Metaphysical_Poets

Subject : Metaphysical poetry Student :Latifa SAFOUI Metaphysical poetry and metaphysical poets of 17th century England have instigated an ongoing heated debate that has developed a peculiar immunity to any kind of settlement or final consencus among scholars and academics interested in English literature . The clamour that accompanied the rise of metaphysical poetry has to do ,in large ,with the fact that metaphysical poets - which is the term used to denote the architects of this trend in English poetry- have drawn a demarcation line that set them apart from the prevailing tradition of poetry writing in their time . Such trend in poetry writing constituted a violent ,outspoken and daring reversal of rules that have governed the narrative of writing and production of poetry up to the beginning of 17th century England . Up to that time, English poetry was mainly love lyric sonnets , written in an iambic meter ,with a language register that rarely deviated from the dominant vernacular , easily apprehended by the vast majority of English readers . Poetry like shakespear’ s or Sidney ‘s and their contemporary English poets of the Elizabethan age , represented mostly courtly poetry that abided by the generally agreed upon and accredited norms of writing poetry mentioned earlier . With the rise of the puritanic age and the revolutionary mode of thougth it unleashed : the rejection of the supreme authority of the Anglican church ,the upsurge of a new English ‘’politics’’ which toppled the monarchy opting for a much more representative governmental system (the parliament ),thus restricting the powers of the king ,which were until then unbrideled and absolute . Against this political and religious backdrop ,metaphysical poets emerged as the poets who eroded the standards of writing that have been prevalent so far . Instead of being reflective poets, who would provide a psychological emotionally engaged account of life experiences ; metaphysical poets opted for complete dissociation ,complete detachement and estrangement from the topics they tackled ,which were, yet , not totally new or different from the ones treated before .Nevertheless ,the dissociation mentioned was effected only initially ;the fragmentation of thoughts,feelings and usual modes of meaning was implemented as a preliminary stage to putting everything back together again in a higher synthesis . Poets like Donne ,Marvell and Cowley used extended metaphors and yoked the physical to the metaphysical ; think of Donne s the bait as an instance . In the first stanza of the poem , Donne invites his beloved : Come live with me and be my love , And we will some new pleasures prove , Of golden sands ,and crystal brooks , With silken lines and silver hooks . Donne ,in a parody of Christopher Marlow s The shepherd to his love , and unlike Marlow whose poem personifies the traditional love lyric that draws heavily on nature and on natural ,pastoral imageries ; he doesn t forground nature .Instead ,he puts it in the background favouring a physical instrument(the bait /the silken lines and silver hooks ) to build up his metaphor , which is going to stretch over the whole poem . Notice how this deeply stands in contrast with the shepherd to his love , where the poet invokes valleys ,groves ,hills ,fields and mountains : Come live with me and be my love , And we will all the pleasures prove , That valleys ,groves ,hills and fields , Woods ,or steepy mountains yields . Whereas Christopher Marlow uses clear ,common and natural metaphors and imageries to court his lover ,Donne goes beyond the seemingly simplistic language borrowed from nature and shifts focus from the natural to the more physical and more material things that he avails of in the building up of his metaphors . Such predilection for the physical, the unusual and the unnatural is what has mostly characterized metaphysical poetry . Poets established some associations which –at their time – earned them the label of ‘’absurd ‘’, ‘’singular ‘’or even completely’’ unfathomable’’ . The bait srikes the reader by the uncommon analogy between the man in his pursuit of his beloved to the bait ‘s catching of fish ;a thing,by the prevalent standards of the time ,considered out of time and place , an aberrant form of poetry that needed immediate readjustment and redressal . Redressal ( or rather attempts at redressal ) was to come at the hands of Samuel Jonhson who was the first to carve the term ‘’metaphysical ‘’and this , he did , in a mocking ,sardonic and derisory way .For s.Johnson,these poets ‘ overriding aim is ,not to write poetry to appeal to people, as much as it is a wish to ‘’say what they hoped had never been said before ‘’, an attempt to impress people through a kind of ‘’discordia concors’’ where ‘’the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together “. Metaphysical poetry ,from a Johnsonian vantage point , could never amount to genuine poetry as articulated by shakespear and Sidney .It is at best a kind of versification which, on the face of it , seems to be poetry by the deft use of wit and conceit, but which still lacks the spirit of poetry and so sounds crude ,tasteless and with no poetic flavour . S.Johnson is a diehard supporter of ancestral poetic traditions ,and incessantly pays lip service to canonic ways of thought to which,in his belief , metaphysical poets have nothing to add.Notice how he holds that ‘’all addition to that which is already sufficient for the purposes of religion seems not only useless,but in some degree profane ‘’.For him ,any deviation from the line of thought of early poets is strongly rejected: the shakespearian legacy is sancrosanct . On the other side of the issue stands T.S.Eliot s account of metaphysical poets, which diametrically opposes that of S.Johnson .T.S.Eliot considers that what Johnson views as a shortcoming, or a pitfall in metaphysical poetry, is the very thing that sets it apart as a piece of overarching , ingenious and creative writing .It is an asset rather than a liability .The” elaboration of a figure of speech to the furthest stage to which ingenuity can carry “and “the telescoping and multiple associations “ only testifies to the high intellectual abilities of these poets and their incomparable gift of dissociating material and putting it together again in a ” new unity” . T .S.Eliot refers to metaphysical poets as intellectual Poets who ,though drawing on the same issues of their time ,devised new and innovative ways of approaching them(consider how Donne promises his beloved of “new “ pleasures to prove ) ; which for Eliot, represents a natural response to their epoch characteristically distinguished by a proclivity for individualism and individual renditions of reality, following the historic disenfranchisement from the control of church and monarchy . Taken from this perspective , metaphysical poetry is seen as a virtuoso in English literature, and many scholars came to believe that it was the bearer of the seeds of a lot of many avantguard movements in modern and postmodern poetry . All in all,metaphysical poetry can be considered as a giant leap forward in English poetry.Metaphysical poets were ahead of their time in breaking away from the old entrenched tradition of poetry writing and composing .Much credit returns to them for allowing new modes of thought to emerge , and for emancipating English literature from the stranglehold of radicals like S.Jonhson . Although rebuffed by its detractors , metaphysical poetry continues to enthrall many readers and scholars .The interplay between easy language and complex structures, the extended metaphors and innovative sets of imageries are striking features that incessantly snatch awe and admiration from scholars and men of the street alike ; a fact that has earned metaphysical poetry an aura and made of it a landmark , and a defining parameter of 17th century England .