page_title: Metaphysical poets
section_title: Wordplay and wit
hierarchical_section_title: Metaphysical poets / Characteristics / Wordplay and wit
caption_attribution_description: English: “Europe supported by Africa and America”, William Blake. The final illustration for John Gabriel Stedman’s Narrative, of a Five Year’s Expedition, against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana (London 1796) .
context_page_description: The term metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose work was characterised by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater emphasis on the spoken rather than lyrical quality of their verse. These poets were not formally affiliated and few were highly regarded until 20th century attention established their importance.
  Given the lack of coherence as a movement, and the diversity of style between poets, it has been suggested that calling them Baroque poets after their era might be more useful. Once the Metaphysical style was established, however, it was occasionally adopted by other and especially younger poets to fit appropriate circumstances.
context_section_description: The way George Herbert and other English poets “torture one poor word ten thousand ways”, in Dryden's phrase, finds its counterpart in a poem like “Constantijn Huygens’ Sondagh (Sunday) with its verbal variations on the word ‘sun’. Wordplay on this scale was not confined to Metaphysical poets, moreover, but can be found in the multiple meanings of ‘will’ that occur in Shakespeare's “Sonnet 135”. and of ‘sense’ in John Davies’ “That the Soul is more than a Perfection or Reflection of the Sense”. Such rhetorical devices are common in Baroque writing and frequently used by poets not generally identified with the Metaphysical style.
  Another striking example occurs in Baroque poems celebrating "black beauty", built on the opposition between the norm of feminine beauty and instances that challenge that commonplace. There are examples in sonnets by Philip Sidney, where the key contrast is between ‘black’ and ‘bright’; by Shakespeare, contrasting ‘black’ and various meanings of ‘fair’; and by Edward Herbert, where black, dark and night contrast with light, bright and spark. Black hair and eyes are the subject in the English examples, while generally it is the colour of the skin with which Romance poets deal in much the same paradoxical style. Examples include Edward Herbert's “La Gialletta Gallante or The sun-burn'd exotic Beauty” and Marino's “La Bella Schiave” (The Beautiful Slave). Still  more dramatically, Luis de Góngora’s En la fiesta del Santísimo Sacramento (At the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament) introduces a creole dialogue between two black women concerning the nature of their beauty.
  Much of this display of wit hinges upon enduring literary conventions and is only distinguished as belonging to this or that school by the mode of treatment. But English writing goes further by employing ideas and images derived from contemporary scientific or geographical discoveries to examine religious and moral questions, often with an element of casuistry. Bringing greater depth and a more thoughtful quality to their poetry, such features distinguish the work of the Metaphysical poets from the more playful and decorative use of the Baroque style among their contemporaries.
caption: “Europe supported by Africa and America”, William Blake, 1796
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