Metaphysical Poetry: Esteem for Metaphysical poetry never stood higher than in the 1930s and ’40s, largely because of T.S. Eliot’s influential essay “The Metaphysical Poets” (1921), a review of Herbert J.C. Grierson’s anthology Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the 17th Century. In this essay Eliot argued that the works of these men embody a fusion of thought and feeling that later poets were unable to achieve because of a “dissociation of sensibility,” which resulted in works that were either intellectual or emotional but not both at once. In their own time, however, the epithet “metaphysical” was used pejoratively: In 1630 the Scottish poet William Drummond of Hawthornden objected to those of his contemporaries who attempted to “abstract poetry to metaphysical ideas and scholastic quiddities.” At the end of the century, John Dryden censured Donne for affecting “the metaphysics” and for perplexing “the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy when he should engage their hearts . . . with the softnesses of love.” Samuel Johnson, in referring to the learning that their poetry displays, also dubbed them “the metaphysical poets,” and the term has continued in use ever since. Eliot’s adoption of the label as a term of praise is arguably a better guide to his personal aspirations about his own poetry than to the Metaphysical poets themselves; his use of metaphysical underestimates these poets’ debt to lyrical and socially engaged verse. Nonetheless, the term is useful for identifying the often-intellectual character of their writing.
The term metaphysical poet is now associated with any of the poets in 17th-century England who shows the inclination to the personal and intellectual complexity and concentration that is displayed in the poetry of John Donne, the chief of the Metaphysicals. Others include Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, John Cleveland and Abraham Cowley as well as, George Herbert and Richard Crashaw.
The major poets of this genre were John Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, Marvell, Vaughan and Traherne. We undertake a detailed discussion of Donne, Marvell and Herbert later. As of now let us look at Vaughan, Crashaw and Traherne.
In his poem A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, John Donne relates his views on the human condition of love and its relationship to the soul through the self-importance of drawing compasses. Donne shows the reader a separation of body and soul in his first stanza: “As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say The breath goes now, and some say, No;” (Donne). This seems to say that the soul is not a part of the body, and it is only combined with the body until death, when it “goes”. The use of the word “whisper” suggests that the soul and body can communicate with each other. Furthermore, the word “virtuous” implies that “un-virtuous” men may not be able to whisper to their souls. The separation of body and soul is an essential concept to the poem as it continues on.
If one has to look at Donne’s metaphysical concept of love then the poem ‘The Extasie’ is a brilliant example. The poet depicts the communion of two souls of a loving couple without any erotic or carnal passion, on a grassy turf besides a river. Donne does not attempt to use mention of the physical aspect of love. We are presented with two lovers are in deeply moved in the thought of getting fused into each other. This is very well presented in lines:
So to engraft our hands, as yet
Was all our meanes to make us one
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