The Metaphysical Poets

by Helen Gardner

Book Overview

John Milton, Thomas Carew, Sir William Davenant, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Sir Walter Ralegh, Robert Southwell, John Donne, Richard Crashaw form part of the 17th century poets who... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 014042038X
• Release Date: February 1960
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.1" x 0.9" x 4.5"

Customer Reviews

Passion, precision, erudition

I first encountered Metaphysical poetry in high school, and simply wasn't prepared for it. Lack of learning, coupled with lack of life experience, left me a confused boy floundering in the shallow waters of adolescence. But the inevitable tempering of time made me grow, and these poems gradually began to reveal themselves to someone more capable of appreciating & understanding them. Previous reviewer James HS has already written a superb overview of this volume, getting to the heart of its power, so I needn't cover that ground again. Instead, let me offer my own response to these poems, which embody & express both their extraordinary era, and speak just as directly & piercingly to the modern day. First, there's the use of language -- jeweled, perfectly crafted, wielded by masters who revel in its complexity & beauty. Yet it's never merely mechanical or formulaic. It breathes, it pulses & beats like the hot heart of a bird, it combines the sweetness of honey & wine with the astringent. It's a pleasure in itself, even before the meaning of the poems strikes the reader. Then there's the breadth of knowledge & intelligence in every line, drawing on literature, science, philosophy, spirit, and the raw, ferocious living of everyday life. This was a time when the extremes were balanced by embracing them, rather than homogenizing them -- it was an age that both glittered & stank, that celebrated love & sensuality, prayer & contemplation, while always aware of life's brevity & the capricious nature of fate. Death is ever-present, never denied its ultimate power; yet its acknowledgement spurs these poets to feast on life & all its transient joys, rather than succumbing to despair. There's full acceptance of the tears of the world, but no defeatist world-weariness. Yet these poets know the difference between a facile denial of death, and a wholehearted defiance of its unavoidable triumph. While the more recent Penguin edition of this volume includes more poets, it also modernizes the spelling. This is a shame, as the original spelling adds an additional patina of beauty to the poems, and shouldn't present any real difficulty to the reader. An indispensible collection, most highly recommended!

Priceless collection of English metaphysical verse

Gardner's compilation of English Metaphysical poems is a feast of challenging and magnificent verse in short forms written when the English lyric poem flourished as a mode of discourse as well as an expression of feeling. No theme is too difficult, no speculation too daring, no irony too sharp, no metaphor too outrageous for the pens of the Metaphysical Poets. Once you acquire this little volume, you'll keep it at your fingertips forever.

Poetry with a soul

This anthology includes the poetry of some 38 men who lived between roughly 1550 and 1700. "Elizabethan England" isn't a completely accurate name, and the picture painted by Hollywood isn't all true either (think of Errol Flynn as Lord Essex and Bette Davis as Queen Elizabeth). But both these are better clues about the period than no clues at all. This anthology gives you proof, if you need it, that literature of the time was more than Shakespeare and Milton. There are poems from many different writers from different backgrounds. Sure, poems by both Billy and Johnny are included, but you'll also find the poetry of soldiers, sailors, scholars, the odd doctor and lawyer, and others. An enormous amount of literature was produced during that period; some call it English poetry's Golden Age. You'll find a sample of that Golden Age in this book. There's a useful introduction of a little over 14 pages, and, in my copy (3rd edition), notes on the text and prefaces to the editions. The usual things are there: a table of contents, an index of authors, and an index of first lines. All are exactly as you would expect them to be. After the poems, you'll find brief biographies of the poets; some might have a little too much 'smart', and there might be a little more name-dropping than is necessary, but the glimpse into the lives of the poets is a valuable part of the whole. "Metaphysical Poets"???? The title may make you avoid this book, but don't be put off. It's a misleading name; don't think "Metaphysical" about these poets in the same way that you might think "Existential" about Sartre. The poets didn't identify themselves as 'Metaphysical' - that came after they were dead - and their poetry wasn't about Metaphysics as you might understand it. There are no truly difficult concepts, but there are thoughts, emotions, feelings, desires, love ... things beyond physical senses. You could say that it's poetry with a soul. The form of the poetry (the rhyming, verse structure and so on) is very rigid compared with the common forms of poetry being written today. But the meaning of the poetry is not necessarily different from today's poetry. Nothing has been done to make it more readable for modern people. The spelling and the language have not been changed from the original. They may put some of you off. But the poetry is strong, and if it had been altered, some of its strength would have been lost. Poems with that kind of strength climb over any difficulties of rigid structure and stroll past those kinds of words and spellings (such as prithee, anon, wrinckle, and proclaime). They can tell you how these poets thought. Their angst? No, not at all. Life today might be very different from life in the 1600's, but this anthology shows that the way people think about life has not really changed since these poems were written. None of the poems reads as constructed or forced. That shows the exceptional skill of their writers, proving that

Complex and great poetry

The English Metaphysical Poets ,Donne, Vaughn , Herbert, Traherne, Cowley write with vigor and energy. Their poetry was initially defined and criticized by Samuel Johnson. "'He affects the Metaphysics... in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts.' He disapproved of Donne's stylistic excesses, particularly his extravagant conceits (or witty comparisons) and his tendency towards hyperbolic abstractions. JOHNSON consolidated the argument in THE LIVES OF THE POETS, where he noted (with reference to Cowley) that 'about the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets'. He went on to describe the far-fetched nature of their comparisons as 'a kind of discordia concors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike'. Examples of the practice Johnson condemned would include the extended comparison of love with astrology (by Donne) and of the soul with a drop of dew (by Marvell).(Cambridge Guide to English Literature) The Metaphysicals were long ignored. It was TS Eliot in a pioneering turn of the century which brought them back into vogue. Among their work are some of the greatest poetry in English Literature. This anthology provides examples of much of this.

Good collection and introduction

Good introduction that gives a short and useful overview of the features of metaphysical poetry. It also gives alternative viewpoints that argue against metaphysical poetry without trying to negate them. Indeed, the poetry is described as being the product of a closed world of learned writers from the late 16thC onwards. This, it appears, is both a weakness and a strength. Refreshing to hear this.Her style at times leans towards the metaphysical itself: 'A brief comparison can be a conceit if two things patently unlike, or which we should never think of together, are shown to be alike in a single point in such a way, or in such a context, that we feel their incongruity'. So to help understand the poetry we have an introduction that is partly written in a 'stong lines' style and which needs almost the same amount of concentration as the poetry. There is a bit of literary name dropping: 'Between Dryden and Johnson comes Pope, who is reported by Spence to have remarked that "Cowley, as well as Davenant, borrowed his metaphysical style from Donne"'. The spellings have not been modernised which may be a problem. Overall recommened strongly.