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Metaphysical poetry > Metaphysical - summary > Flashcards

Metaphysical - summary Flashcards

1
Q

The Flea

A

persona tries to persuade a woman to sleep with him by reassuring her that having sex outsider marriage is not sinful through the use of conceit of a flea

Themes: 
sexual love
argument
marriage
sin
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2
Q

The Good Morrow

A

The speaker first reflects on how he and his lover lived before they found one another.

In the second stanza, he offers a vivid, though abstract, description of the experience of their love, and how that love shapes his experience of the world (awakening).

The final stanza returns from the world to consider the pair of lovers themselves, and finds in the harmony, the unity, of their love for one another evidence of that love’s immortality.

Themes:
romantic love
discovery
religion

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3
Q

Song

A
  • Witty joke aimed at women
  • Sexist, but not meant to be taken seriously
  • Woman’s inconstancy is a traditional theme
  • The Elizabethans were always complaining about fickle mistresses

Themes:
Religion
Women’s infidelity
Wit

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4
Q

Woman’s Constancy

A

A speaker’s doubts that his lover of one night will remain true to him in the morning. The poem begins with the speaker asking if his listener and lover, will leave him in the morning. He wonders what excuse she will have for breaking the oaths they made the night before

Themes:
Religion
Love
Women’s infidelity

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5
Q

The Sun Rising

A

The persona asserts authority over the sun, and tells it to stop bothering his time with his lover

Themes:
Romantic love
Discovery
Religion

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6
Q

A Valediction of Weeping

A

The poem begins with the speaker asking that he be allowed to cry for a moment before he parts from the listener. He wants her to see his grief and understand that he does feel very upset over their separation. In fact, his tears come from her own essence. They are created with her image in mind. The tears also represent the grief that will come in the future and the spiritual connection the two share. There is a great deal more on this topic in the next two stanzas.

Themes:
Romantic love
Suffering/ grief

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7
Q

A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day

A

The narrator, mourning the death of his lover, reflects upon a sombre and profound sense of loss where life feels over and even the world appears to be dead.

Themes:
death
nihilism
love

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8
Q

Apparition

A

First person dramatic monologue of narrative revenge fantasy.

Themes:
love/sex
death
revenge

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9
Q

Elegy: to his mistress going to bed

A

The poem plays on the traditions of love poetry. The speaker offers elegant and
elaborate compliments for his mistress, praising her beauty. But unlike other love poems of
its era, “To His Mistress Going to Bed” doesn’t beat around the bush—the speaker wants to
have sex with his mistress, preferably as soon as possible. As the speaker articulates his
erotic desire, the poem exposes some dynamics between speaker and mistress: he not only
wants to sleep with her, he also wants to possess and dominate her. [blazon]

Themes:
gender and power
role of women
love (sexual)

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10
Q

At the Round Earth’s imagined corner

A

the speaker describes Judgment Day and appeals to God to forgive him of his sins

Themes:
divine love
death/ mortality/ afterlife
repentence/ forgiveness

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11
Q

Death be not proud

A

A direct address to death, arguing that it is powerless because it acts merely as a ‘short sleep’ between earth living and the eternal afterlife

Themes:
Religion
mortality

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12
Q

Batter my heart

A

The speaker directly pleads to God, asking for His intervention in cleansing him of sins. The speaker craves to be violated by God not only because the speaker loves him and wants to be close to him, but also to be saved from sin and Satan, which is communicated in physical terms.

themes:
relationship with god/ religion/ devotion
violence/ war/ suffering
love/marriage

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13
Q

A hymn to god the father

A

The persona being mischievous towards God, looking down on him

Themes:
religion/ faith
sin

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14
Q

Redemption

A

Parable : Poem / story that echoes religious faith + Christianity (Bible) Sonnet: Christian teaching Redemption (Tenet seeking redemption of lord)
- Herbert is a tenant to a rich lord,the poem is metaphorical.
- When he “cancels th’old” he is disregarding his faith
- Herbert’s searching for a new tenant has been interpreted as representing the
transition between the Old Testament covenant of work to the New Testament’s New
Covenant
- Herbert goes to heaven’ presumably via prayer, to seek God. Herbert searches for
his God in impressive, but not spiritual places
- Poems final lines: Herbert’s encounter with “thieves and murderers” is almost a
reference to how Jesus is said to have died.

Themes:
religion/ faith
relationship with god

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15
Q

The Collar

A

a dialogue between a single speaker’s two inner voices, sometimes identified as the heart and the will. While the will rebels against God and the “collar” or yoke of religion, the heart wins the battle, overcoming the will. [basically persona questioning his faith]

Themes:
religion/ faith
relationship with god

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16
Q

The Pulley

A

The speaker imagines the creation of man by God, where God gives all possible blessings
to his creation except for rest. The Creator uses a metaphorical ‘pulley’ of restlessness which will draw man to reach for heaven and to find rest only in God.

Themes:
god’s gift/ religion
relationship with god/ resting

17
Q

Love III

A

dramatises a climatic meeting between a worshipper and god; God is imagined as an inviting lover rather than a remote figure of vengeance; main conceit: love as God

Themes:
love
religion
guilt

18
Q

To My mistress sitting by the river side: eddy

A

A seduction poem, Carew uses the conceit of an eddy at the edge of a stream to tempt his
mistress away from her husband and into his arms. Whereas the stream (representing the woman’s husband and her bourgeois life) rushes headlong towards the annihilation of the ocean, the eddy is able to amorously play with the shore for eternity.

