JOHN DONNE AND OTHERS METAPHYSICAL POETS OF 17TH CENTURY

JOHN DONNE AND OTHERS METAPHYSICAL POETS OF 17TH CENTURY

    JOHN DONNE

John Donne was born in 1575, he started writing in 1590’s through the Jacobean age and died in 1631.Thus he is a conceiting link between the Elizabethan age and Puritan Age. The age of Donne comprising the last decade of 16^th century and early decades of 17^th century is therefore, an age of transition. By this time the Renaissance impulse has exhausted itself, the Elizabethan zest for life is gone, and the Elizabethan exuberance and optimism has been succeeded by a mood of apprehension, disillusionment and defeat.

The poetry of John Donne may be divided into two groups-(1) Secular poems and (2) Divine poems. The secular poems comprise:

SONG AND SONNETS

• The Elegies
• The Satires
• Verse Letters
• Epithalamiums
• The progress of Soul
• Epicedes and Obsequies
• The Anniversaries

DONNE RELIGIOUS POETRY

• The Divine Poems
• Holly Sonnets
• Miscellaneous Divine poems

DONNE’S PROSE WORK

• Paradox and Problem
• Biathanatos
• Pseudo-martyr
• Ignatius His Conclave
• Essays in Divinity
• Devotions
• Sermons

GEORGE HERBERT

The age of Herbert’s poetry is limited; he wrote only on religious themes and nearly all his poems are comparatively short lyrics. Their quality, however, both in content and techniques, invites the adjective ‘great’. Herbert was not troubled by doctrinal doubts, for he accepted whole-heartedly the tenets of Church of England; nor is there any mysticism in his poems. His own words, in his last  message to Nicholas Farrar, clearly describe their subject matter. “ A picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have past betwixt (God and my soul, before I could submit mine to the will of Jesus, my master, in whose service  I have now found perfect freedom. “ He writes of the problem of resignation and of his sense of his unworthiness; he explores and analyses as subtly as Donne his own emotional relationship with God, constantly striving towards the closer knowledge of God and of himself.

One aspect of Herbert’s poems, which is likely to strike the reader at once, is that many of them are direct colloquies with God, expressed in a conversational tone of remarkable intimacy, which ,however, is controlled with such tact that it never degenerates into sentimentality. The effect is completely natural because of Herbert’s ability to suggest the speaking voice. This he does with ease and range- from the courtly to the vigorously colloquial- that give his verse a dramatic quality which his fondness for dialogue makes particularly noticeable.

Herbert’s poetry expresses the combination of intellect and sensibility and the flexibility of attitude characteristic of metaphysical wit; but his use of imagery and conceit differs considerably from that of Donne. He does not draw his images from scientific or scholastic learning, as Donne often does, but from familiar everyday sources.

Despite his intellectual vigour and subtlety of Herbert’s poems, they are always graceful and usually lucid, Moreover, they are expressed in language of a purity which drew from Coleridge the comment; nothing can be more fine, manly and unaffected.

THOMAS CAREW

Like that of his greater successor, Marvell, Carew’s poetry combines the influences of Donne and Jonson and he was fully aware of his debt. His Elegie upon the death of the Deane of Paul’s , Dr. John Donne, is not only a fine poem but a remarkable demonstration of critical insight; and his poem to Ben Jonson records the awareness of the value of careful artistry which the Cavaliers learnt from him.

Carew has neither the intellectual range and profundity nor the intensity of passion of Donne, and he does not use Donne’s dramatically forceful, broken rhythms, Though he praises Donne in Elegie for doing away with the classical impediment, his own work is strewn with classical references.

Though Carew was a rake and a frivolous courtier, it must not be assumed that his work is superficial and merely charming.

RICHARD CRASHAW

The main body of  Crashw’s poetry appeared in steps to the Temple (1646), a collection of religious poems to which a section of secular poems. The Delight of Muses, was attached. The title Steps to the Temple recalls Herbert, but Crashaw was utterly unlike Herbert as a poet.

Crashaw is a uneven poet, lacking in discipline and critical sensibility. His feeling is expressed in verse of great work.

HENRY VAUGHAN

Vaughan’s earlier, secular verse is represented chiefly by To Amoret. His secular verse is much inferior to the religious poems of Silex Scintillans. It is extremely derivative, but what is more important is that the  poems seem to be written rather because Vaughan wanted to write poetry than because he has anything urgent to say. When he models himself on Donne, his use of experience.

The poems of Silex Scintillants show that a great development has taken place. The influence of George Herbert, which Vaughan acknowledged, is obvious enough in the abundant borrowings of theme, titles, metrical forms and phrases from the temple.

ANDREW MARVELL

Marvell was not a great originator such as Donne, or even technically inventive as Herbert was, though his handling of verse is masterly, Rather, his work reveals the successful assimilation and fusion of two great  poetic influence  of the early 17^th century. It combines the passionate , probing intellectuality of Donne with the clarity and poise of Jonson.

But Marvall is now admired for others characteristics as well; characteristics that T.S Eliot had in mind when he wrote that the special quality of Marvell’s verse is ‘ Quality of civilization’ of a traditional habit of  life.

              ABRAHM COWLEY

Cowley’s great reputation after the Restoration was due to the fact that though he wrote in the metaphysical manner so far as he used conceits, puns, argument and so on, his mind was radically different from Donne’s. He lacked intensity of  passion and depth of insight. His wit is a matter of ingenuity, and his images are usually decorative and fanciful rather than a means of exploring experience or resolving conflict. He lacks the fusion of thought and feeling which produces the characteristic metaphysical intensity, and the experiences he conveys are less complex.

It is in fact, the Augustan tendency in Cowley which made him so popular in his own time and well into the eighteen century. He wrote in the metaphysical manner and his work could be enjoyed as ‘fanciful’ or  ‘quaint’ but it made no demands on Augustan readers such as are made by the poetry of Donne.