Literary Analysis: Metaphysical Poetry

Since we were looking at Plato's Allegory of the Cave last week, I decided after looking in my Princeton Review: English Literature & Composition Exam book, that this was a good time to look at the big literary movements and how they flow metaphysically throughout literature.

Please look at the poets

• John Donne

• George Herbert

• Andrew Marvell

These three men were highlighted in the book and because I am not an expert I would like to know if there are others of the same literary movement. I also memorized the sonnet by John Donne,'Death Be not Proud-- Holy Sonnet X' for the class assignment. Here I noticed the rhyme scheme so noted by Josh Montero a-b a-b c-d c-d e-f e-f g-g and the iambic pentameter style we learned about when we read Shakespeare's Hamlet. What I can is the flow of thought...

"For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me."

This is really very entertaining... Maybe not the subject, but the jokes are blatantly obvious I start to howl. The formal speech can be chalked up to the day and age (1500s-1600s), however I believe that to be negligent as a reader, because really there were many people of the age who were not as eloquent. Instead I can see this as a part of their artistry. 

From the poems I read of these three men (notice they were all men) I can see a pattern within the poetry.

Here we can see that the poets are basing their themes on their experiences and the higher level thinking that their are things outside what they can physically feel. The Princeton Review made this point that the Shakespearean sonnets were based on love stories that were based on the attainable love in its perfection (pedestal), instead these men focused on the 'introspective meditations on love, death, God and human frailty.' Many poems like 'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvell and 'Love (III)' by George Herbert were based on love that was more in a perspective that was mysterious to me as a reader.