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Metaphysical Poetry and John Donne: an Overview

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Metaphysical Poetry and John Donne: an Overview ZENITH International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Vol.2 Issue 2, February 2012, ISSN 2231 5780 METAPHYSICAL POETRY AND JOHN DONNE: AN OVERVIEW PIU SARKAR* *Researcher & Part-time Lecturer in English, Guskara Mahavidyalaya, Burdwan, West Bengal, India. ABSTRACT John Donne is acknowledged as the master of metaphysical poetry and is admired for his talent and magnificent wit exercised in his writing. Metaphysical poetry is a special branch of poetry that deals with the pedagogic use of intellect and emotion in a harmonic manner. The basic praxis of metaphysical poetry is to highlight the philosophical view of nature and its ambience concerning human life. Despite criticisms from various corners, Donne and his other companions remained busy with their work to concentrate on metaphysical poetry to portray the feelings and sentiments of human beings by dint of their skillful and artful literary accomplishments. This paper is to address the outstanding performance of John Donne in the arena of metaphysical poetry and it endeavours to make a critical assessment of the diverse issues allembracing metaphysical poetry as well as to establish the relevance of metaphysical poetry in the literary realm. ______________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION ―Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere‖ The Sun Rising: John Donne The startling conversational lines marvellously enumerate the poet‘s intense appeal to spread the beams of sun on the lovers‘ world as a mark of illuminating the macrocosmic world and beckon the readers to enter into a new realm of poetry with a sense of attachment and belonging between different objects of nature and human sentiments, feeling, passion etc. This 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. www.zenithresearch.org.in 446 ZENITH International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Vol.2 Issue 2, February 2012, ISSN 2231 5780 GENESIS AND CONCEPT OF METAPHYSICAL POETRY 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. While Shakespeare lends a unique dimension to poetic drama and Spenser to dramatico-lyrical poetry, this era also witnessed the flourishing of an erudite group of poets whose poetic reputation rested on a powerful mingling of the intellect and the emotion in the form of metaphysical poetry. Chagrined by the much trodden track of Petrarchan sonnets coupled with pompous words and emotional exuberance, this new circle of poets, known as metaphysical poets, set a new fashion of composing poems, which provided intellectual parallels to a spectrum of emotional experience, a sudden transmission from playfulness to high-pitched passion, interplay of levity and sincerity, and a wide range of imagery, both starkly realistic and startlingly cunning. John Donne, the pioneer of this metaphysical school of poetry, and his compeers like Andrew Marvell, Henry Vaughan, George Herbert and Richard Crashaw significantly contributed to this new poetic field to draw the attention as well as animadversion from various corners. A more comprehensive list of metaphysical poets would like to include Abraham Cowley, Traherne and Thomas Carew who were either directly or indirectly influenced by Donne, the lynchpin of this group. The term ‗metaphysical‘ refers to dealing with the different facets of nature or a philosophical view of the nature of things. Grierson depicts metaphysical poetry as ―poetry inspired by a philosophical concept of the universe and the role assigned to human spirit in the great drama of existence‖. Donne and his associates are designated as metaphysical poets in so far as their poetic works have been enriched by the varied aspects of human life like love, religion, death etc. by way of demonstrating their impact on human life in a lively manner with the help of far- fetched imagery. 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 unlike the rich mellifluousness and lilting overtones of the then conventional poetry. 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. Rightly does Joan Bennet observe that in case of Donne and his circle, the term ―metaphysical‖ actually refers to style rather than subject matter. www.zenithresearch.org.in 447 ZENITH International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Vol.2 Issue 2, February 2012, ISSN 2231 5780 Metaphysical poetry was in its heyday up to mid-17th century until neo-classicism entered to reign the literary realm and in the next two centuries metaphysical poetry went into total eclipse whereby Donne and his successors were discarded for displaying intentional obscurity. But 20th century ushered an unexpected revival of the metaphysical tradition where Donne and his group regained their lost favour and were studied with renewed interest and veneration by virtue of the modernist poet-critic T. S. Eliot‘s celebrated essay ―The Metaphysical Poets‖ in which Eliot vehemently admired their stunning capacity for devouring and merging all kinds of experience: ―When a poet‘s mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experience; the ordinary man‘s experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary. The latter falls in love, or reads Spinoza, and these two experiences have nothing to do with each other, or with the noise of a typewriter or the smell of cooking; in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes‖. CHARACTERISTICS OF METAPHYSICAL POETRY Metaphysical poem primarily hinges on, to say in Eliotean phrase, ―a unification of sensibility‖— the marvellous fusion of head and heart, of intellect and emotion, of thought and passion. Unlike poets in the Petrarchan and Spenserian tradition, a metaphysical poet attempts to establish a logical connection between his emotional feelings and intellectual concepts so that readers are compelled to think afresh, exercising their wit in lieu of a passive reading of poems. In this regard, metaphysical poets utilize striking images and conceits which are considered the hallmark of any metaphysical poem. For instance, Donne in A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning compares the lovers with a pair of compasses: ―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 th‘other do.‖ Such a far-fetched comparison to show the mutuality and interdependence of the lovers in terms of compasses is indeed astounding for which Samuel Johnson describes ‗metaphysical conceit‘ as ―a kind of discordia concors – a combination of dissimilar images or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike‖ (Life of Cowley). Again in Twicknam Garden Donne makes another brilliant use of conceit whose ingenuity, Helen Gardner considers, is more striking than its justice: ―The spider Love, which transubstantiates all/ And can convert manna to gall‖. Although Dr. Johnson pejoratively says that in metaphysical poetry heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together, it is evinced that such blend of discordant elements is quintessential to prove and persuade the readers about the point, the poet wishes to highlight. Eschewing hackneyed phrases and worn-out images of conventional Elizabethan lyrics, these metaphysical poets telescope images and draw references from diverse spheres of cosmology, geography, science, philosophy, alchemy, theology, law and even from colonial enterprise so far as Britain was then emerging as the greatest empire through colonial expansion in different countries. The easy equation between lover‘s triumph and territorial conquest is perhaps nowhere so tellingly exemplified than in Andrew Marvell‘s To His Coy Mistress: ―My vegetable Love should grow/ Vaster than Empires. .‖. In a
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