T.S. Eliot and Metaphysical Poetry (Creative Engagement)

The term “Metaphysical Poet,” is the type of term that I typically underline during my second pass through a text but then rarely come back to. Metaphysical. Such a long, difficult to define word, why bother? But the introduction to John Donne in the Norton Anthology also has some other information in it as well. The term was originally applied to a loose collection of poets as a negative criticism of their style; that’s interesting. And centuries later, T.S. Eliot took it upon himself to make a rebuttal of sorts; even more interesting.

I pursued this a little and found an essay Eliot wrote called, “The Metaphysical Poets.” I’ve inserted a link below for anyone who is interested (although after having read it I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it unless you have a strong interest). To make it easy I’ll outline a few of the major points that relate most to Donne:

· The term “metaphysical” was initially meant as abuse.

· One defining characteristic of metaphysical poetry is “the elaboration (contrasted with the condensation) of a figure of speech to the furthest stage to which ingenuity can carry it.” A reference to the extended conceits of John Donne, such as the lovers as points of a compass.

· One of Samuel Johnson’s points of criticism was that in Donne’s poetry, “the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.” Meaning that the extended metaphors are too much forced. Eliot doesn’t mind this and sees it in the work of most poets, even Johnson.

· According to Eliot, another important hallmark of metaphysical poets is that their language is for the most part “pure and simple.” Their sentences, by contrast, are long, although not to the exclusion of feeling.

· The poetry is intellectual, but that does not mean un-emotional. These poets experience a though the same way other poets experienced the smell of a rose.

· Eliot saw parallels between the complex Modernism of his own day and the work of the metaphysical poets.

http://personal.centenary.edu/~dhavird/TSEMetaPoets.html

Defeating Death: Shakespeare and Donne

Love is perhaps the most oft expressed theme in poetry, or in any art form for that matter. However, the expression of love is often complicated, and sometimes it is complicated by death. Mortality, the inevitability of one’s own death, and the relentlessness of time all appeared in the poems of both William Shakespeare and John Donne. The two poets expressed concern regarding death in many of their works, but they were both also able to find unique ways to rise above and conquer death in their minds’.

In Shakespeare’s sonnets the issue of ravaging time and mortality were raised mostly with reference to a beautiful male lover who the speaker did not want to see become a victim of decay and death. The speaker finds the solution in poetry. It is through the written word that the speaker in Shakespeare’s sonnets is able to conquer death. He believes in his own ability to “ingraft” his lover a new in his verse (1063). In “Sonnet 18,” he brags, “When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:/So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,/So long lives this, and this gives life to thee,” (1063). The sonnets are filled with similar boasts of the speaker’s ability to defy death through poetry.

The speakers in John Donne’s poems try to defeat death as well, but with different methods. For these speakers, love itself is the way to escape the forceful decay of time and death. In the first stanza of “The Sun Rising,” the speaker explains, “Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,/Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time,”(1266). The speaker believes that love defeats the movement of time; for people in love there is no movement forward, no decay. The female narrator of “Break of Day,” questions the power of time as well, “Why should we rise because ‘tis light?/Did we lie down because ‘twas night?” (1270). Although these lines are delivered in a carefree, playful mood they still evidence Donne’s hope that in love there existed a respite from the power of time.

Donne’s “Holy Sonnets” also witness a speaker who is concerned with mortality but is able to conquer it in his mind, in his case, through God. In the opening line of the first sonnet the speaker asks, “Thou has made me, and shall thy work decay?” (1295). Clearly death is on his mind and is causing him angst, but he is able to find strength in God. The best representation of the belief that eternal life lies with faith in God is “Sonnet 10.” In this poem the speaker questions the power of death, “And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die,” (1297). In the face of God’s promise of forgiveness and heaven, death has no sway and gives no reason to fear.

One’s own mortality and the inescapable procession of time are concepts that can drive a person mad. In reality they are impossible to stop, but since the problem isn’t so much time itself as the angst it causes, what is truly important is only mentally defeating it. Shakespeare and Donne put forth several options for how best to overcome. Whatever works.

The Peculiar Power of Poetry

Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, A Midsummer’s Night Dream. There are few high school students who manage to graduate without encountering at least one of Shakespeare’s famous plays. Today, Shakespeare is unquestionably better remembered for his dramatic works than for his poems. His plays survived the passage of centuries and immortalized their author. However, there is evidence in the texts of several of Shakespeare’s sonnets that suggest he believed it was poetry, not plays, that had the greater capacity to immortalize.

According to the Norton Anthology’s introduction to William Shakespeare, he had “apparently no interest in preserving for posterity the sum of his writings… He wrote plays for performance by his company, and his scripts existed in his own handwritten manuscripts… None of these manuscript versions has survived.” The sonnets, by contrast were written down carefully, with patronage money in mind. The difference between an art form meant for performance and one meant to be read was tremendous. Plays may never be performed again and would certainly not be performed in quite the same way, and surprisingly Shakespeare didn’t seem to put much effort into ensuring the plays survived. Written poems were bound to survive longer simply because they were written down and published with care.

That Shakespeare believed poetry possessed a certain everlasting quality, unique compared to other art forms, is evidenced by the narrators claim in “Sonnet 55,” that “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments/ Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.” Whereas sculpture was bound to fade, poetry would last forever. It isn’t too much of a stretch to think that Shakespeare may have been including drama in the category of art that will not last, as many of his early plays were indeed monuments of sorts to past royal figures (think Richard II and the Henry plays).

Shakespeare also seems to place drama in the category of things that will not last, that time will destroy, in “Sonnet 15.” Here, Shakespeare spends three quatrains lamenting the decay of all things before the onslaught of time. Amidst this is set the line, “That this huge stage presenteth nothing but shows.” Shows and indeed the very stage are both, by their position in the poem made to be as temporary as a growing flower or a man’s youth. It is only in the poem’s volta that Shakespeare makes his claim that poetry alone has the power to “ingraft you new.”

Another allusion to stage performance is made at the beginning of “Sonnet 23,” and here again it demonstrates the inability of drama to do what poetry can. The sonnet is about a lover who is unable to express his feelings verbally, but is able to do so through poetry. Although, not necessarily a critique of stage performance the sonnet begins with a metaphor that compares the tongue-tied man to an “unperfect actor on the stage/ Who with his fear is put besides his part.” Shakespeare’s reference to a single actor’s inability harkens to the larger inability of drama to immortalize.

Given the way we perceive Shakespeare today as mainly a playwright, it is interesting to question what he saw as the unique benefits of poetry and drama.