📄 Abstract
Metaphysical poetry is an innovative movement in the English Literature. The movement comprises of sharp wit, a new style of writing, extended metaphor or conceit. The term Metaphysical poetry was first coined by the renowned 18th Century critic Samuel Johnson. In his The Lives of the most Eminent English Poets (1779-81) in the chapter of Abraham Cowley Dr. Johnson has mentioned that in the beginning of the 17th Century there "appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets". John Dryden disparagingly remarked about John Donne He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love. In this...Mr. Cowley has copied him to a fault. Later in the 20th c. T. S. Eliot has redefined the Metaphysical Poetry which is especially an intellectual adventure of the poets of the 17th Century and it has revived again during the 20th C. According to Dr. Johnson the Metaphysical Poets are influenced by the style of Marino and his followers. Grierson opined that the Metaphysical poets are influenced by Baroque European tradition of using conceits and hyperboles "fantastic conceits and hyperboles which was the fashion throughout Europe". Dryden had keenly observed that wordplay is a unique criterion of the poets as is evident in the poems of George Herbert and other eminent English poets who "torture one poor word ten thousand ways".
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📚 How to Cite:
Samapti Banerjee , COGNITIVE CONSCIENCE AND AFFECTIVE ATTENTION IN THE PURSUIT OF SPIRITUAL SALVATION: THE UNIQUE EQUILIBRIUM IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY METAPHYSICAL POETRY , Volume 13 , Issue 4, April 2026, EPRA International Journal of Socio-Economic and Environmental Outlook(SEEO) ,