Seventeenth-Century Literature
What is poetry?
What is love poetry?
Petrarchan tradition?
From Petrarch, an Italian poet from Early Renaissance period Petrarchan or Italian sonnet, composed of octave and sestet, rhyming abbaabba cdecde (or cdcdcd) Adopted by Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser
Courtly love Superior lady, fair and chaste (blonde, cheeks like roses, etc.) Abject, forlorn lover Unrequited, unconsummated, unattainable love Idolatry, women worship Obedience love, constancy of lover Pleasure-in-pain Neo-Platonism
Sometimes the mistress is disdainful She also has many admirers She likes to tease with many men The speaker sometimes suspects that she is promiscuous Still, because of her good qualities, the lover desires her The devoted lover suffers from her real or imagined inconstancy
Petrarchan conceits are usually limited to the life and experience of a courtly circle Classical Mythology Pastoral traditions (roses, garden, seasons, etc.) Ships and sea voyage War Hunting Vague dramatic situations; usually the lover is complaining alone to himself of his unrequited love Regular meter, traditional forms
Anti-Petrarchan
Deviation from the courtly tradition Unworthy lady Upper-hand lover Wooing Witty Cynical
New or fresh conceits culled from wider range of knowledge Or a twist of the traditional conceits Diverse dramatic situations, new voices, new types of speaker apart from the stock-petrarchan abject lover, new roles or reversal of former roles Speaker reacts in a psychologically realistic mode rather than adhering to the stock Petrarchan reactions
Metaphysical poetry
Donne for not keeping of accent deserved hanging.! that Donne himself for not being understood would perish. Ben Jonson
He [Donne] affects the Metaphysicks, not only in his Satires, but in his Amorous Verses, where Nature only shou d reign; and perplexes the Minds of the Fair Sex with nice Speculations of Philosophy, when he shou d ingage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of Love. John Dryden (Personal correspondence)
About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets! The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to shew their learning was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily resolving to shew it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables. Samuel Johnson Life of Cowley
If Wit be well described by Pope as being that which has been often thought, but was never before so well expressed, they certainly never attained nor ever sought it, for they endeavoured to be singular in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction Samuel Johnson Life of Cowley
But Wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of discordia concors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtilty surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. Samuel Johnson Life of Cowley
Metaphysical poetry Colloquialism, direct speaking voice, not musical Different speakers and audiences in many unique dramatic situations Psychological realism The central conceits are drawn from learned imagery: cosmography, topography, alchemy, medieval scholasticism and theology, etc. The conceits establish and control the central idea of the argument. Every parts of the poem, every aspects of comparison, contribute to the development of main idea. The poem is tightly structured. Appeals to intellect, senses, and emotion
Puns, paradoxes, oxymoron Mingling of the sacred and the profane Philosophy of Love 1. Flippancy and cynicism 2. Neo-Platonic Sexless, intellectual love 3. Thomist-Aristotelian (Metaphysics of Love) Consummation > Growth > Perfection 4. Separation cased by journey or death 5. Religious Love Reunion with the mistress through God