Poetry and the metaphysical poets

Poetry is concentrated, heightened language. Its words are chosen for their sound and suggestion as well as their meaning, and arranged with rhythm and metre.

Reading poetry trains the ear: for cadence (the rise and fall of the voice), pace and pattern, the music of verse.

This section has eight poets: four classical poets (Donne, Milton, Blake, Coleridge) and four nearer our own time (Yeats, Ramanujan, Dickinson, Kamala Das).

John Donne (1572-1631) was the leader of the metaphysical poets. Their poems use lively language, startling images, and the rhythms of direct speech, as if the poet were talking or arguing with someone.

A metaphysical poem aims to startle us into noticing what we had never thought about. It favours intellect and wit (clever, surprising thought) over simple feeling.

Three tools to look for in Donne:

• Imagery: words that make a scene appear in the reader's mind.
• Conceit: an elaborate comparison between two things that seem to have nothing in common. In another poem Donne compares two lovers to the two legs of a compass: one stays fixed while the other moves round it. In this poem, shadows stand for the secrets and deceits of love.
• Paradox: a statement that seems to contradict itself but holds a truth, like 'less is more' or 'silence speaks louder than words'.