| Poetry Definitions |
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| Metaphysical. A term now generally applied to a group
of seventeenth-century poets; chiefly Donne, Carew, Herbert, Crashaw, Vaughan,
Marvell, Cleveland and Cowley. In his Discourse of the Original and Progress
of Satire (1692) Dryden said of Donne: He affects the metaphysics not only
in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign,
and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy.”
Later Johnson in his Lives of the Poets (1779-81) established the term more
or less permanently as a label. Johnson wrote somewhat disapprovingly of
the discordia concors in metaphysical imagery, and referred to “heterogeneous
ideas…yoked by violence together.” The marks of 17th c. metaphysical poetry
were arresting and original images and conceits (part. analogies between
microcosm and macrocosm), wit, ingenuity, colloquial speech, flexibility
of rhythm and meter, complex themes (sacred and profane), paradox and dialectical
argument, humor, elliptical thought and compact expression. |
| Conceit. By 1600 the term was still being used as a
synonym for ‘thought’ and as roughly equivalent to ‘concept’ ‘idea’ and
‘conception’. It might also then denote a fanciful supposition, an ingenious
act of deception, or a witty or clever remark or idea. As a literary term
this word has come to denote a fairly elaborate figurative device of a fanciful
kind which often incorporates metaphor, simile, hyperbole or oxymoron and
which is intended to surprise and delight by its wit and ingenuity. Examples:
Inventory or blazon (catalogue of mistress’s charms) and carpe diem conceit
(don’t delay loving because beauty fades). An extension of this is the kind
of conceit which contains an assurance that though beauty may fade and die,
the poet’s verses will be immortal. In general, a juxtaposition of images
and comparisons between very dissimilar objects is a common form of conceit
in the 17th c. and the so-called metaphysical conceit is the most well-known.
A famous example is Donne’s A Valediction: forbidding mourning. |
| Blazon. (Fr. Shield or “coat of arms”). As a literary
term it was used by the followers of Petrarchanism to describe verses which
dwelt upon and detailed the various parts of a woman’s body; a sort of catalogue
of her physical attributes. Such a catalogue was a convention established
in the 13th c. and often used after Marot published his Blason du Beau Tetin
(1536). As a rule there was nothing original in this form of conceit |
| Spenser, Epithalamion (1595) |
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Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright,
Her forehead ivory white
Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips like cherries charming men to biteÉ |
And it was easily mocked
| Greene, Menaphon (1598) |
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Thy teeth like to the tusks of the fattest swine,
They speech is like the thunder in the air:
Would God thy toes, thy lips, and all were mine. |
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