The Metaphysical Poetry 

What is a Metaphysical poem? 

 Metaphysical poetry is concerned with the whole experience of man, but the intelligence, learning and seriousness of the poets mean that the poetry is about the profound areas of experience especially about love, romantic and sensual; about man's relationship with God the eternal perspective; and, to a less extent, about pleasure, learning and art. 

The term “metaphysical poetry” was first coined by the literary critic and poet Samuel Johnson [1709 -1784] in his book titled “Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets” [1781]. Therein began the study of poems composed by a group of 17th-century British poets that included John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell and Henry Vaughan.

 General Features: 

A group of poets emerged in the second half of the 16th century whose poetry is identified as metaphysical poetry. It was Dr Samuel Johnson- a classicist of the neo-classical age who named the poetry of Donne and his School as metaphysical poetry.  Johnson used this term while writing about the life of Abraham Cowley in his biographical work with the title “The Lives of English Poets" Dr Johnson wanted to criticise the poetry of Donne and his followers by using the term metaphysical poetry. But with time the passing of time the same term became a term of appraisal for their poetry. Dr Johnson has passed one remarkable comment that the metaphysical poets stood a trial of their finger but poetry failed in the trial of the ears. But what Dr Johnson wants to state is that there is no music poetry and rhythm in their poetry.  

The metaphysical John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvel made a conscious attempt to differ from others and particularly from their predecessors, so that their poetry may be noticed by the readers. One critic Helen C White mentions that it was the demand of time for the metaphysical poets to differ from the poets of the previous age. Had they continued writing poetry just like the former poets, their poetry would have been rejected by the readers. Due to new learning and reformation of the Elizabethan age, the intellectual level of the readers had gone upward and so the metaphysical poets tried to be intellectual in the writing of their poetry. 

The best way for the metaphysical poets to differ from the poets and to be intellectual in the writing of their poetry was to use farfetched images conceits. They tried using images from those fields which were thickly associated with the theme of their poetry. To express either love or their faith in Christianity, they brought their images from different. fields just like Biology, Architecture, Engineering, Agriculture, Geometry, Geography and even political science this gave a unique identity to their poetry. Several examples can be given about how they brought images from distant and remote fields the first example is of John Donnel who made use of a biological image of the flea the express the love in this title of that poem is "The Flea”. George Herbert made use of an image from the field of mechanical engineering to express his faith in Christianity. The example is of a poem with the title “The Pully”. pully is an Image of the field of mechanical engineering but in this poem that image is used to state that restlessness is about a pully that gives a connection between the creator and creation. Andrew Marvell made use of geometrical images for the expression of love. The example is "To His Coy Mistress” in brief on metaphysical poets who made extensive use of farfetched images in their poetry. 

Highlighting one remarkable feature of metaphysical poetry Dr Johnson States that their poetry stood a trial of their finger but not ears, this means that music in there is poetry which they wrote there is no rhythm to be found in the poetry of the metaphysical poets. 

 The Sun Rising by John Donne:

The sun Rising by John Donne is an example of the use of the metaphysical image to deal with the theme of love. Donne employs the image of the rising sun for dealing with the theme of love. The rising sun is an image that is generally used for the expression of new hope and optimism but Donne employs the image for expressing love. The poem is addressed by the lover to the rising sun and the tone of the poem is to criticise the rising sun. The rising sun is generally welcomed by people but here in the present poem, the lover is unhappy with the rising sun. He rebukes the sun because the sun is a “busy old fool, unruly sun.” 

Sunday Reading: Post-truth

The Concept of Post-Truth

 This blog is a response to the Sunday reading task that we have been given by our professor Dilip Barad, sir. To understand the concept of the post-truth era. As we are now living in a world where feelings and emotions matter more than the truth. 

The word ‘post-truth era’ was chosen as the word of the year in 2016 by Oxford Dictionary. 

Definition: 

Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 is post-truth – an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.  

