Assignment

On
The Poets of Metaphysical Era
John Donne (1572 – 1631)
And
Andrew Marvell (1621 – 1678)
Title: Similarities And Dissimilarities Between John Donne And
Andrew Marvell As Metaphysical Poets.
Course Title: Metaphysical Poetry
Course ID: ENG-1312

Submitted To: Minhazul Anwar Mridul (MHA)

Assistant Professor,
Department Of English Studies,
State University of Bangladesh

Submitted By: Miah Safayet Md. Asif

ID: UG07-36-16-014
Batch: 36
Department Of English Studies

Date of Submission: 25th July 2017

Acknowledgment
I would like to express my deepest appreciation to all those who
provided me the possibility to complete this assignment. A special
gratitude I would like to give to my senior Naimul Islam from
Batch-35, whose contribution in stimulating suggestions and
encouragement helped me to coordinate my project especially in
writing this assignment.
Furthermore I would also like to acknowledge with much
appreciation the crucial role of Mr. Minhazul Anwar Mridul Sir,
Assistant Professor (Department of English Studies) whose notes
and lectures in class helped me a lot to complete my report and
Mr. Andul who gave the permission to use all required
equipment and the necessary materials to complete the task
“Similarities And Dissimilarities Between Shelly And Keats”.
Special thanks goes to my classmate Morsalin, who help me to
assemble the parts and gave suggestion about the assignment. 
Last but not the least, many thanks goes to my senior, Sharif
from Batch-27, who has invested his full effort in guiding my
assignment for achieving the goal. I have to appreciate the
guidance given by other supervisor as well as the panels
especially in my assignment that has improved my presentation
skills and MLA Format of Writing Assignment, thanks to their
comment and advices.

Index

SL. No Particulars Page

 Acknowledgement
Index
01. Introduction 01
02. Age of Johnson/Subject Matter of Metaphysical Poetry 02
03. Characteristics of Metaphysical Poetry 03
04. Metaphysical Poetry of 17th Century 04-05
05. T.S. Eliot Essay on Metaphysical Poetry 06-08
06. Metaphysical Definition/ Sensibility / Historical Sense 09-13
07. Metaphysical Poets 14-15
08. Prominent Metaphysical Poets 16-18
09. Biographical Description of Two Major Metaphysical Poets
10.1 John Donne (22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) 18-23
10.2 Andrew Marvell (31 March 1621 – 16 August 1678) 24-28
10. Compare & Contrast Between John Donne &Andrew 29-50
Marvell as Metaphysical poet
11. Conclusion 51-52
12. Personal Point Of View 53
13. Bibliography 54

Introduction →
Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge-it is as immortal as the heart of man. In
metaphysical poetry heterogeneous ideas are yoke together by violence. John
Dryden was the first to use the term in connection with Donne by saying that he
“affects the metaphysics”. Dr. Johnson later described Donne and his followers as
the poets of Metaphysical. Metaphysical poetry is a term applied to many poets
who wrote in a rather difficult and abstract style during the 1600's. Metaphysical
poetry, in the full sense of the term, is a poetry which, like that of the Divine
Commedia, the De Nature Rerun, perhaps Goethe's Faust, has been inspired by a
philosophical conception of the universe and the role assigned to the human spirit
in the great drama of existence. its themes are the simplest experiences of the
surface of life, sorrow and joy, love and battle, the peace of the country, the bustle
and the stir of towns, but equally the boldest conceptions, the profoundest
intuitions, the subtlest and most complex classifications and 'discourse of reason',
if into these too the poet can 'carry sensation', make of them passionate
experiences communicable in vivid and moving imagery, in rich and varied
harmonies. John Donne and Andrew Marvell are probably the best known of these
poets who write very intellectual poems that appeal to the minds, rather than the
emotions of the readers. They use very clever but obscure and unusual,
exaggerated imagery that demands the reader think about their poems rather than
feel them emotionally. Their verbal humor and philosophy about life is often
embedded in their poems with a very harsh meter. As John Donne said, "I sing not
siren-like, to tempt, for I am harsh." Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a Romantic poet,
claims that Donne's poems sounded like "a forge and fire-blast." Critics claimed
that metaphysical poets were only writing to show off their intelligence. However,
many others enjoy figuring out metaphysical poems and approach them like
solving a riddle. John Donne is familiar with the definitions and distinctions of
Mediaeval Scholasticism; Donne is metaphysical not only in virtue of his
scholasticism, but also by his deep reflective interest in the experience of which
his poetry is the expression, the new psychological curiosity with which he writes
of love and religion. The divine poets like Andrew Marvell who follow Donne
have each the inherited metaphysics.

Page No: 1

Age of John Donne / Transitional age

Age of Milton
 Age of Shakespeare

Romantic Neo-Classic
 Heart ● Head
 passion/emotion ● Intellect/ reason
 exuberance/spontaneity ● Order/discipline
 Imagination ● Logic

The word 'meta' means 'after,' so the literal translation of 'metaphysical' is 'after the
physical.' Basically, metaphysics deals with questions that can't be explained by science.
It questions the nature of reality in a philosophical way. In this type of poetry, we find
two type of love. Such as –

Subject Matter Of Metaphysical Poetry

LOVE

 Spiritual ●Physical
 Soul-soul ●Body-body
 Platonic ●Freudian
 Emotional ●Sensual

LOVE

● Secular ● Non- secular

● Earthly ● Divine
● Non-religious ● Religious
● Man- Woman ● Human-God

Popular Definition Of Metaphysical Poetry → ~ Heterogeneous

Ideas or elements are mixed or yoked together by violence~

Page No: 2

Characteristics:
  Intellectually rigorous, scholastic, dialectical, subtle.
 Argumentative – using logic, syllogisms or paradox in persuasion.
 Concentrated complex and difficult thought
 Dramatic, with abrupt aggressive opening but modulating tones.
 Style – concise,  succinct, epigrammatic
 Use of conceits; commonplace medieval topics with lots of
comparisons to unusual, unexpected things or images called conceits
or extended metaphors.
 Dramatic, with abrupt aggressive opening but modulating tones.
 Use of conceits; commonplace medieval topics with lots of
comparisons to unusual, unexpected things or images called
conceits or extended metaphors.
 Deals with dichotomies, dualities, paradoxes, antithesis in a
dialectic manner.

 Intellectually rigorous, scholastic, dialectical, subtle.

 Argumentative – using logic, syllogisms or paradox in persuasion.
 Concentrated complex and difficult thought.
 Style – concise, succinct, epigrammatic.

Sexual Spiritual Philosophical

Religious Emotional

Love Related Related With God Abstract

Page No: 3

Metaphysical Poetry of 17th Century (1603-1660)

"A term used to group together certain 17th-century poets, usually
DONNE, MARVELL, VAUGHAN and TRAHERNE, though other figures
like ABRAHAM COWLEY are sometimes included in the list. Although in
no sense a school or movement proper, they share common characteristics of
wit, inventiveness, and a love of elaborate stylistic manoeuvres.
        Metaphysical concerns are the common subject of their poetry, which
investigates the world by rational discussion of its phenomena rather than by
intuition or mysticism. DRYDEN was the first to apply the term to 17th-
century poetry when, in 1693, he criticized Donne: '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).
        Reacting against the deliberately smooth and sweet tones of much 16th-
century verse, the 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'. In his important essay, 'The Metaphysical Poets'
(1921), which helped bring the poetry of Donne and his contemporaries back
into favour, T. S. ELIOT argued that their work fuses reason with passion; it
shows a unification of thought and feeling which later became separated into
a 'dissociation of sensibility'."

Page No: 4
The early seventeenth century extends from the accession of the first Stuart
king (James I) in 1603 to the coronation of the third (Charles II) in 1660. But
the events that occurred between these boundaries make much more sense if
they are seen in a larger pattern extending from 1588 to 1688. Between these
two dates massive political and social events took place that bridge the gap
between the Tudor “tyranny by consent” of the sixteenth century and the
equally ill-defined but equally functional constitutional monarchy of the
eighteenth century.
A sense of deep disquiet, of traditions under challenge, is felt everywhere in
the literary culture of the early 17th century. Long before the term was
applied to our own time, the era of Donne and Robert Burton (the obsessive
anatomist of melancholy) deserved to be called the Age of Anxiety. One
may think of the “Metaphysical” poets who followed Donne as trying to
reinforce the traditional lyric forms of love and devotion by stretching them
to comprehend new and extreme intellectual energies. In the other direction,
Jonson and his “sons” the so-called Cavalier poets (such as Herrick,
Suckling, Lovelace, Waller, and Denham) generally tried to compress and
limit their poems, giving them a high polish and a sense of easy domination
at the expense of their intellectual content. The common contrast of
Cavalier with Metaphysical does describe two poetic alternatives of the early
century. Yet both styles were wholly inadequate containers for the sort of
gigantic energy that Milton was trying to express.

