Classic English Literature Notes

Important Questions……Donne As A Metaphysical Poet

What is meant by metaphysical poetry? In what sense is John Donne known as a “metaphysical poet”? Illustrate his use of metaphysical poetry from his poems you have read?

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How far are justified in using Dr. Johnson’s label “metaphysical” for John Donne?

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Bring out clearly those characteristics of John Donne’s poetry because of which he is generally described as a metaphysical poet?

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In what way, John Donne is a “metaphysical Poet”? Illustrate your answer with reference to the poems in your course?

         John Donne is the name in English Literature who gave new direction to the literary activities of his age. He is in a sense founded the metaphysical lyric, which was practiced by scare of writers. As Dowden says, “We are told that in the decline of the greater poetry of the Elizabethan period, a metaphysical school arose and that John Donne was the founder or the first eminent member of this school.” John Donne set up a new tradition in versification by and large Donne must be regarded as an original poet, “a poet who gave much more than what he borrowed from his age.”

         The word “metaphysical” has been defined by various writers differently. The learned critics feels that “metaphysical poetry” is inspired by a philosophy, philosophical conception of the universe and the role assigned to human spirit in the great drama of universe. However in very simple tone, we can interpret the term metaphysical as meta (beyond) and physical (physical nature). “There is a harmonious blend of passion and argument which is an essential characteristic of metaphysical lyric.”

           In brief, the term, “metaphysical poetry” implies the characteristics of complexity, intellectual tone, abundance of subtle wit, fusion of intellect and emotion, colloquial argumentative tone, conceits which are always witty and sometimes fantastic, scholarly allusions, dramatic tone and philosophic or reflective element. These metaphysical poets have specific characteristics as ‘Dr. Johnson’ points out that “The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavor. They neither copied nature nor life neither painted the forms of matter nor represented the operations of intellect. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom natural.”

          As we find all these characteristics and features in John Donne’s poetry, therefore it is easy to say that John Donne is the metaphysical poet. However it is Dryden who first of all used this term for John Donne by sayi8ng that “he affects the metaphysics.”  Concentration is an important quality of metaphysical poetry in general and John Donne’s poetry in particular. As Helen Gardner says, “The first characteristic of metaphysical poetry is its concentration. The reader is held to an idea or a line of argument. He is not invited to pause upon a passage, wander with it and muse upon and dream upon it.”

          The Good Marrow, the poem is one long argument to prove that the poet and his beloved are passionately in love. What did the lovers do before they loved? Did they feed themselves on country pleasures or did they snort in the seven sleepers’ den? All the women when the poet has loved before were merely anticipations of his present beloved. Each of lovers is a whole world to the other and their little room is a kind of everywhere. Not only is that, the lovers the best possible hemispheres who make up a complete world. These lovers can never die because they love each other with an equal intensity.

WHERE CAN WE FINDE TWO BETTER HEMISPHERES

WITHOUT SHARP NORTH, WITHOUT DECLINING WEST?

WHATEVER DYES, WAS NOT MIXT EQUALITY;

IF OUR TWO LOVES BE ONE, OR, THOU AND I

LOVE SO ALIKE, THAT NONE DOE SLACKEN, NONE CAN DIE.

      Furthermore as fondness for conceits is a major characteristic of metaphysical poetry and John Donne employs fantastic comparisons. As in the words of Helen Gardner, “In metaphysical poem, the conceits are instruments of definition in an argument or instrument to persuade. The poem has something to say which the conceit explicates or something to urge which the conceit helps to forward.”

The Sunne Rising is another passionate poem. But here too the poet argues and reasons. The poet and his beloved have no reader to feel afraid of the sun which has risen, because love does not recognize season or clime. A sense of fanciful and fantastic conceits follows to prove that the sun has no power over the lovers. The poet can eclipse and closed the beams of the sun, while dazzling light of the beloved’s eyes can blind the sun. Both, the West and the East Indias lie with the poet in the shape of his beloved. Then comes a conceit which also expresses the passion of the lovers:

SHE’S ALL STATES, AND ALL PRINCES I;

NOTHING ELSE IS.

     The most striking and famous one is the comparison of man who travels and his beloved who stays at home to a pair of compasses in ‘A Valediction Of Forbidding Mourning’. Here 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 SO

AS STIFF TWIN COMPASSES ARE TWO,

THY SOUL THE FIX FOOT, MAKES NO SHOW

TO MOVE, BUT (DOTH) IF THE OTHER DOE.

In The Relique, John Donne imagines himself lying in a grave as a skeleton with the undeniable token of spiritual love in the sphere of his beloved’s bright lock of hair forming a bracelet about his wriste borne and because of their great love, he and his beloved will be honored like saints,

ALL WOMEN SHALL ADORE US, AND SOME MEN.

          Another feature is the use of colloquial speech which marks the metaphysical poetry. In John Donne’s poems, the vigor of colloquialism is especially apparent in the abrupt, conversational opening of many of his poems. He selected colloquial diction which has vigor, freshness and originality. He discarded literary words and phrases which became rusty because of repetition. Another characteristic of metaphysical poetry is a rejection of what is known as poetic diction and the use of colloquial speech.

I WONDER BY MAN TROTH, WHAT THOU AND I

DID TILL WE LOV’D (Good Marrow)

BUSIE OLD FOOLE, UNRULY SUNNE,

WHY DOST THOU THUS. (Sunne Rising)

 DEATH BE NOT PROUD, THOUGH SOME HAVE CALLED THEE

MIGHTY AND DREADFUL,

           Furthermore it is enough to prove John Donne as a metaphysical that he speaks of the soul and of the spiritual love but not of the body and physical love. In A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, 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 REFINED,

THAT OURSELVES KNOW NOT WHAT IT IS,

INTER-ASSURED OF THE MIND,

CARELESS, EYES, LIPS, AND HANDS TO MISSE.

In The Relique the lovers do not even know the difference of sex and kiss each other sparingly.

FIRST WE LOV’D WELL AND FAITHFULLY,

YET KNEW NOT WHAT WEE LOV’D, NOR WHY,

DIFFERENCE OF SEX NO MORE WEE KNEW,

THEN OUR GUARDIAN ANGELS DOE;

          But the most famous poem in this connection is The Ecstasy in which the souls of the two lovers come out of their bodies and negotiate with each other, though finally they return to the bodies. John Donne’s muse loves these sudden flights from the material to the spiritual sphere. He often relates those phenomenons which lie beyond normal physical experience with those which can be physically experienced.

          Intellect and with blending with emotions and feelings marks the metaphysical poetry, especially that of John Donne. John Donne is the classic representative of metaphysical poetry. His instinct compelled him to bring the whole of experience into his verse and to choose the most direct and natural form of expression by his learned and fantastic mind. Grierson aptly sums up, “Donne is metaphysical not only by virtue of his scholasticism but by his deep reflective interest in the experience of which his poetry is the expression, the new psychological curiosity with which he wrote of love and religion.” According to Grierson, “The finer psychology of which their conceits are often the expression; their learned imaginary; the argumentative, subtle evolution of their lyrics; above all the peculiar blend of passion and thought, feeling and ratiocination which is their greatest achievement. Passionate thinking is always apt to become metaphysical probing and investigating the experience from which it takes its rise. All these qualities are in the poetry of John Donne and Donne is the greatest master of English poetry in the seventeenth century.