Donne as a metaphysical poet

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Donne as a metaphysical poet

GENESIS AND CONCEPT OF METAPHYSICAL POETRYIntroduction: The onset of social reforms and Renaissance in particular made a sensational change in socio-political atmosphere in the late 16th and 17th centuries in England. In that era, politics and religion were intrinsically intertwined with each other and religion was at the heart of political controversy. The realm of education was revolutionized with new scientific ideologies, discoveries and inventions, coupled with grand and splendid literary creations. In the midst of such political insecurity, religious controversy, social fragmentation and intellectual ferment, there was the strong and pervasive presence of a spirit of freshness, of vivacity, of enthusiasm, of originality, of individuality, of new learning, of zest and so on. Diverse literary trends emerged in this whirlpool of change and enriched the history of literature.Metaphysical poetry is poetry on subjects which exist beyond the physical world. In other words, it is a type of poetry dealing with abstract or philosophical subjects such as love, religion, God, beauty, faith and so on. But in reality the poetry comprises the ideas or aspects such as physical love leading to spiritual union or religious, argumentative presentation of emotion, terseness of expression, use of conceit and wit in profusion, skillful use of colloquial language instead of Elizabethan lucid diction with the abrupt opening can be considered to be metaphysical. Originally the term Metaphysical Poetry was coined byJohn Drydenand later popularised bySamuel Johnsonand the features of the school which unite the various authors are quite numerous. As well as making widespread use of conceit, paradox and punning, the metaphysical poets drew their imagery from all sources of knowledge particularly from science, theology, geography and philosophy.Metaphysical poetry has sparkling capability to explore and express ideas and feelings about the terrestrial world and its diverse phenomena in a rational way to mesmerize the readers. Making innovative and shocking use of puns, paradoxes and employing subtle logical propositions, the metaphysical poetry has achieved a style that is energetic and vigorous. Broadly speaking, metaphysical poetry was the result of revolt against the conventional romanticism of Elizabethan love poetry and so, the metaphysical group of poets was inclined towards amalgamation of heterogeneous ideas and disparate images, use of intricate rhythm, realism, obscurity etc. Generally, the wit ofmetaphysicalpoets is more intellectual than that of the Elizabethan poets in general. Their conceits are psychological, lyrics are argumentative but the greatest achievement ofmetaphysicalpoets is a blend of passion and thought. Intense emotional intellectuality is a leading quality of metaphysicalverse. In brief, the term, MetaphysicalPoetry implies the qualities of complexity, fusion of emotions, outburst of passions and emotional intellectuality and an embodiment of reflective elements.Qualities of Donne as a metaphysical poet:Intellect and wit are the two prime qualities of ametaphysicalpoet. The poet interweaves these two elements with its emotional effects. Donne was a classical representative of this kind of poetry. When we speak of Donne as ametaphysicalpoet, we generally have in mind the combination of passion and thought which characterize his work. His conceits are witty, his hyperboles are outrageous and his paradoxes astonishing. His mixes fact and fancy in an astounding manner. All these qualities need to be illustrated from hispoems.Donne was the first poet who included thought and idea in poetrysidebysideas opposed to the Elizabethans. Originality in dictionmarksDonnes poetry. He used scientific, technical as well as colloquialvocabulary. He rejected the conventional Petrarchan conceits and coined new images. Hisvocabularyis rich and diversified. The main aspects of theMetaphysicalpoetry are: passionate thinking, philosophical concept of the universe and ordinary experiences, obscurity and learning, unified sensibility, conceits and images, affectation and hyperbole, diction and versification and excessive intellectualism. All these features ofmetaphysicalpoetry are abundant in Donnes poetry for which he is labeled as ametaphysicalpoet.Donne is ametaphysicalpoet in a literal sense too. He speaks of the soul and of spiritual love.In AValediction: Forbidding Mourning,the poet speaks of the spiritual love. The love is so refined that the lovers do not much miss each others eyes, lips and hands which lovers normally seek. In TheRelic, they do not even know the difference of sex. His concentration, expanded epigrams, fondness for conceits and striking and subtle wit, combination of passion and thought, the use of commonlanguageand the profundity of thought and intensity are the qualities that make Donne ametaphysicalpoet. In the poem, the soul of the beloved is like the fixed foot of compasses as by her inborn nature she stays at home whereas the soul of the lover is like the other foot of compasses which moves beyond the center to complete a circle of journey;If they be two, they are two soAs stiffe twin compasses are two,Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no showT o move, but doth, if thother doe.Here, love is so refined that the lovers do not much miss each others eyes, lips and hands which are normally the demands of the lovers;

But we by a love, so much refind,

That our selves know not what it is,

Inter-assured of the mind,

Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse.