Page No: 5
T S ELIOT’S ESSAY ON METAPHYSICAL
Eliot’s essay on The Metaphysical Poets was first published as a review of
J.C. Grierson’s edition of Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the 17th
Century. But the essay is much more than a mere review. It is a critical
document of much value and significance. It is an important landmark in the
history of English literary criticism, it has brought about a revaluation and
reassessment of Donne and other Metaphysical poets, and has caused a
revival of interest in these poets who had been neglected for a considerable
time. It is in this essay that Eliot has used, for the first time, the phrases
Dissociation of Sensibility and Unification of Sensibility, phrases which
have acquired worldwide currency and which, ever since, have had a far
reaching impact on literary criticism.
Eliot takes up Dr. Johnson’s famous definition of metaphysical poetry, in
which the great doctor has tried to define this poetry by its faults. Dr.
Johnson in his Life of Cowley points out that in Metaphysical poetry “the
most heterogeneous ideas are yoked violence together”. They bringing
together of heterogeneous ideas and compelling them into unity by the
operation of the poet’s mind is universal in poetry.
By collecting these poems from the work of a generation more often named
than read, and more often read than profitably studied, Professor Grierson
has rendered a service of some importance. Certainly the reader will meet
with many poems already preserved in other anthologies, at the same time
that he discovers poems such as those of Aurelian Townshend or Lord
Herbert of Cherbury here included. But the function of such an anthology as
this is neither that of Professor Saintsbury's admirable edition of Caroline
poets nor that of the Oxford Book of Englisb Verse. Mr. Grierson's book is in
itself a piece of criticism and a provocation of criticism; and we think that he
was right in including so many poems of Donne, elsewhere (though not in
many editions) accessible, as documents in the case of "metaphysical
poetry."

Page No: 6
The phrase has long done duty as a term of abuse or as the label of a quaint and
pleasant taste.
The question is to what extent the so-called metaphysicals formed a school (in our
own time we should say a "movement"), and how far this so-called school or
movement is a digression from the main current.
Not only is it extremely difficult to define metaphysical poetry, but difficult to
decide what poets practise it and in which of their verses. The poetry of Donne (to
whom Marvell and Bishop King are sometimes nearer than any of the other
authors) is late Elizabethan, its feeling often very close to that of Chapman. The
"courtly" poetry is derivative from Jonson, who borrowed liberally from the Latin;
it expires in the next century with the sentiment and witticism of Prior. There is
finally the devotional verse of Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw (echoed long after
by Christina Rossetti and Francis Thompson); Crashaw, sometimes more profound
and less sectarian than the others, has a quality which returns through the
Elizabethan period to the early Italians. It is difficult to find any precise use of
metaphor, simile, or other conceit, which is common to all the poets and at the
same time important enough as an element of style to isolate these poets as a
group. Donne, and often Cowley, employ a device which is sometimes considered
characteristically "metaphysical"; the elaboration (contrasted with the
condensation) of a figure of speech to the farthest stage to which ingenuity can
carry it. Thus Cowley develops the commonplace comparison of the world to a
chess-board through long stanzas (To Destiny), and Donne, with more grace, in A
Valediction, the comparison of two lovers to a pair of compasses. But elsewhere
we find, instead of the mere explication of the content of a comparison, a
development by rapid association of thought which requires considerable agility
on the part of the reader.
On a round ball
A workman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afrique, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, All,
           So doth each teare,
           Which thee doth weare,
A globe, yea, world by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mixt with mine doe overflow
This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.

Page No: 7
In French literature the great master of the seventeenth century--Racine--and
the great master of the nineteenth--Baudelaire--are in some ways more like
each other than they are like any one else. The greatest two masters of
diction are also the greatest two psychologists, the most curious explorers of
the soul. It is interesting to speculate whether it is not a misfortune that two
of the greatest masters of diction in our language, Milton and Dryden,
triumph with a dazzling disregard of the soul. If we continued to produce
Miltons and Drydens it might not so much matter, but as things are it is a
pity that English poetry has remained so incomplete. Those who object to
the "artificiality" of Milton or Dryden sometimes tell us to "look into our
hearts and write." But that is not looking deep enough; Racine or Donne
looked into a good deal more than the heart. One must look into the cerebral
cortex, the nervous system, and the digestive tracts.
May we not conclude, then, that Donne, Crashaw, Vaughan, Herbert and
Lord Herbert, Marvell, King, Cowley at his best, are in the direct current of
English poetry, and that their faults should be reprimanded by this standard
rather than coddled by antiquarian affection? They have been enough
praised in terms which are implicit limitations because they are
"metaphysical" or "witty," "quaint" or "obscure," though at their best they
have not these attributes more than other serious poets. On the other hand,
we must not reject the criticism of Johnson (a dangerous person to disagree
with) without having mastered it, without having assimilated the Johnsonian
canons of taste. In reading the celebrated passage in his essay on Cowley we
must remember that by wit he clearly means something more serious than
we usually mean today; in his criticism of their versification we must
remember in what a narrow discipline he was trained, but also how well
trained; we must remember that Johnson tortures chiefly the chief offenders,
Cowley and Cleveland. It would be a fruitful work, and one requiring a
substantial book, to break up the classification of Johnson (for there has been
none since) and exhibit these poets in all their difference of kind and of
degree, from the massive music of Donne to the faint, pleasing tinkle of
Aurelian Townshend--whose Dialogue between a Pilgrim and Time is one
of the few regrettable omissions from the excellent anthology of Professor
Grierson.

Page No: 8
Eliot’s essay on The Metaphysical Poets is one of the most significant
critical documents of the modern age. Eliot has thrown new light on the
metaphysical poets, and shown that they are neither quaint nor fantastic, but
great and mature poets. They do not represent a digression from the
mainstream of English poetry, but rather a continuation of it. His theory of
the ‘dissociation of sensibility’ has caused much critical re-valuation and
rethinking. In the words of Frank Kermode, the poets henceforth began, “to
charge their thinking with passion, to restore to poetry a truth independent of
the presumptuous intellect.”

Metaphysical Poetry
It's extremely intelligent and witty. It is deeply religious but is also sure to
be ironic and cynical.
We've probably heard of haikus, lyrical poems and limericks. All of those
types of poetry have specific qualities that allow us to group them together.
Metaphysical poetry is a little bit different. The poems classified in this
group do share common characteristics: they are all highly intellectualized,
use rather strange imagery, use frequent paradox and contain extremely
complicated thought.
However, metaphysical poetry is not regarded as a genre of poetry. In fact,
the main poets of this group didn't read each other's work and didn't know
that they were even part of a classification
What Does Metaphysical Mean?
The word 'meta' means 'beyond,' so the literal translation of 'metaphysical' is
'beyond the physical world.' Basically, metaphysics deals with questions that
can't be explained by science. It questions the nature of reality in a
philosophical way.

Page No: 9
Literary critic and poet Samuel Johnson first coined the term 'metaphysical
poetry' in his book Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1179-1781). In
the book, Johnson wrote about a group of 17th-century British poets that
included John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell
and Henry Vaughan. He noted how the poets shared many common
characteristics, especially ones of wit and elaborate style.
Here are some common metaphysical questions:
 Does God exist?
 Is there a difference between the way things appear to us and the way
they really are? Essentially, what is the difference between reality and
perception?
 Is everything that happens already predetermined? If so, then is free
choice non-existent?
 Is consciousness limited to the brain?
Metaphysics can cover a broad range of topics from religious to
consciousness; however, all the questions about metaphysics ponder the
nature of reality. And of course, there is no one correct answer to any of
these questions. Metaphysics is about exploration and philosophy, not about
science and math.

Page No: 10
A name later ascribed to poets who dealt with subjects concerning the
abstract in concrete terms.  They use logic to explain the inexplicable. 
Literally, metaphysical means to transcend above or beyond the physical or
concrete.  – often used in the sense that it was about non-material and
supernatural things.
The age objects to the heroic and sublime, and it objects to the simplification
and separation of the mental faculties.
Metaphysical poetry was a product of the popularization of the study of
mental phenomena. Ethics having been eclipsed by psychology, we accept
the belief that any state of mind is extremely complex, and chiefly composed
of odds and ends in constant flux manipulated by desire and fear.
Neither the fantastic nor the cynical nor the sensual occupies an excessive
importance with Donne; the elements in his mind had an order and
congruity. The range of his feeling was great, but no more remarkable than
its unity. He was altogether present in every thought and in every feeling.
What is true of his mind is true, in different terms, of his language and
versification. A style, a rhythm, to be significant, must embody a
significant mind, must be produced by the necessity of a new form for
a new content

Donne resolves everything into a unity;

The oneness of lovers, 
The self-sufficiency of lovers, 
The image of the circle – cycles – perfection.
Marvell, another Metaphysical poet, does not attempt to resolve the
dialectics of the polarities, rather he ends them in a compromise.
All metaphysical poets attempt to transcend the physical sphere in order to
gain perspective or vision.
Metaphysical poets attempt to explain the emotional and spiritual elements
of life in concrete, rational and logical terms.  They attempt to define our
sentiments by logical syllogisms or in scientific terms.

Page No: 11
 Metaphysical Sensibility
In other words, the metaphysical poets had a mechanism of sensibility—a
unified sensibility—which enabled them to assimilate and fuse into new
wholes most disparate and heterogeneous experiences. They could feel their
thoughts as intensely as the odor of a rose, that is to say they could express
their thoughts through sensuous imagery. In his poems, Donne expresses his
thoughts and ideas by embodying them in sensuous imagery and it is mainly
through the imagery that the unification of sensibility finds its appropriate
expression. The operation of the unified sensibility in Donne may be
illustrated by the following lines from Dante’s Paradise: Within its depths I
saw ingathered, bound by love in one mass, the scattered leaves of the
universe: substance and accidents and their relations, as though together
fused, so that what I speak of is in one simple flame. In the above lines the
spiritual experience, which is so very different from the ordinary experience,
has been expressed by Dante concretely by a masterly use of the imagery of
light. Dante has given expression to his spiritual experience in sensuous
terms, in a visual image, the simple flame. This is also frequently the method
of Donne.

