What are the main characteristics of the metaphysical poets?

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Name: Katie- Rose Matthews

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What are the main characteristics of the metaphysical poets?

(With reference to 'The Flea', 'The Apparition' and 'To His Coy Mistress')

A characteristic is a distinguishing quality, attribute or trait applied to something to make it similar to something else. The two metaphysical poets that we will consider are John Donne and Andrew Marvell. Although these two poets were both writtig in the 17th Century both had completely different upbringings and experiences throughout their lives.

Andrew Marvell was born in Yorkshire, on March 31st 1621 to the Rev. Andrew Marvell, and his wife Anne. When Marvell was three years of age, the family moved to Hull, where Rev. Marvell became lecturer in Holy Trinity Church. He was educated at the Hull Grammar School, and in 1633 he matriculated as a Sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge. Two poems by Marvell, one in Greek, one in Latin, were printed in the "Musa Cantabrigiensis" in 1637. In 1638 Marvell was admitted a Scholar of Trinity College, and took his B.A. degree in the same year. A few days after receiving his scholarship, Marvell's mother died. He remained a few more years in residence, leaving Cambridge only after his father's death, by drowning.

In 1650, Marvell became the tutor of twelve-year-old Mary Fairfax (later Duchess of Buckingham), daughter of Sir Thomas Fairfax, retired Lord General of the parliamentary forces. At the Yorkshire seat of the Fairfax family, Nun Appleton House, Marvell seems to have written, over a period of about three years, most of his non-satiric English poems. Marvell, who had been a supporter of the king, Charles I, under the commonwealth, became a supporter of Cromwell. In the summer of 1657, Marvell tutored Cromwell's nephew and ward, William Dutton, living at Eton.

Starting in 1659, Marvell was elected M.P. for his hometown of Hull, and he continued to represent it until his death, Marvell was engaged in political activities, taking part in embassies to Holland and Russia and writing political pamphlets and satires. Marvell died on the 16th August 1678 of tertian argue, and the negligence of the attending physician. He was buried in the church of St. Giles-in-the-fields.

John Donne was born in Bread Street, London in 1572 to a prosperous Roman Catholic family, a precarious thing at a time when anti catholic sentiment was rife in England. His mother, Elizabeth Heywood, was the daughter of John Haywood the writer, who had married Sir Thomas More's niece. So he was already born into a background of literacy. Donne was one of six children but by the time he was 21 years old only one of them, his sister Anne, was still alive. His mother married twice after his father's sudden death in 1567. His education began with private tuition at home and later at Oxford and almost certainly Cambridge as well.

After travelling, upon his return to England in 1598, Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, lord keeper of the Great Seal, afterward Lord Ellesmere. Donne was beginning a promising career. He sat in Queen Elizabeth's last parliament, for Brackley. But in 1601, he secretly married Lady Egerton's niece, seventeen-year-old Anne More, daughter of Sir George More, Lieutenant of the Tower, and thereby ruined his own worldly hopes. Egerton dismissed Donne from his post and for the next dozen years the poet had to struggle to support his growing family. During the next few years Donne made a meagre living as a lawyer, which would have broadened his logical mind and developing arguments.

As Donne approached forty, he published two anti- Catholic polemics; they were the final indication of Donne's abandonment of the Catholic faith.

As London was Donne's home his outlook was naturally urban and sophisticated which certainly influenced his writing.

Donne reluctantly entered the ministry and was appointed the Royal Chaplain later in the year of 1615. John Donne's style, full of elaborate metaphors and religious symbolism, his flair for drama, his wide learning and his quick wit soon established him as one of the greatest preachers of the era. Fully 160 of his sermons survive.
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Anne Donne died on 15th August, aged thirty- three after giving birth to their twelfth child, a stillborn. Seven of their children survived their mother's death. Donne was completely grief stricken. He soon became obsessed with the idea of death; Donne preached what was called his own funeral sermon, 'Death's Duel' just a few weeks before he died in London on March 31st 1631.

The term 'metaphysical' when applied to poetry has a long and interesting history. It is used to group together certain 17th century poets, usually John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Thomas ...

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