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sydsnot71's review
4.0
Poetry collections like this are hard to review. So many different poets, so many different poems. Some are great, some less so. But overall I found this a fine read.
Metaphysical poetry has a reputation for being difficult, which I can understand having read this. Not all are, but enough are as to make this a read that requires a degree of focus.
There are 41 different poets in this collection, 2 of whom are definitely women. One of who is called 'Eliza' but their real identity is unknown. The best known are John Donne, John Milton, and Andrew Marvell. Donne has 34 poems in the collection, which is the most. He also has two of the best known poems in the collection: The Flea and Death Be Not Proud. Both of which are excellent poems.
The poet with the next largest number of entries is George Herbert, about whom I know almost nothing but who was one of my favourite poets in the collection. He's also doing some interesting things with the topography of poetry - The Alter and Easter Wings being two fine examples. Some of these poets I wouldn't have known at all if it hadn't been for my recent read of 'The Psalms in English'. Which gives us Richard Crashaw and Abraham Cowley. Henry Vaughan also has a lot of poems and again I found his work attractive. I do have a full collection of Vaughan's poetry, which I shall get to reading at some point soon.
It is interesting that although the Metaphysical Poets are a thing the number of poems that I would say have become well-known in and off themselves is relatively small. The two aforementioned Donne poems and Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress' being just about it. This is obvious for the amateur. I'm sure others are familiar to the academic.
So, a collection worth reading but one that perhaps requires proper attention and re-reading. The notes are valuable, but limited. The introduction by Colin Burrow though is excellent and makes the point that there really is no such thing as 'Metaphysical Poets'. They weren't a school. They had no manifesto. It was, indeed, a term coined by Samuel Johnson that was meant to be vaguely insulting. But like many of these things it stuck - see both 'The Big Bang' and 'Schrodinger's Cat'.
This is a good seed collection and one that has given me some other poets who I want to read more of - Vaughan, Herbert, Marvell, and Donne in particular. I've also got a collection of the Earl of Rochester's poetry, which before reading this I had understood were mostly rather rude, which brings me to a final note.
The interesting thing about the Metaphysical poets is they seemed to write about God, nature, love and sex with the same ease. Even if, a lot of the time, the sexual stuff was hidden in double-entendres or euphemism - but not always.
Metaphysical poetry has a reputation for being difficult, which I can understand having read this. Not all are, but enough are as to make this a read that requires a degree of focus.
There are 41 different poets in this collection, 2 of whom are definitely women. One of who is called 'Eliza' but their real identity is unknown. The best known are John Donne, John Milton, and Andrew Marvell. Donne has 34 poems in the collection, which is the most. He also has two of the best known poems in the collection: The Flea and Death Be Not Proud. Both of which are excellent poems.
The poet with the next largest number of entries is George Herbert, about whom I know almost nothing but who was one of my favourite poets in the collection. He's also doing some interesting things with the topography of poetry - The Alter and Easter Wings being two fine examples. Some of these poets I wouldn't have known at all if it hadn't been for my recent read of 'The Psalms in English'. Which gives us Richard Crashaw and Abraham Cowley. Henry Vaughan also has a lot of poems and again I found his work attractive. I do have a full collection of Vaughan's poetry, which I shall get to reading at some point soon.
It is interesting that although the Metaphysical Poets are a thing the number of poems that I would say have become well-known in and off themselves is relatively small. The two aforementioned Donne poems and Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress' being just about it. This is obvious for the amateur. I'm sure others are familiar to the academic.
So, a collection worth reading but one that perhaps requires proper attention and re-reading. The notes are valuable, but limited. The introduction by Colin Burrow though is excellent and makes the point that there really is no such thing as 'Metaphysical Poets'. They weren't a school. They had no manifesto. It was, indeed, a term coined by Samuel Johnson that was meant to be vaguely insulting. But like many of these things it stuck - see both 'The Big Bang' and 'Schrodinger's Cat'.
This is a good seed collection and one that has given me some other poets who I want to read more of - Vaughan, Herbert, Marvell, and Donne in particular. I've also got a collection of the Earl of Rochester's poetry, which before reading this I had understood were mostly rather rude, which brings me to a final note.
The interesting thing about the Metaphysical poets is they seemed to write about God, nature, love and sex with the same ease. Even if, a lot of the time, the sexual stuff was hidden in double-entendres or euphemism - but not always.
thizbous's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.25
this was way too inappropriate to do in school.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity
Moderate: Sexual content
astraeusxi's review
2.0
Dnf because I had so much trouble understanding many of the poems and they didn’t elicit any emotion from me. Might try to pick up again someday though
elleye's review
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
This is a comprehensive collection of Elizabethan poetry and does a good job showcasing the major themes and style of the period. The main thing I missed, which I've seen mention in other reviews elsewhere and agree with, is a brief blurb introducing each of the featured authors. This is fairly common in anthologies like this, and I wonder why the editor, Colin Burrow, didn't include it. Perhaps it was an issue of space? Still, I found that I would've liked to know a little more about each poet before reading their work.
Reading through the whole collection, you can see why John Donne was elevated by his contemporaries and by history. Burrow notes in his introduction that after Donne, pretty much everyone attempted to imitate his style to the point of plagiarism, but couldn't quite match up. I agreed after reading the collection. I felt like I could see where other poets attempted to incorporate metaphor and imagery in a similar manner to Donne, but lacked his complexity.
Elizabethan poets seem to have had 2 subjects for their works: God and their lovers. Practically every poet in the collection focused on either one or the other. A few dwelt on both. There were multiple poems about departed lovers, where the poet proclaimed that though their bodies were far apart, their souls were still joined as one. Poems about God frequently looked forward to death, to the day when the poet would ascend to heaven.
One of my favorite poems was "No More Platonic Love," by William Cartwright. I thought it was very funny. In my reading, he was making fun of the glut of poems where men claimed they loved their mistress for her spirit and exalted in their works the blending of two souls. Cartwright pokes fun at this idea, saying that the expression of their love is still in the body, experienced primarily through lust. You could almost feel Cartwright's eye-roll through his meter.
Reading through the whole collection, you can see why John Donne was elevated by his contemporaries and by history. Burrow notes in his introduction that after Donne, pretty much everyone attempted to imitate his style to the point of plagiarism, but couldn't quite match up. I agreed after reading the collection. I felt like I could see where other poets attempted to incorporate metaphor and imagery in a similar manner to Donne, but lacked his complexity.
Elizabethan poets seem to have had 2 subjects for their works: God and their lovers. Practically every poet in the collection focused on either one or the other. A few dwelt on both. There were multiple poems about departed lovers, where the poet proclaimed that though their bodies were far apart, their souls were still joined as one. Poems about God frequently looked forward to death, to the day when the poet would ascend to heaven.
One of my favorite poems was "No More Platonic Love," by William Cartwright. I thought it was very funny. In my reading, he was making fun of the glut of poems where men claimed they loved their mistress for her spirit and exalted in their works the blending of two souls. Cartwright pokes fun at this idea, saying that the expression of their love is still in the body, experienced primarily through lust. You could almost feel Cartwright's eye-roll through his meter.
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