Historical Sense of the Metaphysical Poetry

John Donne was the founder and acknowledged master of metaphysical
poets. Others who belonged to this school of poetry were Crashaw, Cowley,
Herbert, and Vaughan. The poetry of all these poets was intellectual,
analytical, psychological, bold and their favorite themes were death, love,
and religious devotion. All of them were rebels who despised conventional
poetic diction of the Elizabethan poets.

Page No: 12
It has been remarked by a contemporary critic that the metaphysical poets
led a revolt against "Elizabethan poetry which had a sweet clear lyrical note;
which was profuse with beauty and rich in melody; which was smooth and
natural; which without being careless, had the happy grace which seems to
have been achieved without straining. The metaphysical poets substituted
compression instead of diffuseness of Elizabethans, and replaced the
straightforward imagery and similes by subtle and unexpected comparisons.
Likewise from description, they turned to analysis and from a healthy
acceptance of the world to a somewhat morbid brooding on religion, and a
probing of their souls. For smoothness, they substituted roughness of meter
and for conventional love; they substituted realistic and cynical treatment of
physical passion."
Metaphysical poetry resolved itself into two broad divisions: (i) Love poetry
and (ii) Religious poetry. The habit of writing both types of poetry, amorous
and religious verses, is derived from Donne who wrote love poetry in the
first period of his life and devotional lyrics in the later period, both with the
same passion. Later in the middle of the seventeenth century, Cavalier poets
like Carew, Suckling and Lovelace wrote only amorous verses. The
devotional schools of metaphysical poets, Herbert, Crashaw and Vaughan
dedicated their poetic gifts to the service of Christian religion. Thus, in later
period, it split up into two—one group writing secular poetry (in imitation of
Donne’s secular lyrics) and imitating all the techniques developed by John
Donne. The religious school of poets got their inspiration from the religious
hymns and sermons of Donne.

Page No: 13
Poets of Metaphysical Age
George Chapman Abraham Cowley John Donne

Katherine Philips George Herbert John Hall Andrew Marvell Edward Herbert

Metaphysical poet, any of the poets in 17th-century England who inclined to

the personal and intellectual complexity and concentration that is displayed
in the poetry of John Donne, the chief of the Metaphysical. Others
include Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, John Cleveland, and Abraham
Cowley as well as, to a lesser extent, George Herbert and Richard Crashaw.
Although in no sense a school or movement proper, they share common
characteristics of wit, inventiveness, and a love of elaborate stylistic
maneuvers.

Page No: 14
Metaphysical concerns are the common subject of their poetry, which
investigates the world by rational discussion of its phenomena rather than by
intuition or mysticism. DRYDEN was the first to apply the term to 17th-
century poetry when, in 1693, he criticized Donne: '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'.
Reacting against the deliberately smooth and sweet tones of much 16th-
century verse, the 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 labeled
the 'poetry of strong lines'. In his important essay, 'The Metaphysical Poets'
(1921), which helped bring the poetry of Donne and his contemporaries back
into favor, T. S. ELIOT argued that their work fuses reason with passion; it
shows a unification of thought and feeling which later became separated into
a 'dissociation of sensibility'."

Page No: 15
 Prominent Metaphysical Poets
John Donne (1572 – 1631): He was the founder and most influential
metaphysical poet. His personal relationship with spirituality is at the center
of most of his work, and the psychological analysis and sexual realism of his
work marked a dramatic departure from traditional, genteel verse. His early
work, collected in Satires and in Songs and Sonnets, was released in an era
of religious oppression. His Holy Sonnets, which the intensity with which
Donne grapples with concepts of divinity and mortality in the Holy Sonnets
is exemplified in "Sonnet X [Death, be not proud]," "Sonnet XIV [Batter my
heart, three person’s God]," and “Sonnet XVII [Since she whom I loved hath
paid her last debt].”
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678): Andrew Marvell is in something of a class
by himself, and is a kind of forerunner of the classicism that was to come
later in the century. Marvell was a man of such scholarly attainments that he
won the praise and friendship of Milton. After Milton became blind, he was
appointed the great poet’s assistant in affairs of State, (1657), and two years
later he was elected to Parliament. He continued to be re-elected there until
his death. He took his political duties so seriously, however, that he
neglected his considerable poetic gifts. It is rather remarkable that despite
his being a partisan of Cromwell, he was able to win the respect of Charles
II. He is the author of a number of satires, written mostly during the
Restoration, and of some fresh and virile lyrical poems.
Henry Vaughan (1622-1695): He was a disciple of Herbert, yet has little in
common with his master. His inspiration was not the English Church, but his
perception of God in Nature—in this respect resembling Traheme, Blake,
and Wordsworth later. He was a Welshman who attended Oxford, studied
law in London, and during the Civil War returned to Wales to study
medicine. For the rest of his life he lived the unexciting existence of a
country doctor. The two parts of Silex Scintillans appeared in 1650 and
1655; in 1678 he published Thalia Rediviva.
Page No: 16
His talent was very uneven, and he was not always happy imitating
Herbert’s complicated verse forms. Yet, when he achieves ecstasy, it is quite
beyond anything Herbert could attain. His two best known poems are The
Retreat which says, we are closest to God when we are children, and that as
we live in the world, we forget our heavenly home, and expresses the poet’s
desire to return there and The World.
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): He is considered, next to Donne, a great
poet. His masterpiece is “Contains many of Donne’s most enduring poems,
was released shortly after his wife died in childbirth Mistress”—a typically
metaphysical poem. He was a scholarly and learned poet and his muse
excelled in learned conceits. He wrote a number of elegies, songs and
religious poems. His Chronicle was appreciated by Johnson for its gaiety,
facility and dance of words.
Richard Crashaw (1612-1649): He was a minister’s son, took his degree at
Cambridge, and fled to the continent during the Civil War. There he became
converted to Catholicism, went to Rome, and in 1647 entered the household
of Cardinal Pallotto. The title of his first volume Steps of the Temple (1648)
indicates his discipleship to Herbert A new volume Carmen Deo Nostro
appeared in 1652. Crashaw is the most daring of the metaphysical poets in
his imagery, and his verse alternates between sublimity and uncertainty. His
best known poems are The Tear, On The Blessed Virgin’s Bashfulness, and
Upon the Body of Our Blessed Lord.
Herrick: Robert Herrick is the greatest poet among Cavalier metaphysical
poets. His only collection of poems Hesperide contains his secular and
sacred poetry. The total number of secular verses is nearly 200 while the
number of the religious verses is only 270. Herrick’s works constitute a
section of short poems “brought together on no principle and without any
order”. He loved disorder in poetry as much as in woman’s dress. He
mingles the coarsest epigrams with poetry

Page No: 17
Wither (1558-1667): Wither’s poems are The Shepherd’s Hunting of the
Church (1641) and his satire Abuses Stript and Wipt (1630). Though
Wither’s descriptions show the exquisite sense of beauty and his sweet
moral tone, his conceits, his metaphysical style, a passion for ingenious
verse and unexpected conceit, all mar the beauty of his poems.
Thomas Traherne (1634-1674): Thomas Traheme published no poetry
during his lifetime. His very name was forgotten until a manuscript of his
poems was discovered and published in 1903. Another manuscript was
discovered in the British Museum and published in 1910. Traheme is often
verbose and prosy, but at some moments he achieves wonderful rapture. He
is at his best when dealing, like Wordsworth later, with the simple things in
nature and childhood. One of his best poems is Shadow in the Water
Thomas Carew: His poems are rather short lyrics and they gained a
considerable admiration in his day. His extraordinary sensuality has
probably had some influence upon the opinion of the later ages but Carew is
preeminently beautiful and one of those who gave a cultivated grace to
lyrical poetry. His lyrical poems show his affinity on the one hand to the
great Elizabethans and on the other hand to the metaphysical poets. Carew
has little sensibility. He had a reputation for dryness. His longest and his
best poem The Rapture betray his limitation as a poet. It is an invitation to
Celia to enjoy forbidden passions without scruples. Carew wrote a fine elegy
on John Donne which shows John Donne’s influence on Carew. Yet, Donne
left few traces on his poetry.

Page No: 18
 Biography of JOHN DONNE (1572-1631)

QUICK FACTS ↓

NAME: John Donne

OCCUPATION: Poet, Essayist and Philosopher.

BIRTH DATE: c. 1572

DEATH DATE: March 31, 1631

EDUCATION: University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Lincoln’s Inn

PLACE OF BIRTH: London, England

PLACE OF DEATH: London, England

John Donne was born on January 22, 1572, in London, England. He is

known as the founder of the Metaphysical Poets, a term created by Samuel
Johnson, an eighteenth-century English essayist, poet, and philosopher. The
loosely associated group also includes George Herbert, Richard
Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, and John Cleveland.

Page No: 19
The Metaphysical Poets are known for their ability to startle the reader and
coax new perspective through paradoxical images, subtle argument,
inventive syntax, and imagery from art, philosophy, and religion using an
extended metaphor known as a conceit. Donne reached beyond the rational
and hierarchical structures of the seventeenth century with his exacting and
ingenious conceits, advancing the exploratory spirit of his time.

Donne entered the world during a period of theological and political unrest
for both England and France; a Protestant massacre occurred on Saint
Bartholomew’s day in France; while in England, the Catholics were the
persecuted minority. Born into a Roman Catholic family, Donne’s personal
relationship with religion was tumultuous and passionate, and at the center
of much of his poetry. He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge
Universities in his early teen years. He did not take a degree at either school,
because to do so would have meant subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles,
the doctrine that defined Anglicanism. At age twenty he studied law at
Lincoln’s Inn. Two years later he succumbed to religious pressure and
joined the Anglican Church after his younger brother, convicted for his
Catholic loyalties, died in prison. Donne wrote most of his love lyrics, erotic
verse, and some sacred poems in the 1590s, creating two major volumes of
work: Satires and Songs and Sonnets.