We, the lovers, loved totally and faithfully without knowing why we liked each other. We didnt regard sex as the object of our love. Our love was pure and clean like those of angels;First we lovd well and faithfully,

Yet knew not what wee lovd, nor why

Difference of sex no more we knewMAIN ASPECTS OF METAPHYSICAL POETRYPassionate thinking: John Donnegave up the trend of unbridled emotion and passion of the Elizabethan poets and put aside the over-romanticized ideas and their sugar-coated language. Rather Donne and his followers made a fine blend of passion and thought, emotion and intellect, imagination and reality, feeling and ratiocination.The fact is that Donne does not allow his passion to run way with him. He holds it in check with his reason. When the beloved wants to crush the flea who has bitten her, the poet argues with her dissuading her from what he calls triple murder of the lover, the beloved and the flea.Similarly, Donne moderates the intensity of passion with his life as inThe Canonization.The lovers will be regarded as saints of love and worshipped accordingly. Donnes achievement lies in wedding thought to emotion, and argument to personal passion. In this connection, Grierson writes: Donnes love poetry is a very complex phenomenon, but the two dominant strains in it are just these : the strains of dialectic, subtle play of argument and wit, erudite and fantastic; and the strain of vivid realism, and the record of a passion which is not ideal or conventional, neither recollected in tranquility nor a pure product of literary fashion, but love as an actual, and immediate experience in all its moods, gay and angry, scornful and rapturous with joy, touched with tenderness and darkened with sorrow. Dryden, too, comments on the intellectual and metaphysical element of his love poetry thus: He perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy when he should engage their hearts and entertain with softness of love. The Canonizationis one of the most famous poems of Donne in which we can trace the blending of emotion and reason. He uses some images and conceits to express the supreme feeling of satisfaction in love in a concrete manner in the following lines:

Call us what you will, we are made such by love,

Call her one, me another fly,

We are tapers too, and at our own cost die,

We can die by it, if not live by love.

This emotion of love is harmonized with the use of complex wit and conceit, reason and argument.

There is plenty of passion in Donne's poetry, but it is passion combined with intense intellectual activity. T.S. Eliot thinks that passionate thinking is the chief mark of metaphysical poetry. In the poem, The Canonization, the speaker asks his addressee to be quiet, and let him love. He admonishes the addressee to look to his own mind and his own wealth and to think of his position and copy the other nobles (Observe his Honour, or his Grace, / Or the Kings real, or his stamped face / Contemplate.) The speaker does not care what the addressee says or does, as long as he lets him love.

The speaker tells his addressee to Call us what you will, for it is love that makes them so. He says that the addressee can Call her one, me another fly, and that they are also like candles (tapers), which burn by feeding upon their own selves (and at our own cost die). In each other, the lovers find the eagle and the dove, and together (we two being one) they illuminate the riddle of the phoenix, for they die and rise the same, just as the phoenix doesthough unlike the phoenix, it is love that slays and resurrects them.

