English Literature

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN A Metaphysical             Donne has been classified both by Dryden and Samuel Johnson as a Metaphysical poet. This title has been conferred on him because of his sudden flights from the material to the spiritual sphere and also because of his obscurity which is occasionally baffling. His works abounds in wit and conceits. In addition to this, he has been termed a metaphysical poet because his style is overwhelmed with obscure philosophical allusions and subtle and abstract references to science and religion. Treatment Of Love             Donne's treatment of love is entirely unconventional. He does not fall in line with the ways and modes of feeling and expression, found in the Elizabethan love poetry. Most of the Elizabethan poets followed the fashion set by Petrarch, an Italian sonneteer, in...

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN Rebel Against Woman-Worshipping When Donne began writing, the Elizabethan love poetry was based wholly on Petrarchan style. It involved the theme of woman-worship expressed in sugar-coated language. Donne's poems get rid of this theme. In his poems woman is also an ordinary human being, capable of love as well as desire and very well able to deceive and be inconstant. �The Message� mocks at women for their forced fashions and false passions. In �The song: Go and Catch a Falling Star�, Donne playfully treats the theme of woman's inability to remain faithful. In �The Apparition� he calls the woman he loves, a "murderess" --a glaring departure from the Petrarchan style. Joy Of Love Moreover, Elizabethan poetry described the pains and sorrows of love, the sorrow of absence, the pain of rejection, (except some of the finest of Shakespeare's sonnets). John Donne, however, speaks in ...

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN Dr. Johnson describes the wit of John Donne as being a kind of �discordia concors�, or a combination of dissimilar images, or a discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike.           Donne's poems have plenty of wit, as defined by Dr. Johnson, in relation with the metaphysical poets. His conceits indeed are startling, but ultimately just. The poet often proves their truth. The ability to elaborate a conceit to its farthest possibility without losing the sense of its appropriateness speaks for a high intellectual caliber.   In �The Good Morrow�, the poet compares himself and his beloved to two hemispheres which form the whole earth--- what is more, they are even better than the actual earth, for they do not have the "sharp North" and the "declining West". It is a complex image conveying the exclusive world of the lovers and the warmth ...

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN In brief the term 'Metaphysical Poetry' implies the characteristics of complexity, intellectual tone, abundance of subtle wit, fusion of intellect and emotion, colloquial argumentative tone, conceits (always witty and fantastic), scholarly allusions, dramatic tone, and philosophic or reflective element. Fondness For Conceits           This is the major characteristic of metaphysical poetry. Donne often employs fantastic comparisons. The most famous and striking one is the comparison of the lovers to a pair of compasses in 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning'. A clever, though obvious conceit is employed in 'The Flea' where the insect is called the marriage-bed and the marriage-temple of the lovers because it has bitten them and sucked their blood. Wit, Striking And Subtle           No doubt, the conceits espec...

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN A conceit is basically a simile, or a comparison between two dissimilar things. In literature, a conceit is an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem. By juxtaposing, usurping and manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways, a conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison. Dr. Johnson pointed out that in metaphysical poetry, 'the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together'. Far-Fetched Images Far-fetched images, departing from the conventional Elizabethan type, mark Donne's poetry. An example is the comparison of the lovers to the two legs of a compass in 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning'. Another clever conceit is in 'The Flea' where the flea becomes the marriage bed and marriage temple. The comparison is not obvious but the poet unfolds the likeness logicall...