In 1598, after returning from a two-year naval expedition against Spain,

Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton. While sitting
in Queen Elizabeth’s last Parliament in 1601, Donne secretly married Anne
More, the sixteen-year-old niece of Lady Egerton. Donne’s father-in-law
disapproved of the marriage. As punishment, he did not provide a dowry for
the couple and had Donne briefly imprisoned.

This left the couple isolated and dependent on friends, relatives, and patrons.
Donne suffered social and financial instability in the years following his
marriage, exacerbated by the birth of many children. He continued to write
and published the Divine Poems in 1607. In Pseudo-Martyr, published in
1610, Donne displayed his extensive knowledge of the laws of the Church
and state, arguing that Roman Catholics could support James I without
compromising their faith.

Page No: 20
In 1615, James I pressured him to enter the Anglican Ministry by declaring
that Donne could not be employed outside of the Church. He was appointed
Royal Chaplain later that year. His wife died in 1617 at thirty-three years
old shortly after giving birth to their twelfth child, who was stillborn.
The Holy Sonnets are also attributed to this phase of his life.

In 1621, he became dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. In his later years,

Donne’s writing reflected his fear of his inevitable death. He wrote his
private prayers, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, during a period of
severe illness and published them in 1624. His learned, charismatic, and
inventive preaching made him a highly influential presence in London. Best
known for his vivacious, compelling style and thorough examination of
mortal paradox, John Donne died in London on March 31, 1631.

Works:

Poetry
 Satires (1593)
Songs and Sonnets (1601)
Divine Poems (1607)
Psevdo-Martyr (1610)
An Anatomy of the World (1611)
Ignatius his Conclaue (1611)
The Second Anniuersarie. Of The Progres of the Soule (1611)
An Anatomie of the World (1612)
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)
Deaths Dvell (1632)
Ivvenilia (1633)
Poems (1633)
Sapientia Clamitans (1638)
Wisdome crying out to Sinners (1639)

Page No: 21
Prose
 Letters to Severall Persons of Honour (1651)
A Collection of Letters, Made by Sr Tobie Mathews, Kt. (1660)
Essays
 A Sermon Vpon The VIII. Verse Of The I. Chapter of The Acts Of The
Apostles (1622)
A Sermon Vpon The XV. Verse Of The XX. Chapter Of The Booke Of
Ivdges (1622)
Encania. The Feast of Dedication. Celebrated At Lincolnes Inne, in a
Sermon there upon Ascension day (1623)
Three Sermons Upon Speciall Occasions (1623)
A Sermon, Preached To The Kings Mtie. At Whitehall (1625)
The First Sermon Preached To King Charles (1625)
Fovre Sermons Upon Speciall Occasions (1625)
Five Sermons Vpon Speciall Occasions (1626)
A Sermon Of Commemoration Of The Lady Dãuers (1627)
Six Sermons Vpon Severall Occasions (1634)
LXXX Sermons (1640)
Biathanatos: A Declaration of that Paradoxe, or Thesis that Selfe-
homicide is not so (1644)
Naturally Sinne, that it may never be otherwise (1647)
Essayes in Divinity (1651)

Falls in love and is undone: At the same time he fell in love with his
employer’s niece, Anne More. He was thirty, she fifteen. She was also his
social superior, and when her father learnt of their secret marriage some
two months after the event, he had the bridegroom, the officiating priest
and the lawyer who had acted as witness thrown into prison. Donne was
soon released, but Egerton dismissed him from his post, and he now found
himself an outsider. 

Page No: 22
Unemployment and suicidal thoughts: By 1606 (34) Anne’s father relented
somewhat, and provided a small income for their upkeep, but Donne was
unable to find suitable employment. He refused a living in a rural parish
near York in 1607 (35), and it was at this time that he wrote Biathanatos
(Violent Death), in which he discussed and attempted to justify suicide. The
essay was not published until 1647 (d16). 

Serious illness: In the winter of 1623 (51) a serious illness, from which it
was thought he would die, prompted him to write his Devotions on
Emergent Occasions (1624, 52), which included his famous words : ‘No man
is an island entire of itself, every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of
the maine; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well
as if a Promonterie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friend’s or of thine
own were; Any Man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in
Mankinde: And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it.

Final sermon and death: He preached his final sermon to the court in
Whitehall Palace on 25th February 1631 (59), a sermon which became
known as Death’s Duell, and he died on 31st March, having posed in a
shroud for a sketch portrait, from which an engraving was made for the
frontispiece of Death’s Duell. It was also used by Nicholas Stone in
producing his funerary monument, which now stands in St Paul’s Cathedral.
Page No: 23
 Biography of Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

Quick Facts
Name: Andrew Marvell
Occupation: Poet
Birth Date: 31st March 1621
Place of Birth: Winestead, England
Death Date: 16August 1678
Place of Death: London, England

Due to the inconsistencies and ambiguities within his work and the scarcity
of information about his personal life, Andrew Marvell has been a source of
fascination for scholars and readers since his work found recognition in the
early decades of the twentieth century.

Page No: 24
Born on March 31, 1621, Marvell grew up in the Yorkshire town of Hull,
England, where his father, Rev. Andrew Marvell, was a lecturer at Holy
Trinity Church and master of the Charterhouse. At age twelve Marvell began
his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge. Four years later, two of Marvell’s
poems, one in Latin and one in Greek, were published in an anthology of
Cambridge poets. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1639, Marvell
stayed on at Trinity, apparently to complete a master’s degree. In 1641,
however, his father drowned in the Hull estuary and Marvell abandoned his
studies. During the 1640’s Marvell traveled extensively on the continent,
adding Dutch, French, Spanish, and Italian to his Latin and Greek—missing
the English civil wars entirely.

Marvell spent most of the 1650s working as a tutor, first for Mary Fairfax,
daughter of a retired Cromwellian general, then for one of Oliver
Cromwell’s wards. Scholars believe that Marvell’s greatest lyrics were
written during this time. In 1657, due to John Milton’s efforts on his behalf,
Marvell was appointed Milton’s Latin secretary, a post Marvell held until his
election to Parliament in 1660.

A well-known politician, Marvell held office in Cromwell’s government and

represented Hull to Parliament during the Restoration. His very public
position—in a time of tremendous political turmoil and upheaval—almost
certainly led Marvell away from publication. No faction escaped Marvell’s
satirical eye; he criticized and lampooned both the court and Parliament.
Indeed, had they been published during his lifetime, many of Marvell’s more
famous poems—in particular, “Tom May’s Death," an attack on the famous
Cromwellian—would have made him rather unpopular with royalists and
republicans alike.

Marvell used his political status to free Milton, who was jailed during the
Restoration, and quite possibly saved the elder poet’s life. In the early years
of his tenure, Marvell made two extraordinary diplomatic journeys: to
Holland (1662-1663) and to Russia, Sweden, and Denmark (1663-1665).

Page No: 25
In 1678, after 18 years in Parliament, Marvell died rather suddenly of a
fever. Gossip of the time suggested that the Jesuits (a target of Marvell’s
satire) had poisoned him. After his death he was remembered as a fierce and
loyal patriot.

Now considered one of the greatest poets of the seventeenth century,

Marvell published very little of his scathing political satire and complex
lyric verse in his lifetime. Although he published a handful of poems in
anthologies, a collection of his work did not appear until 1681, three years
after his death, when his nephew compiled and found a publisher
for Miscellaneous Poems. The circumstances surrounding the publication of
the volume aroused some suspicion: a person named “Mary Marvell," who
claimed to be Marvell’s wife, wrote the preface to the book. “Mary Marvell”
was, in fact, Mary Palmer—Marvell’s housekeeper—who posed as
Marvell’s wife, apparently, in order to keep Marvell’s small estate from the
creditors of his business partners. Her ruse, of course, merely contributes to
the mystery that surrounds the life of this great poet. Marvell died on August
16, 1678.

Compare and Contrast Between John Donne and Andrew

Marvell as Metaphysical Poet
The metaphysical school of poetry occupies a unique place in the history of
English poetry by the end of 16th century and beginning of 17th century the
great Elizabethan poetry tire out itself signs of decadence were visible
everywhere. Everything was conventional artificial in very little sense we
find original or remarkable. There was much sugared melody and romantic
extravagant but there is no any kind of intellectual thing. 
It’s main reason of cause metaphysical.

“Metaphysician in poetry is the Fruit of the renaissance tree
Becoming over-ripe and approaching putrescence”

Page No: 26
Andrew Marvell and John Donne both has been master of metaphysical
poetry. To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell and the Flea by John
Donne, both the poems are broadly considered as two Metaphysical masters.
The Metaphysical Poets are known for their ability to astound the reader and
persuade new perception through inconsistent metaphors, subtle argument,
creative sentence structure, and imagery from art, and philosophy using an
extended metaphor known as a conceit (Abrams, 1999).