The peculiarities of the metaphysical lyric

The metaphysical lyric lays stress on the fantastic, on the intellectual, on wit, on learned imagery, on conceits based on psychology of flights from the material to the spiritual plane, on obscure and philosophical allusions, on the blending of passions, and thought, feeling and ratiocination. The metaphysical lyric is a blend of passion, imagination and argumemnt. According to A.C. Ward, the metaphysical style is a combination of two elements, the fantastic in form and style and the incongruous in matter and manner. In The Canonization, for instance, lover scornfully tells a friend, Take you a course, get you a place, / Observe His Honor, or His Grace, but chooses for himself the role of the lover isolated from politics, commerce, and society. Often he declares that he and his lover are capable of replicating, containing, or obliterating the rest of the world: She is all states, and all princes I, / Nothing else is(The Sun Rising). In these defiant verses, Donne makes a show of rejecting the society that had already rejected him. In the poem, the lovers are willing to die (with a sexual pun) as one person and to be preserved in sonnets through which they will be worshipped as saints by future lovers. In the poem at least, love triumphs over difference in class and wealth. Yet Donnes desire to overmaster or efface the world is frequently matched by his desire, in the poems such as A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, to efface his own individuality in the ideal union of lovers souls. Also in the poem, the phoenix, which elsewhere symbolizes the self-made, self-serving individual, here becomes an emblem of the surrender of individuality. Philosophical conception of the universe and ordinary experiencesThis philosophical structure of poetic aptitude to associate the different aspects of nature and its constituents in a significant manner constitutes the basics of metaphysical poetry the pioneering contribution of which has been made by John Donne. Metaphysical poetry and John Donne are so inherently

interconnected that one without the other becomes a misnomer. Metaphysical poetry symbolizes the splendid and meticulous blending of intellect and emotion, ingenious wit and caustic humour so as to acquaint the readers with a new pattern of poetic excellence.Metaphysical poetry is inspired by a philosophical conception of universe and the role assigned to the human spirit in the great drama of existence. Undoubtedly, its themes are simple human experiences, the joy and sorrow of love, the thrill of adventure and battle, the hustle and excitement of the town and in addition mystic experiences and inner conflicts known to the greatest thinkers and philosophers. Donne and his fellows are not the metaphysical poets in the full sense of the term. They are metaphysical in a restricted sense. Donne is metaphysical, by nature of his scholasticism, his knowledge of Plato, Aristotle, the medieval philosophers and the new learning of the Renaissance, his deep reflective interest in his personal experiences, the new psychological curiosity and dissecting genius with which he writes of life, love and religion. But he is often frivolous, tortuous and sceptical.Source of metaphysical inspiration: Love poetry and religious poetryThe variety and scope of Donnes love lyrics is truly remarkable. He oscillates between physical love and holy love, between cynicism and faith in love and above all the sanctity and dignity of married life. His earlier love-poems are rather erotic and sensual and deal with the real escapades and intrigues of lovers. Moreover, he is quite original in presenting love-situations and moods. Partly they are based on common experiences of his contemporaries and partly on his own experiences. In the gay and fashionable life of London of his time, Donne had ample opportunities of establishing both casual and lasting love-relationships.InThe Relic,the lover plays with the idea that the grave hides more than one person, as woman plays the trick of being bad with more than one person. This is the lovers device to stay together with his beloved in the grave, just as they stayed together while living.

Another poemA Valediction: Forbidding Mourningalso refers to a temporary separation when Donne was called from home. The poet compares the journey to the two legs of a compass, one remaining fixed and the other moving to complete the circle.Such wilt thou be to me who mustLike the other fool, obliquely ran;Thy firmness mike my circle just,And mikes me end, where I begun.These love lyrics are inspired by a depth and sweetness of affection and offer a contrast to the Donnes trival and conceited poems of the early period.InThe Canonization,where love is regarded as a holy emotion like the worship of a devotee of God. There are, however, certain poems where sexual love is treated as holy love and vice versa.

Holy Sonnet 14 is one ofJohn Donne's series of Holy Sonnets. Holy Sonnet 14 is one of his most famous and often-studied poems. It covers the major recurrent theme in Donne's poetry a possibly conflicting passion for both carnal and divine love.