"A post-truth situation is one in which people are less influenced by factual information than by their emotions or by beliefs they already hold."

"Of or relating to a culture in which appeals to the emotions tend to prevail over facts and logical arguments,"

(Collins Dictionary)

Why was this chosen? 

The concept of post-truth has been in existence for the past decade, but Oxford Dictionaries has seen a spike in frequency this year in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States. It has also become associated with a particular noun, in the phrase post-truth politics. 

The compound word post-truth exemplifies an expansion in the meaning of the prefix post- that has become increasingly prominent in recent years. Rather than simply referring to the time after a specified situation or event – as in post-war or post-match – the prefix in post-truth has a meaning more like ‘belonging to a time in which the specified concept has become unimportant or irrelevant. This nuance seems to have originated in the mid-20th century, in formations such as post-national (1945) and post-racial (1971).

Why is it that right now, when it is really easy to get access to facts, and information where you could just pull up your phone and look up anything in the world? Why is it now that we have the most access to facts, do facts mean the least? Why does fake news spread now? Why are we more polarized now than ever before and. Maybe we are naive about the internet, but the thing about having an international communication system whereby anyone anywhere can share anything and anyone anywhere regardless of saying their education background or their class standing can get access to real information through Wikipedia. As we think that the internet was going to make everyone happier and more informed more educated I and probably more tolerant of others around them, and the reason why I think that the internet should make people more tolerant is that it should expose people to people who are not like them.  

As Leo Tolstoy wrote, 

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."

I think Facebook and other social media platforms should look at this now. they need to figure out a way not to elevate news but to let it languish and promote real news. They have a responsibility because they are curating the feeds of a billion people around the world, they have the responsibility to make sure those feeds are not misleading and that is something that they are bad at. 

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Thinking Activity: The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope

 This blog is a response to the blog task we have given by Vaidehi Haryanvi Ma’am as a thinking activity.

1.) According to you, who is the protagonist of the play Clarissa or Belinda? Why? Give your answer with logical reasons.

In the mock-heroic poem “The Rape of the Lock” it is Belinda whom the story of the whole poem is woven. She is a complex character but on the other hand, she is an ideal girl for Pope which we can see through her detailed description of her daily routine on some other occasions, Pope compares Belinda to a rival of the sun and he describes her brighter than the sun.

2.) What is beauty? Write your views about it.

Nowadays we think that beauty means qualities that pleases our aesthetic senses especially sight, something that is perfect, which we are predicting over someone's physique. But what I think is that beauty can be found anywhere you just need the sight to identify it. The definition of beauty can differ from person to person. Like in traditional Japanese aesthetics the, wabi-sabi described as one of appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature.

                           

                        

3.) Find out a research paper on "The Rape of the Lock". Give the details of the paper and write down in brief what does it say about the Poem by Alexander Pope.

Interrogating the ethics of mockery in Pope's The Rape of the Lock: a political turn

Keywords: mythology, theft, supernatural, mockery, selves

Issue: 46

Volume: 3

Page Numbers: 37-43

Publication Date: 2021

Publication Name: Jamshedpur Research Review

Abstract:

Without making Pope into a post-Jungian and Ariel into an animus figure, one can regard The Rape of the Lock as working out ideas of feminine psychology in terms of ‘irrational’ mythologies. Indeed, The Rape of the Lock illustrates a mock-epic of excellent calibre. The focal affair of the grand narrative is the heist of foppish Belinda’s hair-lock by a cocky and haughty Baron. The transpiring clash between both of the familial parties also captures major attention of the readers. All the paramount characteristics of an epic encircle the incident. The style is elevated. There is the use of supernatural machinery in the form of the Sylphs, a voyage, a visit to the underworld and battles, almost leaning towards a comical gothic. Pope’s popular fame resides largely in his satires, devastating, final as one would think, directed not against individuals, though personal hatred and scorn entered into the original conception in some of his portraits, against negative qualities, passions destructive of society or of civilized living. The paper will try to examine Pope’s use of parody and mockery at the relativity of Being and genealogy of the Real through a cultural mirroring of selves in a broader plane. Keywords: mythology, theft, supernatural, mockery, selves. 

