This semester, I have been taking a class on metaphysical poetry. I am enjoying the discipline, spiritual depth, and poetic genius of these poets.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of metaphysical poetry is its wit. As I argue in the opening sentences to the paper I'm currently writing:
Reading a metaphysical poem is like watching the spaceships in a science fiction movie. The poems do not unveil a slowly direct, progressing plod toward a conclusion. Rather, holes open up in the poems' reasoning, through which the poet pulls the reader on a wild, crazy ride through rifts of logic and language, only to arrive, as from a bumpy wormhole journey, at the completion of a logical idea or concept.
Here's an excerpt of one of the Holy Sonnets by John Donne:
My sinnes, which passe the Jewes impiety:
They kill'd once an inglorious man, but I
Crucifie him daily, being now glorified.
Oh let mee then, his strange love still admire:
Kings pardon, but he bore our punishment.
And Jacob came cloth'd in vile harsh attire
But to supplant, and with gainfull intent:
God cloth'd himselfe in vile mans flesh, that so
Hee might be weake enought to suffer woe.
They kill'd once an inglorious man, but I
Crucifie him daily, being now glorified.
Oh let mee then, his strange love still admire:
Kings pardon, but he bore our punishment.
And Jacob came cloth'd in vile harsh attire
But to supplant, and with gainfull intent:
God cloth'd himselfe in vile mans flesh, that so
Hee might be weake enought to suffer woe.