In Donnes Holy Sonnet 14 the speaker feels weak in his faith - the world is full of temptations, it's hard to choose the right path, and reason can only take him so far. He needs God to show him some extreme tough love so that he can renewed in his faith.Donnes a philosophy of love that seeks to balance the roles and establish right relations between both body and soul. Donne felt free to use religious language to express erotic concepts, and also employed sexual language to communicate the holy and divine. As an example of the former, consider the phrase, We die and rise the same and prove / mysterious by this love. Donne freely employs sexual language to speak about divine love, especially in the Holy Sonnets. Metaphysical poetry resolves itself into the two broad divisions of amorous and religious verse. The metaphysical element first made its appearance in love poems, following the example of the Italian writers, whom Donne seems to have adopted as his models. Under this influence Donne love poems became yet more popular. Eevery metaphor, natural or traditional to the theme of love, was elaborated in abstract and hyperbolical fashion, till it gave rise to indulgence in strange and far-fetched images. Donne has written many songs and sonnets on the subject of love.The poems he wrote to celebrate his wedded love are full of ecstatic feelings. If he had less of arguments and more of passion he would have been a greater poet of love. He is rather rough too. InA Valediction, Forbidding Mourning, the argument is not logically persuasive, but the cleverness and subtlety of Donne might comfort a woman. She cannot change the fact of the lover's going, but the poem is evidence of the integrity of the love he has professed hitherto. HisDivine Poems are marked by an intense feeling of piety, by a brooding thought on the subject of death and a strong faith in Resurrection.In "Lovers' Infiniteness" Donne begins with If yet I have not all thy love,/Deare, I shall never have it all. The lover seems jealous: he wants claim to all of this woman's love. He has tried to purchase her with Sighs, teares, and oathes, and letters. The poet complains that he does not yet have all of his beloveds love, despite using all of his resources to woo her. She should not leave some love for others, nor should she leave herself open to wooing by others later. Yet, he also wants her to keep some of her love for him in reserve so that they can enjoy a constantly growing relationship. Learning in Metaphysical poetryThe metaphysical poets were a small group of English lyric poets of the 17th century who had similar styles and concerns. Their fresh and sophisticated approach to the writing of lyrics was marked by an intellectual quality and an inventive and subtle style, with the use of the metaphysical conceit (a figure of speech that employs unusual and paradoxical images). Samuel Johnson (1744) said that "the metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show learning was their whole endeavour." He also said of their poetry that "the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions."

Donne, regarded as one of the chief poetic innovators among the metaphysical poets, was reacting against the 16thcentury (Elizabethan) love lyrics, which embodied courtly-love conventions which idealized women. Donne did not use the sonnet form for his love lyrics - a significant break with the tradition found in earlier poets such as Sidney and Spenser. He used colloquial language, he abandoned (and sometimes satirized) the courtly mode and focused on individual experience in a way that offered a less static notion of love than many previous poets. Metaphysical verse is laden with the scholarship of its authors. A whole book of knowledge might be compiled from the scholarly allusions in Donne and Cowley alone. To such learning in itself there could, of course, be no objection. It is an enrichment of the poets mind, and part of the equipment for his high vocation. Injudiciously applied, however, it can only mystify the average person, and it was unfortunate that, as Dr. Johnson noted, the Metaphysicians sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of learning not very much frequented by common readers of poetry. The poet is not made by what he can give at second or third hand, unless his own genius can transmute it. As Johnson also said: No man could be born a Metaphysical poet, nor assume that dignity of a writer, by descriptions, copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility.Obscurity in metaphysical poetryDonne's poems have struck readers as perversely obscure and odd. In the poem The Canonization, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, in one or other way deal with the abstract idea which is most dominating feature of the metaphysical poetry. In the task of trying to find the verbal equivalent for states of mind and feeling, to quote T.S. Eliot, the Metaphysicals made themselves difficult to understand. As we have seen, they combined dissimilar ideas without attempting to unite them, and the reader was left with experiences which are quite obscure in nature. So far as their later reputation was concerned, this did not serve them well for several generations. Ben Jonson predicted that Donnes fame would not live because of his incapacity to open himself to his reader, and indeed this great poet had almost to be rediscovered in our own times. Accordin to Coleridge The, style of the Metaphysical, he wrote, is the reverse of that which distinguishes, too many of our most recent versifiers; the one conveying the most fantastic thoughts in the most correct lanaguage, the other in the most fantastic language conveying the most trivial thoughts.Unified sensibility in metaphysical poetryIt was T.S. Eliot who made the phrase unified sensibility popular. According to Eliot, the two faculties, that of feeling and of thinking came to be dissociated from each other on account of one-sided emphasis placed since the time of Milton on intellect. Thus after the seventeenth century, we have either poetry of thought or poetry of feeling. Such a separation of thought from feeling is called dissociation of sensibility. This had an adverse effect on the history of poetry. But in the early part of seventeenth century feeling and thought were combined, they were one operation of the mind. It was not possible to think without feeling and to feel without thinking. This is called a unified sensibility (or unification of sensibility). Donne had a unified sensibility. His poetry expressed through thinking and feeling at the same time. Here is a direct apprehension of thought, or a recreation of thought into feeling. Eliot tells us in the essayMetaphysial Poets:The poets of the seventeenth century, the successors of the sixteenth, possessed a mechanism of sensibility which could devour any kind of experience. Thus in the seventeenth century, a dissociation of sensibility set in. If the Metaphysical poets are obscure and difficult, it is because their sensibility is unified, and ours dissociated.

