Metaphysical Poets

Metaphysical Poets, a term first applied by Dr Johnson in his life of Cowley to the group of which Donne is the most outstanding example. They were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavour; they neither copied nature nor life, hence their thoughts are often new but seldom natural; the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together, nature and art being ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; they failed, as might have been expected, in moving the affections or attaining the sublime, but what they wanted they endeavoured to supply by hyperbole—their amplifications had no limits, they left not only reason but fancy behind them, and produced combinations of confused magnificence that not only could not be credited but could not be imagined. Yet, if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth: if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. Such is Johnson's explanation of the phrase and its meaning, and it must be admitted that the name is to a certain extent appropriate enough, for the philosophising and analytic spirit pervades the works of the whole school, and intellect rather than emotion is ever the stuff out of which their phantasies are framed. Their constant weakness is the tendency towards conceits and similes that are merely fantastic and ingenious, which mars a modern reader's pleasure in almost every poem of Donne and Cowley.