Politics, Pamphlets and Satirical Verses: Back in England he became

associated with the opposition to the king’s chief minister, the Earl of
Clarendon, making speeches in the House of Commons, and writing satirical
verses. In 1672 (51) he wrote the pamphlet for which he was best known in
his own lifetime, The Rehearsal Transpos’d, in support of Charles II’s moves
to extend toleration to religious dissenters. He wrote of the Civil War that
the cause was too good to be the subject of a conflict, and he published A
Short Historical Essay, concerning General Councils, Creeds, and
Impositions, in Matters of Religion in 1676 (55), in which he commented
that the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle, but that men generally
look for it at the extremities. In 1677 (56) he published An Account of the
Growth of Popery, and Arbitrary Government in England, in which he
warned that there were plots afoot to bring about tyranny and restore
‘popery’, a circumstance that he saw as destructive to the happiness and
interest of the country. 

Page No: 27
Marvell's Poetic Style: Marvell’s poetry is often witty and full of elaborate
conceits in the elegant style of the metaphysical poets. Many poems were
inspired by events of the time, public or personal. The Picture of Little TC in
a Prospect of Flowers was written about the daughter of one of Marvell's
friends, Theophila Cornwell, who was named after an elder sister who had
died as a baby. Marvell uses the picture of her surrounded by flowers in a
garden to convey the transience of spring and the fragility of childhood.
This poem's title is ironically echoed by John Ashbery's poem "The Picture
of Little JA in a Prospect of Flowers."

Death
He died suddenly of a fever in 1677 (56). His poetry was published as
Miscellaneous Poems posthumously in 1681 (d4), brought to print by a
Mary Palmer, who claimed to be his wife. Though she succeeded in
acquiring the administration of his estate, no other hard evidence has been
found to support her claim that they were in fact married.

Page No: 28
The Following Points Describe the Both Compare & Contrast
Openings: All the poets, though they occasionally display erudition
(learning) write with fairly colloquial voices. The best-known (and, so,
frequently-quoted) examples are Donne's pretended outbursts: “I wonder by
my troth ...”; “Busy old foole” and “For God's sake hold your tongue ...”
However the simple intimate address to the reader - “'This the year's
midnight” is no less characteristic of speech. As in other respects, Marvell
exhibits more variety here. We find the second person in To His Coy
Mistress. When Donne does this, we can believe, even though his own
thoughts are what we learn, that an intimate address to a real woman is
intended (in, say, The Good-Morrow, The Anniversarie and, even, A
Valediction Forbidding Mourning). But the “Coy Mistress” is conspicuously
absent - a mere pretext for Marvell to examine his real subjects - time and
the brevity of human happiness.
Poetic form and Stanzas: Donne also establishes a pattern which the others
emulate in his use of the stanza. He appears to love variety as a natural
embellishment and (to borrow Milton's phrase)“true ornament of verse”. We
can see this by comparing poems. The three stanza structure which carries
the argument in The Good Morrow is used again in other poems. But the
fluency of the stanza in The Good-Morrow leading to the brief penultimate
line and final Alexandrine with its stately, measured quality, gives way in
The Sunne Rising to a far more lively and varied stanza. The almost
breathless colloquial lines are, however, qualified in each stanza by a wholly
regular and fluent rhyming couplet which enables Donne to conclude with a
rhetorical flourish (note, however, that the final pentameter line is divided -
rather on the model of the Alexandrine - after the second iambic foot). In
The Anniversarie the whole stanza is more measured and stately and the
Alexandrine is restored as the final line. In A Nocturnall Upon S.Lucies Day
Donne uses, again, predominantly the pentameter line, yet the whole effect
is more laboured than the fluent Good-Morrow.

Page No: 29
This is achieved by repeated interruptions marked by the punctuation. In
many of Marvell's poems we find the same eight-syllable iambic line, yet its
effect can vary remarkably. In To His Coy Mistress the vigorousness of the
argument appears in the breathless lines - few are end-stopped, and the lines
have the rough power of speech. In The Definition of Love the same line is
used, but arranged in four line stanzas. These carry the argument in the same
way in which Donne uses this stanza in A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.
Unlike Donne, who is prepared to allow some use of enjambement (between
first and second stanzas and frequently within all the stanzas) Marvell's
stanza here has a near metronomic quality - a punctuation mark at the end of
the second line exaggerates the rhyming syllable, which is emphatically
matched at the end of the stanza. There is a similar regularity in Bermudas
but here, by arranging the lines as rhyming pairs, Marvell conveys
something of the sense of the motion of the English boat through the water
(as the poem's last line makes clear). This same line is used again, but
arranged into eight line stanzas to develop the argument in The Garden,
which is less slick but more profound and thoughtful than that in The
Definition of Love.

Subjects and themes: As Donne do, Marvell writes much about his own
ideas, but with less consistency. There is variety and superficial
contradiction in the Songs and Sonnets but Donne's preoccupation with love
is not in doubt. Donne found the contemporary world dry and corrupt. He
felt that its degeneration would lead to untold human misery. The main
theme of his religious poems is the transitoriness of this world, the fleeting
nature of physical joys and earthly happiness, the sufferings of the soul
imprisoned in the body and the pettiness and insignificance of man. Above
all, the shadow of death is all pervasive and this makes him turn to Christ as
the Saviour. Even so, his metaphysical craftsmanship treats God as
‘ravisher’ who saves him from the clutches of the Devil.

Page No: 30
Though Donne regarded the world a vanity of vanities, he could not
completely detach himself from the joys of the world and there is a turn
from other-worldliness to worldliness. However, we cannot doubt the
sincerity of his religious feelings and his earnest prayer to God for
deliverance. His moral earnestness is reflected in his consciousness of sin
and unworthiness for deserving the grace of Christ He uses the images of
Christ as a lover who will woo his soul. But To His Coy Mistress is not
easily reconciled with Bermudas or The Coronet. Marvell in all of these
poems writes with lucidity and wit yet there is often an element of
detachment - perhaps best shown in the dispassionate clarity and wordplay
of The Definition of Love. It is interesting to note that the simplicity of
much of Bermudas (essentially a list of God's gifts to the settlers of the
islands, though individual lines contain the usual wit - as in the description
of the [pine]apples) is explained by the device of making most of the poem a
hymn of gratitude, sung by the English sailors.
Metaphysical conceit: The metaphysical conceit, associated with the
Metaphysical poets of the 17th century, is a more intricate and intellectual
device. It usually sets up an analogy between one entity’s spiritual qualities
and an object in the physical world and sometimes controls the whole
structure of the poem. The Elaborate Conceit is the most common trope in
metaphysical poetry. It is an extended metaphor that uses a series of
comparisons and associations to create a highly ornate poetic image. English
poets like John Donne were early experimenters with this technique, while
Andrew Marvell is famous for his later variations on the metaphysical
theme. As a metaphysical poet, John Donne uses imaginative and ironic
conceits in his poetry which often address topics like love and religion.
Donne's metaphysical conceit is a comparison of love to marketing and
business: my treasure, bargain, stocks, letters, outbid. Marvell's
metaphysical conceit is harder to pin down being fugue-like.

Page No: 31
Sometimes Marvell’s conceits last for an entire poem, as in “The Coronet,”
where the only topics of discussion are poem itself and the crown that the
shepherd weaves. In Marvell's other poems, the conceit emerges through a
series of images, like in “The Definition of Love.” Here, Marvell defines
love differently in each stanza, and as the poem slowly develops, he
connects all of the definitions. It starts with implied comparisons to human
states of being (e.g., "Magnanimous Despair") through the personifications
of emotion, love and fate, then, at stanza 5, it swings to a comparison of love
to physical properties in the world: world wheels about, planisphere,
parallel, conjunction, opposition of stars.
Metaphysical ‘wit’: English metaphysical poetry, from Donne to Marvell,
is conspicuously witty. A. J. Smith seeks the central importance of wit in the
thinking of the metaphysical poets, and argues that metaphysical wit is
essentially different from other modes of wit current in Renaissance Europe.
If Donne’s sincere and intense, though sometimes perverse and petulant,
moods are a protest against the languid conventionality of Petrarchan
sentiment, his celebrated “wit” is no less a corrective to the lazy thinking of
the sonneteers, their fashioning and refashioning of the same outworn
conceits.
The Muses’ garden, with pedantic weeds
O’er-spread, was purged by thee: the lazy seeds
Of servile imitation thrown away,
And fresh invention planted.
This is Carew’s estimate of what Donne achieved for English poetry. He
would say what he felt and would say it in imagery of his own fashioning.
He owes, probably, no more to Marino or Gongora than to Petrarch.
“Metaphysical wit,” like secentismo or “Gongorism,” is, doubtless, a
symptom of the decadence of renascence poetry which, with all its beauty
and freshness, carried seeds of decay in its bosom from the beginning.

Page No: 32
But the form which this dissolution took in the poetry of Donne is the
expression of a unique and intense individuality; a complex, imaginative
temperament; a swift and subtle intellect; a mind stored with the minutiae of
medieval theology, science and jurisprudence. The result is often bizarre, at
times even repulsive. When the fashion in wit had changed, Addison and
Johnson could not see anything in Donne’s poetry but far-sought ingenuity
and extravagant hyperbole. His poetry has never, or never for long, the
harmonious simplicity of perfect beauty; but, at its best, it has both sincerity
and strength, and these are also constituents of beauty.
Marvell’s poetry is full of surprising conceits, stark imagery and vivid
paradoxes. Use of conceit in pretty manner like the genre of metaphysical
poets of the time is seen in the works of Marvell.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixt,
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye does see

Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic pow’r depose.
often witty and full of elaborate conceits in the elegant style of the
metaphysical poets. Many poems were inspired by events of the time. Others
were written in the pastoral style of the classical Roman authors. The
perspective of love, betrayal in love, joi de vivre of life and originality in
tone and style are distinguishing aspects of Marvell’s poems.
"To His Coy Mistress" is a poem of one-sided love with romantic elements
of human temporality. ‘’A Dialogue between the Resolved Soul, And
Created Pleasure’’ is the classic resistance of temptation story.

