Air and Angels

             Metaphysical Poetry is the classification of poetry that has attached to it a long and peculiar history; metaphysical poetry encompasses the whole human experience but is imparted with such intelligence or wit, seriousness and passion on the reflective topics of experience, particularly about love, romantic and sensual; and man's relationship with God and the spiritual world, that one needs to read these poems as a form of minute meditation.
             Etymologically, metaphysical means behind or beyond the physical. It is also defined as being concerned with first principles and essence of 'Being' and 'Knowing'.
             John Donne, born in 1572,London, was the first to be branded with the term metaphysical in derogation, by Samuel Johnson. Strangely enough Donne's poetic repute suffered before it was rediscovered in the twentieth century, this is due to the fact that the era in which Donne was writing had not been previously exposed to the novel vulgarity and harsh imagery that Donne provoked. It is known that in the seventeenth century lyric is strongly influenced by the court both in the matter of theme and form. But Donne's lyrics are characterized by fervor, range of imagery, linguistic shock effect and a general air of the passionate ecclesiastical. Donne and his disciples in reality went astray from the stipulate form of poetic imagery and began their own new tradition of the application of metaphysical conceits. Many critics chastised Donne's introduction of philosophical conceits into poetry. Dr Johnson of the eighteenth century accused them of high-handedness, displaying intellectual superiority and using far-fetched comparison. He also complained that the various irrelevant thoughts and images are just violently yoked together.
             The Metaphysical poems were noted, however, for their use of conceits, which as a literary term, refers to an elaborate metaphor comparing two apparently dissimilar o...

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Air and Angels. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 13:16, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/18961.html