The central conceit is that of a stream representing the journey the woman will make with her husband, trapped in an inescapable, predictable life, while the ‘eddy’ that represents the woman breaks away to flirt with the shore and the men who offer her escape and excitement.

Themes: 
transgression
women's infidelity/ flirtatious personality 
persona's persuasion/ argument
natural imagery + eternity
19
Q

To a lady that desired I would love her

A

This poem initially seems to be a simple one about love. It starts by praising the woman and questioning whether he will ultimately be scorned ; in short a negotiation over courtship. In this it follows the conventions of Cavalier Poetry. It soon becomes clear that it is a lot more. Carew creates a woman who is only entering a relationship with the poet for the fame and attention his poems can bring her. So honesty in poetry is conflated with honesty in a relationship. In its complexity, cleverness and imaginative manipulation of ideas the poem fits the category of Metaphysical Poetry.

Themes: 
love
grief
woman's beauty 
deceit/ lies
20
Q

A song

A

This poem is a song of praise, the speaker asks the woman not to ask questions that he
seems to have been asking himself. It is clear that he is telling her love that he has found the answers himself. He wishes to praise her by attributing beautiful things to her face, hair, voice, eyes and heart, but the praise is indirect and stylised through the use of conceit. He does so by telling her that the beauty of the world never vanishes because she will embody all things good, pure and lovely that exist in the summer.

Themes:
beauty
romantic love
mortality

21
Q

A letter to her husband, absent upon public engagement

A

[epistle style] The poem begins with the speaker telling the listener that she belongs to her husband totally. All parts of her have been given to his warmth. He is absent at this point though, travelling far from her as the sun moves from the earth during the winter months. She frequently compares him to the sun and herself to earth. The speaker freezes without his presence and will only feel whole again when he returns to her “in Cancer” (basically Summer).

Themes:
natural imagery
love
mourning/ sadness

22
Q

Song: To Lucasta, Going to the wars

A

This poem is told from the perspective of a soldier explaining to his lover that she shouldn’t
think him cruel for leaving her to go to war. He argues that his honour is at stake and that his love would be less meaningful if he were the kind of man who didn’t fight for what he believes in.

Themes:
war & honour
love & honour

23
Q

Nymph complaining….

A

dramatic monologue by the nymph which begins with an elegy for the death of her fain then moves on to raise wider spiritual and philosophical issues

can be read as a political allegory after the devastation caused by the English Civil War and the suffering of the troops/ Jesus as the fawn, so referring to the crucification of Jesus and highlight brutality of the Romans

Themes:
suffering
religion
white/ innocence

24
Q

To His Coy Mistress

A

the speaker attempts to persuade his resistant lover that they should have sex. He explains that if they had all the time in the world, he would have no problem with their relationship moving this slowly.

Themes: 
time/ mortality
religion
sexual love
romantic love
natural imagery
25
Q

The Definition of Love

A

speaker presents lover as high-minded, noble and divine, but the jealous ‘fate’ keeps him and his lover apart because if they ever came together they would pose a threat to date; he describes the impossibility of the union between he and his lover. and describes their love for each other as one that runs of parallel lines

Themes:
fate
impossibility of love
grief/ disappointment

26
Q

Unprofitableness

A

extended conceit presenting a
speaker’s unsuccessful efforts to thank God for his fresh and rejuvenating visits. The poem begins with the speaker praising God and his ability to improve the speaker’s own state of being. It is clear from the start of ‘Unprofitableness’ that the narrator has a very low opinion of himself. Even by the end of the poem, when God’s light has made him infinitely better, he still isn’t good enough to bequeath one leaf or flower to a wreath in heaven.

Themes:
faith/ god/ religion
nature

27
Q

The World

A

The poem reflects the two forces that govern human existence on this earth - the
secular world, the here and now; and the world to come, heaven and eternity. It posits the idea that humans need to shed their obsession with material values and focus instead on spiritual concerns, belief in God and the search for salvation

Themes:
imperfectness of earth
finding value in god/ heaven/ religion

28
Q

To my excellent lucasia, on our friendship

A

speaker believes that she had no soul before she meets her best friend (Anne Owen aka Lucasia) and writes about how her friend transformed her life

Themes:
women/ friendship
suffering

29
Q

a dialogue to friendship multipled

A

The poem is in the form of a dialogue between Orinda (Philips) and Musidorus (probably the pseudonym for another woman), debating whether it is better to have just one friend or to enjoy many friends. Orinda argues that three is a crowd, while Musidorus believes the reward of multiple friendships are important.

Themes:
friendship
love
argument

30
Q

orinda to lucasia

A

The poem begins with the speaker describing what the world is like when it waits for the sun to rise, and this links to the second stanza, when she compares her friendship with Anne Owens to the sun. The speaker and her friend are separated at this point and she knows she won’t survive much longer without her. She cries out for her friend to return to her.

Themes:
natural imagery
friendship/love
suffering

Metaphysical poetry (2 decks)

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