ' The Flea '. George Herbert made use of an image from the field of mechanical engineering for the expression of his faith in Christianity. The example is a poem with the title ' The Pully '. Pully is an image of mechanical engineering but in this poem that image is used to stat that restlessness is also a pully which gives a connection between the creator and the creation. Andrew Marvell made use of geometrical images for the expression of love. The example is ' The His Coy Mistress' in brief all the metaphysical poets made extensive use far-fetched images in their poetry.
Highlighting one remarkable feature of the metaphysical poetry Dr. Johnson says that "their poetry stood a trial of their finger but not of the ear" that means that their is no music in the poetry of metaphysical poet's wrote, their is no rhythm to be found in the poetry of the metaphysical poetspoets.
The flea by John Donne.
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou
Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.
Summary:
The speaker tells his beloved to look at the flea before them and to note “how little” is that thing that she denies him. For the flea, he says, has sucked first his blood, then her blood, so that now, inside the flea, they are mingled; and that mingling cannot be called “sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead.” The flea has joined them together in a way that, “alas, is more than we would do.”
As his beloved moves to kill the flea, the speaker stays her hand, asking her to spare the three lives in the flea: his life, her life, and the flea’s own life. In the flea, he says, where their blood is mingled, they are almost married—no, more than married—and the flea is their marriage bed and marriage temple mixed into one. Though their parents grudge their romance and though she will not make love to him, they are nevertheless united and cloistered in the living walls of the flea. She is apt to kill him, he says, but he asks that she not kill herself by killing the flea that contains her blood; he says that to kill the flea would be sacrilege, “three sins in killing three.”
Cruel and sudden,” the speaker calls his lover, who has now killed the flea, “purpling” her fingernail with the “blood of innocence.” The speaker asks his lover what the flea’s sin was, other than having sucked from each of them a drop of blood. He says that his lover replies that neither of them is less noble for having killed the flea. It is true, he says, and it is this very fact that proves that her fears are false: If she were to sleep with him (“yield to me”), she would lose no more honor than she lost when she killed the flea.
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