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104 The Renaissance 1485–1660
In much of the drama of the time there are similar swift fluctuations in
usage, allowing dramatists to chart the ebb and flow of personal, emotional
and social relationships with considerable subtlety.
During the seventeenth century, YOU becomes the preferred form
and THOU begins to disappear, although THOU is preserved in the
Bible and in many religious uses, as a deliberately informal use in
Quaker writings and to refer to inanimate or abstract objects (for example,
nature is frequently directly addressed by poets as ‘THOU’). The retention
of THOU for reference to God indicates that the personal and intimate
take precedence over the perception of God as a superior being.
The social pressures on YOU are considerable at this time, with YOU
being increasingly identified with ‘polite’ society in and around the court
and with the City of London, which was now growing even more rapidly
to become the economic and political power base of the country. People
wished to be associated with the social power of the people of London
and gradually language use changed in accordance with economic and
social reality. YOU thus became the standard form it is today – in both
singular and plural forms – as it was used increasingly between and
across all social classes and language groups and for the wide range of
functions which had previously been served by YOU and THOU together.
THE METAPHYSICAL POETS
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime
(Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress)
While theatre was the most public literary form of the period, poetry
tended to be more personal, more private. Indeed, it was often published
for only a limited circle of readers. This was true of Shakespeare’s
sonnets, as we have seen, and even more so for the Metaphysical poets,
whose works were published mostly after their deaths. John Donne
and George Herbert are the most significant of these poets.
The term ‘Metaphysical’ was used to describe their work by the
eighteenth-century critic, Samuel Johnson. He intended the adjective to
be pejorative. He attacked the poets’ lack of feeling, their learning, and