Thursday, April 23, 2009

Metaphysical Poetry

Metaphysical poetry is a very short type of poem considering that it often deals with deep philosophical topics such as humans dealing with god and fearfulness of death.
Wit and irony are very common, used to compare to unsimilar objects. Metaphysical poetry is full of bold stylistic writing such as clever rhymes or poem structure that correlates with the meaning of the poem. Huge shifts in scale of ideas or mixing of them such as a rock to the sun.
Metaphysical poetry is written on large ideas that cant really be proven but are wondered about all the time such as the passing of time etc...

Authors: George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, John Donne


by: George Herbert
THE COLLAR.

I STRUCK the board, and cry’d, No more ;
I will abroad.
What ? shall I ever sigh and pine ?
My lines and life are free ; free as the rode,
Loose as the winde, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit ?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me bloud, and not restore
What I have lost with cordiall fruit ?
Sure there was wine,
Before my sighs did drie it : there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the yeare onely lost to me ?
Have I no bayes to crown it ?
No flowers, no garlands gay ? all blasted ?
All wasted ?
Not so, my heart : but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures : leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit, and not forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which pettie thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away ; take heed :
I will abroad.
Call in thy deaths head there : tie up thy fears.
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need,
Deserves his load.
But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde,
At every word,
Methought I heard one calling, Childe :
And I reply’d, My Lord.




Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Romanticism

Romantic: "literature depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form"

Romanticism came about around the 1750's as a revolt against the scientific rationalization of nature and is very emotional and embracing of nature to an extreme extent.

The themes: deepened appreciation of nature, extreme emotion over reason, folk culture that is exotic, mysterious, and even satanic.

Romantic poems often use extreme imagery to imagin they are away from society/the city. Authors commonly use sublime ideas or words to express the awwwww of nature. Most poems take something completly normal and turn it into the center of all things beautiful or something along the lines of that.

William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, George Gordon Bryon.