The Metaphysicals are constantly amalgamating disparate experiences. Donne had the knack of presenting different objects together. These objects are quite remote though undeniable similarity has been brought about by the poet. He connects the abstract with concrete, the physical with spiritual, the remote with the near and the sublime with the common-place. This juxtaposition, and sometimes, interfusion of apparently dissimilar or exactly opposite objects often pleasantly thrills us into a new perception of reality. Dramatic PresentationAnother leading feature of Donnes poetry is his dramatic presentation that arrests the attention of the readers very quickly. Like other famous poets, Donne has the capacity of opening a poem abruptly adding a dramatic quality to the poem. As we find such abruptness in opening the poemThe Canonization. The line goes as:

For Gods sake hold your tongue, and let me love,

Or chide my palsy, or my gout,

Upon reading or hearing those opening lines, we can easily understand that the poem begins somewhat in the middle of a conversation. Now the more we advance, the more clear it becomes that why the speaker of the poem makes such a request to the unidentified listener.Closely related to the dramatic directness and abruptness of opening is Donnes dexterous use of colloquial speech. This dramatic quality is strengthened by its colloquial tone. In the song:Go and Catch a Falling Starwe can trace such a quality:

Go, and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root, On perusing the two lines we will see that like many other poems Donne has employed colloquial language to make the poem more lifelike. From the lines it is clear that a conversation is going on between two people.

Metaphysical conceits and imagesThe most striking quality of Donnes poetry is the use of metaphysical conceit which is a figure of speech in which two far fetched objects or images of very different nature are compared. It surprises its readers by its ingenious discovery and delights them by its intellectual quality. Such conceits are available in his poetry. Such a famous conceit occurs in the poem titledA Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. The conceit reads as:

If they be two, they are two so

A stiff twin compasses are two;

They soul, the fixed foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if th other do.

Here in the poem the two lovers are compared to the two feet of a compass. The lover is compared to the moving foot and the beloved to the fixed foot consecutively to show the ideal relationship between them. It is made clear that in this relationship the womans part is passive and her place is in the home, while the mans duty is to move in the world of affairs. She stays in the centre apparently unmoving, but certainly as the outer foot moves around describing the circle, the inner foot moves too, revolving on the point which is the centre. The two, in fact, move in harmony and neither is unaffected by the movement of the other. At first sight such a comparison seems to be impossible but after the discovery of the underlying meaning it delights the readers. A characteristic feature of metaphysical verse is indulgence in dissimilar images, of discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. A comparison is often instituted between objects that have ostensibly little in common with each other. The metaphysical poetry is full of far fetched images (conceits as they are called) and allusions and references borrowed from branches of learningold and new.Metaphysical conceits convey a unified experienceThe image of the compass that ends "A Valediction: forbidding mourning" would certainly constitute an excellent example of the forced likening of unrelated materials. In this famous image, the lovers' sols are compared to the two ends of a compass used in geometry, whose movements remain irrevocably linked.The image may serve to illustrate Eliot's idea of dissimilar lments compelled into unity and held together by an incredible show of ingenuity on the part of the poet.