Page No: 33
Theme of Love: Both Donne and Marvell use the theme of love in their
different poems. But in Marvell we find the pretence of passion (in To His
Coy Mistress) used as a peg on which to hang serious reflections on the
brevity of happiness. The Definition of Love is an ironic game - more a love
of definition let loose; the poem is cool, lucid and dispassionate, if gently
self-mocking. So you can move on to Donne, in whom passionate sexual
love is examined with vigor and intensity. There are far too many suitable
poems to consider all in detail, but The Good-Morrow, The Sunne Rising
and The Anniversarie belong together, while A Nocturnall, upon S. Lucie's
Day gives the other side of the coin. There is positive celebration of life in
The Good Morrow and the others, while in the Nocturnall we have the
examination of complex negativity. In A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
the argument is not logically persuasive, but the cleverness and subtlety of
Donne's method are diverting.

The Poems Classified by Subject - Love:

Donne-
 The Good-Morrow: New love celebrated.
 The Sunne Rising: Love fulfilled and celebrated.
 The Anniversarie: Love in relation to time.
 The Canonization: Love as a new religion.
 A Valediction: The consolation of love on parting.
 A Nocturnall: A meditation on the lover's desolation.
Marvell-
 The Coronet: Religious devotion versus secular love.
 Bermudas: The mercy and bounty of God's love.
 To His Coy Mistress: Sexual love and the brevity of life.
 The Definition of Love: A display of the love of wit.
 The Garden: Reasonable contemplation as a retreat from passion.

Page No: 34
Construction of the Women: John Donne and Andrew Marvell are two
poets notorious for their erotic poems. Donne’s “The Flea” can simply be
described as a desperate argument for the woman whom the poem is targeted
at to sleep with him. Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is another logical
argument towards his mistress asking her to seize the day while
simultaneously describing her beauty from head to toe with the same goal in
mind as Donne. Donne and Marvell have different but in some ways similar
construction of the female in their respective poems. “The Flea” is a
persuasive argument for the lady’s (whom the poem is directed at) virginity.
Donne uses logos and tries to form a logical argument in his favor. The
poem begins by Donne telling the woman about a flea that sucked his blood
first then sucks hers and concludes that because of this their blood is mixed
together. Donne next argues,
“Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, not loss of maidenhead
. . . And this, alas, is more than we would do” (Donne 810).

Through “The Flea” we understand John Donne’s construction of the female

to be a simple (a more appropriate word here would be “easy”) being. He
uses very simple language and arguments in order to persuade her to sleep
with him and when that doesn’t work he traps her with his own faulty logic.
Donne obviously doesn’t have enough respect for this woman (or women in
general) to let her make her own decisions instead of forcing her into such
an important act as a loss of virginity. This poem shows that Donne thinks
women are inferior to him in general; it also insinuates what could be
perceived as an act of rape since the woman in his poem doesn’t seem to
return his feelings of lust.

Page No: 35
Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is a pleasant change of scenery
from Donne’s “The Flea”. Marvell is much more poetic as he tries to woo
his mistress throughout his beautiful love poem. He starts the poem like this:
“Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime” (Marvell 855).

‘Coyness’ indicates that the mistress is coming on to Marvell, or showing

signs that she is interested in him. Unlike “The Flea” where Donne assumes
the woman has the same feelings he does, Marvell makes sure to include the
fact that the mistress is coy, she has mutual feelings as he understands it.
Later in the poem Marvell indicates he would be willing to spend eternity
courting her (‘Had we but world enough, and time’). Marvell’s construction
of the female is much different than Donne. Marvell’s technique of
persuasion is different altogether. Marvell leans more towards logos and
appeals to his mistress’ emotions through flattery. It is obvious that Marvell
has a certain level of respect for his mistress because he makes sure to let the
readers of his poem know that the mistress is interested in him too so that his
feelings towards her are mutual. Marvell sees the mistress on equal terms
with himself and as the poem progresses he regards her almost as a goddess.
Thematic Interests and Personal Expression: In his Pseudo-Martyr
collection (1610), Donne took on the subject of the laws of the Church and
defended a Catholic's loyalty to the Crown in light of those laws. As a result,
James I decreed that Donne might be employed in no occupation other than
as an Anglican clergyman, thus forcing Donne to become a Protestant
minister. In contrast, Marvell published little during his lifetime and his
greatest lyric poems are thought to have been written early in his career
while he was a tutor and before he was Milton's Latin secretary. His most
famous works were published posthumously (after his death).

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To illustrate the differences in tone and thematic emphasis, we'll consider
Donne's "Lovers' Infiniteness" and Marvell's "The Definition of Love." The
subject is the same, but their tones and approach are not same.
Imagery: Donne is eclectic (wide-ranging) and apparently obscure. He did
not write for publication, but showed poems to friends whom he supposed to
be well-read enough to understand these references. Donne's imagery draws
on the new (in the late 16th century) learning of the English renaissance and
on topical discoveries and exploration. We find references to alchemy, sea-
voyages, mythology and religion (among many other things). Certain images
or ideas recur so often as to seem typical: kingship and rule; subjectivism
("one little room an everywhere" "nothing else is"); alchemy - especially the
mystical beliefs associated with elixir and quintessence - and cosmology,
both ancient and modern (references both to spheres and to the world of
"sea-discoverers"). Unlike Donne who scatters metaphors freely, Marvell is
more selective and sparing. Very often the image is more memorable and
striking than the idea it expresses, as with the "deserts of vast eternity",
while frequently one finds an idea which cannot be understood except as the
image in which Marvell expresses it, as with the "green thought in a green
shade". In any case, with all of these poets, the use of metaphor serves, and
is subordinate to, the total argument. In The Coronet, Marvell considers
whether the poetic skill which has formerly (and culpably) served to praise
his "shepherdess" can "redress that Wrong", by weaving a "Chaplet" for
Christ. But, the poet concludes, this is self-deception and vanity, and he ends
with a prayer that God will act to remove the "Serpent" (the pursuit, in
writing, of the poet's own "Fame" or (self) "Interest" - even if this requires
the destruction of Marvell's own ingenious verse - "my curious frame").

Page No: 37
 In the skilful development of the central metaphor of the garland or
"coronet" (appropriate both to the pastoral context and with biblical
connotations, especially in associating the temptation to evil with the
Serpent lurking in the greenery, Marvell exhibits the complexity, the
riddling quality which this poem calls into question, perhaps best shown in
the tortuous syntax of the first sentence with its succession of subordinate
clauses separating the introductory "When" from the subject and main verb
"I seek".
Blending with emotion and feeling: John Donne gave up the trend of
unbridled emotion and passion of the Elizabethan poets; put aside the over-
romanticized ideas and their sugar-coated language. Rather Donne and his
followers made a fine blending passion and thought, emotion and intellect,
imagination and reality, feeling and ratiocination.
“The Canonization” is one of the most famous poems of Donne in which we
can trace the blending of emotion and reason. He uses some images and
conceits to express the supreme feeling of satisfaction in love in a concrete
manner in the following lines:
“Call us what you will, we are made such by love,
Call her one, me another fly,
We are tapers too, and at our own cost die,
…………………………………………………
We can die by it, if not live by love.”
This emotion of love is harmonized with the use of complex wit and conceit,
reason and argument.

Page No: 38
Another important poem where Donne is uncommon in fusing intellect and
passion is “The Sun Rising”. The lover is undoubtedly highly passionate in
his expression of love but it is always tempered with experience and reason
that we can observe in the following lines:
“To warm the world, that’s done in warming us
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere,
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.”

Here the passion of love is conveyed in images which are erudite, logical
and of an intellectual nature. In this poem we also find Donne’s ratiocinative
style, reasoning step by step towards his conclusion.
The peculiar mingling of feeling and thought finds its better outlet in “A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”. Here the speaker’s beloved is highly
emotional who doesn’t allow him to leave her even for a temporary period.
But the lover is trying his best to pacify her emotion with some logical
points and argument.
Donne, as a great scholar, always showed his experience and learning using
argument in his various poems. So critics sometimes made criticism of his
poetry considering it lifeless and emotionless. They charged his poetry with
mere expression of intellectuality and pedantic thought.
The Garden by Andrew Marvell is a unique poem which is romantic in its
expression, metaphysical in its word-game, and classical in its music. It is
romantic because it is about the nature in subject and theme, and it is the
expression of the poet’s personal and emotional feelings about life in the
nature.
Its style is metaphysical because it uses the conceit, forceful argument,
allusions (references) from sources like the Bible, myths and metaphysical
philosophies. And it is a classical poem in its form because the stanzas,
rhythm, rhyme and word-choice is like in classical poetry (carefully
perfected form, and a language different from the ordinary).
Page No: 39
The theme is that the garden (which is the symbol of life in nature) is the
perfect place for physical, mental and spiritual comfort and satisfaction,
unlike the society where pleasure is false and temporary.
The poet has finally found the nature and realized its value; he claims that
the nature is the only true place for complete luxury. 'The Garden' is a
unique metaphysical poem which is Romantic in its subject matter and also
contains classical elements in its diction, meter and structure. The poem is
written in heroic couplet, which deals with the poet’s experience of feelings
and ideas about the garden that represents the nature. The poet begins by
comparing the nature with society and social life and criticizing the society
and ‘busy’ worldly life.

