“The School of Donne” They were called “The Metaphysical Poets”.

This designation was used by certain Restoration and eighteenth century

critics, especially Samuel Johnson, to indicate that these poets tried to
express difficult ideas and unusual images to show their learning. The term
“metaphysical” is still used as a convenient label for these poets.
They are ( George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, Richard
Crashaw, Abraham Cowley, Henry King, Richard Lovelace and Sir John
Suckling).

: ‫هناك اضطرابات أثرت فيهم وفي شعرهم‬

The time in which these poets lived was a period of unrest.
There were scientifc, intellectual, political, and religious changes, parts
of which were reflected in their poetry. These changes carried with them
certain dangers, and the metaphysical poets used the protective device of
irony in their poetry to avoid committing themselves to the dictates of the
New age.
They were excited because they were men of thinking and intense
feeling, and they were frightened because they were men of action.
They involved themselves in the worldly and religious activities of their
society. ‫انخرطوا في األنشطة الدينية والدنيوية‬
The metaphysical poets sometimes wrote poetry to show their
gentlemanliness.
The best of metaphysical poetry was written roughly between 1595 and
1660. It can be distinctly divided into two parts:
: ‫الثيمات التي كتبوا عنها‬
The amatory (expressing sexual love) and the religious,
These two aspects are sometimes fused together in certain poems .
Metaphysical poetry shows :
1.Philosophical consciousness; ‫الوعي الفلسفي‬
2.A concentrated and pregnant fusion of thought and feeling, of
argumentative logic and passion; ‫والمنطق الجدلي والعاطفة‬،‫دمج بين الفكرة والشعور‬
3.A combination of widely different ideas and experiences;
‫مزيج األفكار والخبرات المختلفة على نحو واسع‬
4.A dramatic self-exploration; ‫استكشاف ذاتي دراماتيكي‬
5.A mixture of seriousness and ironic wit, The homely, the realistic,
Or the erudite and far-fetchad image and the intellectual and functional use
of it; And the language and rhythms of speech.
‫مزيج من الجدية والسخرية الصورة المنزلية أو الواقعية أو البعيدة المعرفة واالستخدام الفكري والوظيفي لها‬
. ‫؛ ولغة وقافية الكالم‬
Characteristics of Metaphysical Poetry:
The most obvious characteristics is :
1. the intellectual power of this poetry appears in both love and religious
poems.
The metaphysical poet expresses his feeling, and the result is a fusion of
mind and heart. the extremes of emotions are controlled by a sense of
humour or wit.
2. We are distracted by the poet’s craftsmanship” by his desire for showing
off, whether of his artistic skill, his knowledge, his ability of handling
language, or his wit.
3. The conceit. The conceit is a metaphor or a simile intellectually contrived
and drawn out in an unusual way, The two things Compared show little
similarity to each other on a first reading. The conceit is used to suggest an
unusual image. the conceit is different from a metaphor or a simile. the
conceit poses an intellectual challenge.
4. these poets were also fond of paradox. The paradox appears in
association with the image or in the witty argument of love poetry. It
reveals, the mctaphysical poets’ fondness for showing off.

5. Many great metaphysical poems are fully appreciated only in terms of

the conceit they embody. This appreciation may not be merely intellectual,
it can sometimes be emo-ional as well.
6.The best metaphysical poems are characterised by epigrammatic
conciseness. In few words, lines or sentences they say great deal,

7. The overuse of the conceit, the image, and the paradox, and partly a
result of intellectual intensity.
8.This epigrammatic conciseness is usually neat and appears mostly at the
end of the poems.
9.The neat, concise, epigrammatic and sometimes paradoxical endings of
these poems hint at an invitation of applause.

10. The poet-actor is capable of presenting a variety of ideas, moods, and

experiences. Especially at the beginning of poems, the words are ordinary
and the sentences have spcech-rhythm.

11. the poem moves to a dramatic middle and to a final climax. In some
religious poems such dramatization is rather conscious and artificial, since
they are designed to serve a purpose.

12.wit and humour. the metaphysical poets were fond of witty expressions.
But the metaphysical wit has an edge of dry humuor.
It is the wise humour of men who know that one may think or feel diferently
another day.
13. The intellectual power, the conceit and th bold paradox, the wit and the
drama are often expressed with a subtle smile. Even death which is of
frightening reality, is handled humorously by John Donne.
The Metaphysical style is particularly characterized by it sometimes neat, it
is often harsh and rough.

Their style/form (Sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations,

epigrams, elegies, songs, and satires).
John Donne
Donne was born in London, He was eleven when he went to Oxford for
three years, then to Trinity College, Cambridge.
he eloped with and married Anne More, Lady Egerton’s young niece and
daughter of Sir George More.
As a result Donne was sent to prison for some weeks and the marriage
was not ratified until April 1602 after a law suit. Later he was engaged in
different secular employments, and he travelled abroad again.
he abandoned the Catholic faith into which he was born and in 1615 took
Orders in the Anglican Church..
During the last years of his life Donne was haunted by the shadow of
death. In 1631 he died and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Donne is the most outstanding metaphysical poet, hence the designation
“The school of Dorne’.

His poetry falls into two categories:

The secular poems and the religious poems. When Donne is in earnest
he is able to express the struggle between spiritual and feshly
impulses.
His range of emotion is wide, and each poem of his differs from the others
in one or more points. his poems have much in commnon-the
charactcristics called metaphysical.
Underneath the irresponsible brightness and gaiety of Donne’s poerns
there is seriousness, .
His collloquial tone makes his poems seem to speak to the reader.
his lines is the result of a reasoning mind trying to understand the emotion.
His seriousness somrines becomes melancholic, and in some of his love
poems we encounter a sense of sandness or regret.
In other love poems we find either hope in the face of adverse
circumstances, or fear of the indifferent world, of infidelity; And of love
which cannot stand time or examination.

The majority of Donne’s poems deal with discontent-with parting, death,

disloyalty or unrequited love.
Behind the religious poems lies the fear of death and of his own sin, but
we also find humility and faith in God’s mercy.
he can be ferocious in his cynicism, defiant in his confidence, firm in his
claims of platonic love, and and in all these moods we notice his
intelligence, and the strength of his earnestncss.

Donne’s poems are the consistent use of the first person, the dramatic
and conversational tones, the biting and somctimes sad humour, and the
harsh vividness of physical life.
Donne is himself the centre of most of his poems, and at times he affects
an arrogance which might offend. Yet all his poems are dignified by
tenderness and wisdom.

Donne is often accused of roughness of his verse.This roughness appears

in the uncertainty of the stresses in the lines.But such uncertainty of
rhythm may add richness to the meaning, since the lines can be read in
more than one way.

the formal structure (of rhyme, metre and stanza) is the underlying (and
often hardly less formal) structure of the poem’s argument.