metaphysical poets

An oil painting of Andrew Marvell, the 17th-century English poet and satirist. Marvell was also involved in politics, serving as member of Parliament for Hull, counting John Milton as a friend, and acting as tutor to relatives of both Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.

Group of early 17th-century English poets whose work is characterized by ingenious, highly intricate wordplay and unlikely or paradoxical imagery. They used rhetoric and literary devices, such as paradox, hyperbole (exaggeration), and elaborately developed conceits (far-fetched comparisons), in such a way as to engage the reader by their humour, strangeness, or sheer outrageousness. English poets John Donne and Andrew Marvell write comic, erotic, and serious poetry in this genre, while English poet George Herbert concentrated on religious themes.

As originally used, the term ‘metaphysical’ implied a criticism of these poets; Samuel Johnson, for example, complained that their poetry was laden with too much far-fetched learning. Their reputation declined after the Restoration but underwent a dramatic revival in the 20th century, prompted by T S Eliot's essay ‘The Metaphysical Poets’ (1921).