Tone: Donne's tone is ponderous, serious, as it labors through elaborate

arguments:
Or if then thou gavest me all,
All was but all, which thou hadst then;
But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall
New love created be,
Marvell's tone is light, optimistic, victorious even though thwarted:
Therefore the Love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the Mind,
The Poet’s arguments: Looking at the poets' technique should, perhaps,
begin with a consideration of argument. In a way all of the poems have an
argument, but it is interesting or striking in some more than others.

Page No: 40
 To His Coy Mistress - the light and the serious arguments in one; the
structure "Had we ..." "But ..." "Now therefore ..."; A Valediction
Forbidding Mourning - the structure "As ... so" "But ... But" "Therefore"
"Such wilt thou be to me ..." and the similarity to this of The Definition of
Love (but there are big differences, too).
Attitude to religion: Donne’s speakers frequently wonder which religion to
choose when confronted with so many churches that claim to be the one true
religion. In 1517, an Augustinian monk in Germany named Martin Luther
set off a number of debates that eventually led to the founding of
Protestantism, which, at the time, was considered to be a reformed version of
Catholicism. England developed Anglicanism in 1534, another reformed
version of Catholicism. This period was thus dubbed the Reformation.
Because so many sects and churches developed from these religions,
theologians and laypeople began to wonder which religion was true or right.
Written while Donne was abandoning Catholicism for Anglicanism, “Satire
3” reflects these concerns. Here, the speaker wonders how one might
discover the right church when so many churches make the same claim. The
speaker of Holy Sonnet 18 asks Christ to explain which bride, or church,
belongs to Christ. Neither poem forthrightly proposes one church as
representing the true religion, but nor does either poem reject outright the
notion of one true church or religion. Marvell’s poetic ambivalence in the
framework of providentialism and skepticism. He has especially shown
where Marvell’s language and imagery are echoed in other works, finding
familiar themes in such diverse writers as Abraham Cowley, John Milton,
and Thomas Hobbes. Most importantly, he has provided a glimpse into
Marvell’s religious and political thinking by situating his writings within the
radicalism brought on by the civil war. As a result, we have filled a void in
the studies of Marvell’s rhetorical strategy, helping readers identify his aims
and understand his ambivalence.

Page No: 41
Nevertheless, what might have helped even more in this cause is to have
analyzed the engagement controversy more extensively, especially the
notion, prevalent in Hobbes and others, of legitimacy through defeatism.
While we does discuss the claims for and against providentially among
writers during the engagement pamphlet campaign, he does not show how
those claims compelled one’s allegiance to the republic, a momentous
occasion when choice tested one’s conscience. Another minor criticism is
the tenuous connection he makes between Marvell and the enlightened and
rational thinking among the Great New circle. While there is congruence
between Marvell’s “sceptical, liberal theology of the ‘middle way,’” as well
as his “espousal of moderation and probabilism,” and the thinking of those
of the Great New circle there is no evidence of Marvell joining or
contributing to the group’s discussions.
Style: All of Donne's verse—his love sonnets and his religious and
philosophical poems—is distinguished by a remarkable blend of passion and
reason. His love poetry treats the breadth of the experience of loving,
emphasizing, in such poems as "The Ecstasie," the root of spiritual love in
physical love. The devotional poems and sermons reveal a profound concern
with death, decay, damnation, and the possibility of the soul's transcendent
union with God.
The Metaphysical style and other elements as evident in the poetry of John
Donne are as follows--
1. The concietful style--combining distant and farfetched analogies e.g.
lovers' hearts and hemispheres.
2. The allusive style--references to a vast area of discursive knowledge from
mythology to science.
3. The poetry of erudition, displaying knowledge

Page No: 42
4. Argumentative style--using logical forms, premise-conclusion structures
5. The epigrammatic style--working by the means of short pithy statements,
paradoxes and ironies.
6. Parodic and undercutting style, marked with latent sarcasm
7. A critical and realist stance in terms of love-poetry--candid admission of
sexuality and physicality in love, the accommodation of plurality in it, the
body-soul dialogue in love, critique of the Elizabethan romantic idealism.
Much of what characteristics Marvell’s style can be understood by reference
to his extensive scholarship and his vocation as tutor to the children of the
politically influential. Indeed, both ‘The Garden’ and ‘On a Drop of Dew’
have direct counterparts in Latin, written by Marvell himself, which act as
interesting commentaries on the drafting process which the English versions
went through in reaching their finished form. ‘An Horatian Ode upon
Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’ self-consciously imitates the Latin poet
Horace’s Odes, which included poems or songs of formal praise for military
heroes and which in turn imitated an earlier Greek form. For elements of
expression too, Marvell in this poem draws on the Roman historian Lucan,
whose Pharsalia presents Julius Caesar in much the way that Marvell
chooses to present Oliver Cromwell. Even ‘The Nymph Complaining for the
Death of her Fawn’ derives from Latin models of mock-heroic verse as a
young female innocent laments the death of a pet. ‘To His Coy Mistress’,
despite its apparent immediacy, owes the structure of its argument to the
academic discipline of logic, as it progresses according to syllogism, moving
between two contrary propositions to reach its conclusion. ‘Bermudas’, on
the other hand, has a quite distinctive style.
This is not to say, however, that all Marvell’s poetry has to offer stylistically
is a dry pastiche of classical forms and styles; that is not the experience of
reading his English poems. There is no forcing in the adoption of classical
models, rather the sense of an intelligence so at home with them that they are
habitual frameworks for thought.
Page No: 43
They are vehicles for individual expression which can be distinctive and
witty. These lines from ‘The Garden': ‘Two paradises ’twere in one / To live
in paradise alone’ (lines 63-4) depend as much on the comedien’s timing in
delivering the last word as a punchline as they do on the handling of metric
formality. Added to that, in many of the poems the seriousness of the topic
under discussion is offset by the creation of a very unstuffy speaker, or
persona, prepared to make gentle fun at his own expense. Hence in ‘To His
Coy Mistress’, while his loved one searches for rubies by the side of the
Ganges, the hapless speaker will complain on the banks of the Humber, a
river whose name has connotative properties, and even a sound, which make
the line teeter on the verge of controlled bathos. Equally, amongst all the
allusions to classical myths and Neo-platonic flights of fancy in ‘The
Garden’, the reader is confronted by a near-burlesque image of our guide in
the place, when he tells us:
‘Stumbling on melons, as I pass
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass’
Humors: “The Flea” This funny little poem again exhibits Donne’s
metaphysical love-poem mode, his aptitude for turning even the least likely
images into elaborate symbols of love and romance. This poem uses the
image of a flea that has just bitten the speaker and his beloved to sketch an
amusing conflict over whether the two will engage in premarital sex. The
speaker wants to, the beloved does not, and so the speaker, highly clever but
grasping at straws, uses the flea, in whose body his blood mingles with his
beloved’s, to show how innocuous such mingling can be—he reasons that if
mingling in the flea is so innocuous, sexual mingling would be equally
innocuous, for they are really the same thing. By the second stanza, the
speaker is trying to save the flea’s life, holding it up as “our marriage bed
and marriage temple.”

Page No: 44
But when the beloved kills the flea despite the speaker’s protestations (and
probably as a deliberate move to squash his argument, as well), he turns his
argument on its head and claims that despite the high-minded and sacred
ideals he has just been invoking, killing the flea did not really impugn his
beloved’s honor—and despite the high-minded and sacred ideals she has
invoked in refusing to sleep with him, doing so would not impugn her honor
either. This poem is the cleverest of a long line of sixteenth-century love
poems using the flea as an erotic image, a genre derived from an older poem
of Ovid. Donne’s poise of hinting at the erotic without ever explicitly
referring to sex, while at the same time leaving no doubt as to exactly what
he means, is as much a source of the poem’s humor as the silly image of the
flea is; the idea that being bitten by a flea would represent “sin, or shame, or
loss of maidenhead” gets the point across with a neat conciseness and clarity
that Donne’s later religious lyrics never attained. During Marvell's time, the
term “humour” referred to the vital juice or fluid of an animal or plant. More
specifically, the concept of these four organizing humors was the basis of
early modern cosmology and medicine. This classical belief is rooted in the
writings of Greek physician Galen, who espoused the idea that all bodies are
composed of the four humors, each of which corresponds to one of the four
fundamental elements: blood and air, yellow bile and fire, black bile and
earth, and finally, phlegm and water. Ideally, the human body attempts to
strike a balance of all four humors, and, in the Galenic system of medicine,
sickness was the result of a skewed balance between the humors. An
abundance of each humor supposedly caused a certain mood, disposition, or
personality type, as well as particular physical features. Marvell uses the
term “humour” in his poems to refer to both the bodily fluids and as well as
individual temperaments that correspond to the Galenic model.

Page No: 45
Sexual Attraction and Sexuality: Love, Spirituality, and Sex When looking
up the definition of love there are too many definitions to state, but to fall in
love is a whole other subject. To fall in love: to become enamored of or
sexually attracted to another is the Webster's definition. In John Donne's
poems this seems to be the case. In "The Flea," Donne expresses his wish to
bed his beloved in a subtle way.Donne was, in fact, a rake and a bawd before
he became a preacher and, in the fullness of time, the dean of St. Paul’s
Cathedral, famous for his sermons and celebrated at court. He wrote poetry
throughout this checkered, picaresque career. Almost none of it was
published in his lifetime. But the range of the work that survives does
include not only canonical love poems like “A Valediction: Forbidding
Mourning” but erotica also both intricate and raw. Young John was more
discreet. He went to Oxford at twelve, but left before turning sixteen to
avoid a mandatory oath rejecting Catholicism. He became a law student and,
according to a contemporary, “a great visitor of ladies” and “a great writer of
conceited verses.” He stayed out of religious debates and sought the divine
elsewhere.
From “Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed”:
Off with that girdle, like heaven’s zone glistering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate, which you wear
That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there:
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now it is bed time.

