Metaphysical Poetry 'Poetry of Strong Lines'

   Metaphysical poetry (A term used to group together certain 17th-century poets) is concerned with the whole experience of man, but the intelligence, learning and seriousness of the poets means that the poetry is about the profound areas of experience especially - about love, romantic and sensual; about man's relationship with God - the eternal perspective, and, to a less extent, about pleasure, learning and art.

    Metaphysical poems are lyric poems. They are brief but intense meditations, characterized by striking use of wit, irony and wordplay. Beneath the formal structure (of rhyme, metre and stanza) is the underlying (and often hardly less formal) structure of the poem's argument. Note that there may be two (or more) kinds of argument in a poem.

Poets: 

John Donne 

George Herbert 

Henry Vaughn 

Edward Herbert 

Thomas Carew

Richard Crashew 

Andrew Marvell

Richard Lovelace

Sir John Suckling

Metaphysical poets adopted a style that is energetic, uneven, and rigorous. (Johnson decried its roughness and violation of decorum, the deliberate mixture of different styles.) It has also been labelled the 'poetry of strong lines'. Used far-fetched or unusual similes and metaphors. 


Terms Associated with Metaphysical Poetry:


Psychological Analysis: emotion, love and religion.
Imagery: that is novel, unpoetic, and sometimes shocking, drawn from the commonplace or the remote, including the extended metaphor of the metaphysical conceit.
Simple Diction: echoes the pauses and breaks of everyday speech.
Form: frequently an argument with the poet's lover, God, or oneself.
Meter: often uneven, not 'sweet' or smooth. This roughness goes naturally with the metaphysical poets' attitude and purpose: a belief in the perplexity of life, a spirit of revolt and the putting of an argument in speech rather than song.
Metaphysical Conceit: far fetched and ingenious extended comparison used by metaphysical poets to explore all areas of knowledge. Uses unusual analogies for the poet's ideas in the startlingly obscure or the shockingly commonplace - not the usual stuff of poetic metaphor.


The Best Metaphysical Poetry: is intellectual, analytical, psychological and bold.

Poems: 
 
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-his-coy-mistress/ 
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/flea.php