Donne, through his use of the Metaphysical conceit in this poem, establishes parallels between the sets of things he compares. Let us take an example from the image of flies and tapers in Donne's "The Canonization". In the verses: "Call us what you will, we are made by such love;/ Call her one, me another fly,/ We are tapers too, and at our own cost die".

Donne may be said to highlight the similarities that unite three sets of things - 1) two lovers drawn to each other, 2) flies attracted by the light of a flame, and 3) a taper slowly consumed by its own flame. By drawing parallels between thse sets of elements, Donne therefore seems to describe his beloved and himself as irresistibly drawn to each other like two flies attracted by a flame and as burning from a love that devours them like a taper slowly consumed by its own flame.The conceit indeed is the means by which he utters his philosophical conception of shared love. Moreover, it is also the tool he uses to render apprehensible to the mind the intangible and invisible ties that unite two beings. For example, in the same poem, Donne develops his theme through a series of conceits, each image adding precision and emotional intensity to his vision of the relationship that unites the two parting lovers. The poem ostensibly relates Donne's discourse to his wife on his departure on a diplomatie mission across the Channel onto the Continent in 1612. In it, he uses the conceit as an instrument to probe the experience of leave-taking and to assert his belief that true love of both body and mind will resist the trials imposed by distance. The poem's first conceit seeks to define the nature of the relationship that unites the lovers and poignantly gives expression to their pain.

The relationship that unites the parting lovers is compared to that which binds a dying, virtuous man to his sol. More than a mere attempt to urge a solemn parting, this stanza provides valuable insight into how the poet-speaker conceives of his relationship with his beloved. They are as closely tied to each other, as merged with one another, as the soul is with the body. Through this first conceit, the poet defines the nature of the bond that unites the lovers in such a way as to do justice to the emotions thoroughly committed lovers.

In addition, if the parting lovers are to each other as the departing sol is to the dying man, through this conceit, Donne may in fact be attempting to utter a statement on the connectedness of physicality and spirituality in love. John Donne has made a characteristic use of ideas and experiences and the most startling connections are discovered between them.

Conceits in Donnes poetry are not a piece of decoration, they are functional. They are used to persuade, define, illustrate or prove a point. A poem has something to say which the conceit explicates, or something to urge which the conceit helps to forward. They are the most effective vehicles of Donnes mode of perception. Their farfetchedness adds a touch of miraculous to his poetry. Another significant aspect of Donnes metaphysical conceit is that it cannot be isolated from its context, the whole poem. Like the conceits of Shakespeare, Donnes are born of the given dramatic movement to illustrate the relationship of characters and relationships of ideas. The conceits of Donne have an organic growth and proliferation, receiving sustenance from the intensity and complexity of the given experience. That is why even though far-fetched, they have an astonishing clarity.Affectation and hyperbole in metaphysical poetryAffectation and Hyperbole is one of the main aspects for which Donne is branded as a metaphysical poet. Natural grace is often hard to find in metaphysical writing, which abounds in artificiality of thought and hyperbolical expression. The writers probably deemed it a passport to fame to say something unexpected and surprising. What they wanted of the sublime, they endeavoured to supply by hyperbole, their amplification had no limits, they left not only reason but fancy behind them and produced combinations of confused magnificence, that not only could be credited, but could not be imagined.Diction and versification of metaphysical poetryThe use of diction in his poetry is also very original and unprecedented. As mentioned earlier, he rejected the conventional petrarchan conceits and coined new words. He employs scientific, technical as well as colloquial vocabulary. He makes use of rich and diversified expressions. We see originality, novelty and complexity so abundant nowhere but in Donnes poetry. The language is obviously dramatic and exaggerated. Many words occur quite unexpectedly, as opposed to the conventionaldictionof much Elizabethan love poetry. The diction here covers all social classes, from the court to countrey ants, which may literally be ants or may just refer to the busy labourers at harvest-time.The Metaphysicals reacted against the cloying sweetness and harmony of the Elizabethan poetry. They deliberately avoided conventional poetic expressions. They employed very prosaic words as if they were scientists or shopkeepers. Thus, we find rugged and unpoetic words in their poetical works. Their versification and their diction is usually, coarse and jerky. According to Grierson, the metaphysicals had two motives for employing very coarse and rugged expressions in their poetical works. Firstly, they wanted to startle the reader. Secondly, they had the desire to make use of direct, unconventional and colloquial speeches.