Page No: 46
He liked to travel slowly, slowly down his lover’s body. From “Elegy
XVIII: Love’s Progress”:
Her swelling lips; to which when we are come,
We anchor there, and think ourselves at home,
For they seem all: there sirens’ songs, and there
Wise Delphic oracles do fill the ear;
There in a creek where chosen pearls do swell,
The remora, her cleaving tongue doth dwell.
These, and the glorious promontory, her chin
O’erpast; and the strait Hellespont between
Donne’s sexual interests were catholic. In “Sappho to Philaenis,” he
considers same-sex attraction:
Hand to strange hand, lip to lip none denies;
Why should they breast to breast, or thighs to thighs?
Likeness begets such strange self flattery,
That touching myself, all seems done to thee.
Donne’s career as a ladies’ man ended after he met Anne More. She was a
teen-ager at the time, fresh from the countryside, and he was a secretary to
her uncle Sir Thomas Egerton, who was a close advisor to the Queen and
lived in a grand house in Whitehall. Donne and More fell in love, prompting
much yearning and, it is thought, one of Donne’s best-known conceits. From
“The Flea”:
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead…
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

Page No: 47
They married, despite parental objections so vehement that Donne was
thrown in jail. After his release, the couple left London. Donne became an
uxorious husband, father of twelve (seven survived), and the author of
mature love poems such as “The Sun Rising,” “The Canonization,” and “The
Exstasie.” From “The Good Morrow”:
And now good morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.

Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" is divided into three stanzas or
poetic paragraphs. It’s spoken by a nameless man, who doesn’t reveal any
physical or biographical details about himself, to a nameless woman, who is
also biography-less. During the first stanza, the speaker tells the mistress
that if they had more time and space, her "coyness" (see our discussion on
the word "coy" in "What’s Up With the Title?") wouldn’t be a "crime." He
extends this discussion by describing how much he would compliment her
and admire her, if only there was time. He would focus on "each part" of her
body until he got to the heart (and "heart," here, is both a metaphor for sex,
and a metaphor for love). In the second stanza he says, "BUT," we don’t
have the time, we are about to die! He tells her that life is short, but death is
forever. In a shocking moment, he warns her that, when she’s in the coffin,
worms will try to take her "virginity" if she doesn’t have sex with him
before they die. If she refuses to have sex with him, there will be
repercussions for him, too. All his sexual desire will burn up, "ashes" for all
time. In the third stanza he says, "NOW, I’ve told you what will happen
when you die, so let’s have sex while we’re still young. Hey, look at those
"birds of prey" mating. That’s how we should do it – but, before that, let’s
have us a little wine and time (cheese is for sissies). Then, he wants to play a
game – the turn ourselves into a "ball" game. (Hmmm.)

Page No: 48
He suggests, furthermore, that they release all their pent up frustrations into
the sex act, and, in this way, be free. In the final couplet, he calms down a
little. He says that having sex can’t make the "sun" stop moving. In
Marvell’s time, the movement of the sun around the earth (we now believe
the earth rotates around the sun) is thought to create time. Anyway, he says,
we can’t make time stop, but we can change places with it. Whenever we
have sex, we pursue time, instead of time pursuing us. This fellow has some
confusing ideas about sex and time. Come to think of it, we probably do,
too. "To His Coy Mistress" offer us a chance to explore some of those
confusing thoughts.

Page No: 49
On the Whole We can Sum up the Above Points Of
Compare & Contrast Between John Donne & Andrew
Marvell Are As Follows:
The metaphysical school of poetry occupies a unique place in the history of English
poetry by the end of 16th century and beginning of 17th century the great Elizabethan
poetry tire out itself signs of decadence were visible everywhere .everything was
conventional artificial in very little sense we find original or remarkable. There was much
sugared melody and romantic extravagant but there is no any kind of intellectual thing.
It’s main reason of cause “metaphysical”.
“Metaphysician in poetry is the Fruit of the renaissance tree Becoming over-
ripe and approaching putrescence”

 Virginity, Sexuality & Seduction

 Concept of Wit

 The Ecstasy

 The Dream

 Religion

 Death and the Hereafter

 Love as both physical and spiritual

 Interconnectedness of humanity

 Fidelity

 Paradoxes

 Imagination

 Symbolism
 Page No: 50

Conclusion
All conversations about metaphysical poetry must start with John Donne. He
is considered the founder of metaphysical poetry and master of the
metaphysical conceit. Many literary critics describe Donne's style as
inventive, strong, dramatic and sensual. The paradoxes of his life surely
affected the paradoxes in his poetry. He was considered a womanizer, even
though he was religious. He wrote as many erotic poems as he did secular
ones. Even though his metaphysical poems were witty, they were cynical
and ironic as well.
Andrew Marvell was one of the prominent poet of metaphysical school. He
is surely the single most compelling embodiment of the change that came
over English society and letters in the course of the seventeenth century.
Marvell turned, first, into a panegyrist for the Lord Protector and his regime
and then into an increasingly bitter satirist and polemicist, attacking the
royal court and the established church in both prose and verse.
Later, in 1779, Dr. Samuel Johnson coined the phrase “metaphysical poets”
to identify Donne and his contemporaries, including Andrew Marvell. Like
Dryden, Johnson faulted these poets for their unruly versification,
metaphoric distortions, and overly elaborate conceits. However, as time
went on, contemporary critics like T.S. Eliot started to recognize and value
the metaphysical' work, praising its anti-Romantic and intellectual qualities.
The metaphysical styles generally contains irregular versification, images of
extreme emotion and outlandish bodily comportment, the use of paradox,
and elaborate metaphors that sometimes extend for the entirety of a single
poem. The list of English poets identified as “metaphysical” includes John
Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan, and Andrew
Marvell.
 Page No: 51

To sums up comparing and contrasting Donne and Marvell’s poetry they had
essentially the same goal. The comparison lies in their similar goal to
convince their prospective women to sleep with them. Donne’s construction
of the female is simple and degrading towards all women because his
superiority complex lets him think he can overpower this woman. Marvell’s
construction of the female is quite the opposite; he sees his mistress as an
equal and regards her very highly. He also constructs the female as beautiful
and in his poem, admires certain aspects of his mistress’ beauty. Although
Donne and Marvell’s construction of the female is different, the goals of
their poems are the same.

_______________________________________________
 Page No: 52

My Personal Point of View/Comment

Assignment on The Poets of Metaphysical Era like; Donne & Marvell will give us a
elaborate details Between Comparison and Contrast Between John Donne And
Andrew Marvell As Metaphysical Poets…..
Their Styles of Writing, their attitude towards nature, their major works, definition
of poetry according to them, their vision on poetry, their personal life, their
friendship, their perception of poetry, their attitudes towards poetry and realism etc
will give us a vivid description about their point of view towards Poetry.
Literary history classifies John Donne and Andrew Marvell as one of the great
Metaphysical poets the others being George Chapman, Edward Herbert, Katherine
Philips and John Hall.
In this Assignment, I have given a wide selection of Donne and Marvell’s works,
they are the lovely creation, conversation, pieces etc. I have also included About
Romanticism, its characters as well as features of Romantic Movement. Each points
and features is extensively annotated and critically discussed.
Modern critical thought and views on Donne and Marvell and their poetries have
been incorporated in the discussion to enlighten the reader on the various aspects of
their poems.

I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the people who have helped me in
completing this assignment because without their suggestions and views my work
would have been incomplete.
I Also Welcome any kind of suggestions for improving my Assignment………..

_____________________________________________________
 Bibliography

 Metaphysical Lyrics & Poems of 17th Century by Herbert J C

Grierson.
 Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms, S S Publications UK-
1929, eighth edition
 Brett, R.L., Ed. Andrew Marvell: Essays on the Tercentenary of his
Death. (1979)
 Rahman, Dr. M. Mofizar, An ABC in English Literature, Friend’s
Book Corner, Second Edition: April, 1998, Reprint: 2011
 Sen, Dr. S. John Donne, Selected Poems, Friend’s Book Corner, New
& Enlarged Edition 2015
 Lall, Ramji. Andrew Marvell, An Evaluation of His Poetry, Friend’s
Book Corner, New Edition 2013
Website:www.google.com/

 http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/metaintro.html
 Time: 08:00 p.m. Date:17th July 2017
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_poets#Characteristics
 Time: 08:00 p.m. Date:17th July 2017
 [https://neoenglish.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/the-metaphysical-poets-
dissociation-critical-summary/html
 Time: 08:12 p.m. Date:17th July 2017
 http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/English_Literature/englit_1/17cenintro.html
 Time: 08:15 p.m. Date:17th July 2017
 http://www.markedbyteachers.com/gcse/english/the-metaphysical-poets-john-
donne-and-andrew-marvell.html
 Time: 08:05 p.m. Date:18th July 2017
 http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/please-specify-differences-between-
donnes-adrews-378207/html
 Time: 08:30 p.m. Date:18th July 2017
 http://www.essaysadepts.com/paper/John-donnes-poems-dealing-with-love-sex-
and-sexuality.-146860.html
 Time: 09:00 p.m. Date:18th July 2017