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The Metaphysical poets
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the surprising range of images and comparisons they used. Donne and
Herbert were certainly very innovative poets, but the term ‘Metaphysical’
is only a label, which is now used to describe the modern impact of their
writing. After three centuries of neglect and disdain, the Metaphysical
poets have come to be very highly regarded and have been influential in
twentieth-century British poetry and criticism. They used contemporary
scientific discoveries and theories, the topical debates on humanism,
faith, and eternity, colloquial speech-based rhythms, and innovative verse
forms, to examine the relationship between the individual, his God, and
the universe. Their ‘conceits’, metaphors and images, paradoxes and
intellectual complexity make the poems a constant challenge to the reader.
Among the contrasts which the works of Donne and Herbert present
is their emphasis on sensuality and pleasure, which seems to conflict
with their profoundly religious concerns and experiences. Both became
men of the church after varied careers in public affairs and Parliament
and before their involvement with official religion. So the balance,
and conflict, between religion, doubt and secular reality is no more
nor less than a reflection of their own experiences.
As university-educated men, living at the centre of public life in a
time of intellectual and spiritual change, it is hardly surprising that their
interests should include the new discoveries of science, geography and
astronomy. Even in one of his later Divine Poems (Hymn to God my
God, in my Sickness), Donne compares his doctors to ‘cosmographers’
and himself to ‘their map’. What is perhaps surprising is the humour
which is employed in the conceits. For example, Donne describes his
mistress as his ‘New-found-land’. He imagines the sun going round the
earth but finding no greater joy than he and his lover find in their small
room. In The Flea, for instance, he tries to persuade his lover that
sleeping with him would be no worse a sin than a flea sucking her
blood. Early on in his poetic career Donne constantly challenges death
with the eternity of love; later he challenges it with spiritual salvation as
in his sonnet, Death be not proud.
Donne’s prolific poetic career – his Songs and Sonnets, Elegies, Epigrams,
Satires, Verse Letters, Divine Poems – span a remarkable range from his
first celebrations of the sensual to his final spiritual humility before God,
but this is still phrased in erotic terms, as shown in his Holy Sonnets: Batter