Excessive intellectualism of metaphysical poetryJohn Donne rebelled against the outdated style of the Elizabethan poets. He usedintellectualism and reasonin place of idealism (which was followed byElizabethan poets). According to Grierson, the hallmark of all metaphysical poetry is passionate feeling and paradoxical ratiocination. The same critic observes that the Metaphysicals exhibited deductive reasoning carried to a high pitch. Often Donne states at the beginning of a poem a hopelessly insupportable proposition which he defends later.

The metaphysical poets, in Johnsons words, desired to say what they hoped had been never said before. They endeavoured to be singular in their thoughts and were careless of their diction. They did not feel obliged to follow the trodden path. They had their own thoughts and they worked out their own manner of expressing them. They played with thoughts, said Sir Walter Scott, as the Elizabethans had played with words. In fact, they carried the Elizabethan freedom of imagination and delight in verbal fancies to a point at which it became difficult for the average reader to grasp their meaning. For splendour of sound and imagery they substituted subtlety of thought, though this must not be taken to mean that their work lacked its own beauty and grandeur.Reactions against metaphysical poetryAbout the middle of the seventeenth century a change came over the English poetic temperament. The metaphysical wave had exhausted itself, and had left literary standards and values confused. The Metaphysicals had misused the Elizabethan ideal of liberty. It necessitated the growing realization of clarity and control in poetry. Ben Jonson with his prophetic vision had advocated literary order and discipline in place of lawless impulse and unbridled fancy. His example was ignored for a time, but it was effective when metaphysical method, in its decay, began to produce more weeds than flowers. Cowley and Marvell had realised the importance of poise and control in their verse. But Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham were the real pioneers of the new movement. They led the reaction against metaphysical excesses by writing charming verse on the classical model.Rehabilitation of metaphysical poetry in the twentieth centuryAfter the First World War metaphysical method again came into vogue. Consciousness of the waste and futility of war, and the desolation and hopelessness resulting from it once more brought God in purview. A sincere quest for positive faith emerged. Religious poetry came to be written under the influence of the seventeenth century metaphysical poets. What gave a further impetus to the writing of religious poetry was the popularity of Hopkins after being resurrected by Bridges in 1819. The poetry of Hopkins had qualities which particularly appealed to the postwar world, it revealed a sense of spiritual tension and frustration, it combined a powerful intellect with a strong sensuousness, and it possessed a bold originality of technique. The poetry of Hopkins is completely on the lines of the old metaphysicals, with the same devotion of grace, the same technique of expression and the same use of Donnes breaking up of lines, suddenly indicating a pause.Eliot himself turned his face away from the faithlessness of the Waste Land and Hollow Men and in Ash Wednesday sought refuge in the Anglo-Catholic doctrines of faith. Since then, religion has become his voice and he has been considered by some as the lost leader. Eliots poems are in a complete sense metaphysical. Eliots art embraces Donnes technique of the juxtaposition of the levity with the seriousness, his method of presenting things by contrast, his use of wit and conceits as well.ConclusionThe term Metaphysical was applied to the poetry of Donne and his followers first by Dryden and then by Dr. Johnson. Donne wrote mainly on two subjects, love and religion. The term Metaphysical is rightly applied to him as in his poetry there is the habit of always seeking to express something behind the simple. Dr. Johnson was unkind to this school. He thought that metaphysical poets only wanted to display their learning and to say something which had not been said before.

It will be interesting here to mention that the future of metaphysical poetry is bright. By meditating upon the nature of the poetry, we find that metaphysical poetry is alone true poetry. The pure physical poetry deals with the thinginess and Platonic poetry deals with ideals and ideas alone. Metaphysical poetry is preferable not because it represents the middle way between the two, but because it produces a beautiful blend of the two.

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