Metaphysical Poetry

The seventeenth-century poets of the far-fetched conceit: passion argued with the precision of a compass drawing.

Specifications & Metrics

era

c. 1600 – 1680

region

Britain

key figures

John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Henry Vaughan

exemplar

'The Flea'; 'The Definition of Love'; 'Holy Sonnets'

introduced

1600

Core Principles & Analysis

• Samuel Johnson coined the label, as a sneer at learned conceits.
• Donne's yoking of opposites defines its method of argument by image.
• T. S. Eliot's 1921 essay restored the poets to the modern canon.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Metaphysical poets