Characteristics of "Metaphysical" Poetry
Irregular in style, structure, and logic; a
deliberate chaos
Colloquial word choice, tone, and rhythms
Deliberately complex, even obscure: "Darke Texts
Needs Notes"
Uses contemporary allusions rather than classical
ones
Strong use of irony, paradox, hyperbole, and puns
Powerful, internalized emotions often present
Often rejects the conventions of Petrarch, Spenser,
and Neo-Platonism
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metaphysical conceit: an unusual analogy, often esoteric or ingenious,
that relates distant, even alien, areas of knowledge. They are frequently developed
in detail, challenge surface logic, and border on the bizarre or grotesque.
Three Potential Models for the Metaphysical Style
The Baroque : The architectural and artistic style that blended the
Renaissance stress on formal and orderly with the Picturesque emphasis on the fantastic
and eccentric. It stresses energy, discord, rapid movement, repetition, and
asymmetry.
[Click here to look at two examples of Baraque art: a Baroque ceiling nave and The Ecstasy of St. Teresa.]
The Emblem Book:
Sixteenth and seventeenth
century collections of symbolic pictures, often with mottoes and commentary that explained
the meaning of pictures. Some argue that the often highly cerebral symbols, as well
as juxstapositioning of picture and motto, are akin to the metaphysical style.
[Click here to look at Francis Quarles: Emblems, divine and moral, together with Hieroglyphicks
of the life of man, the most influencial emblem book in seventeenth-century England.]
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