In this research paper, the scholar mainly focuses on the Pope’s treatment or use of the supernatural elements in The Rape of the Lock and also how Pope Exposed the aristocratic lords and satires in the absence of moral sense. 

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Thinking Activity: Pride and Prejudice Q&A

This blog-task is a response to the Thinking Activity we have been given after the movie screening of the movie Pride and Prejudice (2005) movie, which is based on the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin.

•  Which version of the novel is more appealing? Novel or film (adaptation)? Why? 

when watching the 2005 movie it is obvious that not only the characters have been transferred onto the screen taking into account the time origins in which the adaptation was made. It appears the film writers carried their own distinctive ideas about the book. In the movie, the first scene is well put as the two activities – reading and walking – characterises Lizzy perfectly. In the novel, there is no mentioning of Elizabeth or her sisters in the first chapter of Pride &Prejudice. Austen invites us to be the witnesses of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s entertaining conversation. 

•  The character of Elizabeth (Headstrong woman, a woman with pride, judgmental, mature, strong-opinions, controlled, honest) 

Austen described Elizabeth as a smart, funny and bright young woman.  she is the least dear to her mother, but always father’s favourite for having „something more of quickness than her sisters “Austen described Lizzy as she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous. And she really had. She was funny, playful, smart and very loyal to her family, even though it was the very same family that unconsciously embarrassed her at every possible moment. To be truthful to description, her sense of humour was not always understood neither accepted as she spoke her mind on social standards quite unscrupulously “In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal.”  

• The character of Mr. Darcy (Man with pride (male ego), reserved, introvert, observer, silent lover, superiority complex, true lover) 

Austen indirectly described him as a mysterious and unpredictable character whom we only begin to understand towards the end. As the story was entirely told from Elizabeth’s perspective, she described him as quite unsympathetic, proud and condescending. To support this analysis there is one example of his self-evaluation “...where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation”. We could translate his words as follows - I think of myself as of someone with a superior intellect and such people do not yield to feelings like pride because they can regulate them. Mr. Darcy thought highly of himself and found everyone beneath him. Showing his snobbish attitude at the Meryton ball and addressing Elizabeth with an inconsiderate remark was only the beginning. 

•  Give illustrations of the society of that time. (Jane Austen's presentation) 

In Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen portrayed issues like love, class, woman’s position in society. Austen uses satire to provide a social critique on love. She uses Mrs. Bennet, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Lady Catherine, and Mr. Collins to point out potential problems with the current social norms of love, class, and position in order to bring about change within society. Mrs. Bennet is a frivolous woman prone to fainting spells. Her goal in life is to find suitors for her daughters and she'll stop at nothing to do so. 

•  If you were a director or screenplay writer, what sort of difference would you make in the making of the movie? 

Joe Wright, director of the movie and Deborah Moggach, screenwriter attempted to be as faithful to the novel as possible. The screenwriter mainly emphasized Elizabeth's perspective while preserving much of the original dialogue. They have set the film in an earlier period instead of a "muddy hem version" of the time. The film’s opening and the ending is changed. So, there is no need to change anything from the movie. Besides, the character of Mr. Darcy. I Would make him more expressive but indirectly, he will stay like the introvert charcter that Jane Austin made him.

•  Who would be your choice of actors to play the role of characters? 

Here's the character switch that I would like to see on the screen playing respective roles.

Keira Kinghtley Played Elizabeth Bennet

Robbie Margot 

Robbie Margot is famous for playing the role of Harley Quinn in the Movie, Suicide Squad (2016) and Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey (2020) in these movies she played the character which is mentaly unstable.

Johnny Depp

Matthew Macfadyen