The Makings of a Movement: The Metaphysical Poets

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Joe and Maiya delve into the strange brilliance of the Metaphysical Poets. From the explosive intimacy of Donne’s 'The Flea,' to the restless rebellion in Herbert’s 'The Collar,' and the dizzying contradictions of Marvell’s 'To His Coy Mistress,' this episode unpacks what unites—and divides—these 17th-century innovators.

Joe and Maiya trace the origins of the term “metaphysical poets,” coined pejoratively by Samuel Johnson, and explore how these poets tackled vast philosophical themes—time, mortality, innocence, desire—through unexpected conceits and daring paradoxes. They debate whether these poets truly form a unified movement or are better understood as outliers brought together by critics. Whether it’s Donne’s mingling of sacred and profane, Herbert’s oscillation between doubt and faith, or Marvell’s seductive argument wrapped in cosmic dread, this episode wrestles with how intellect, sensuality, and contradiction define the metaphysical legacy.

Get exclusive PDFs on Donne, Marvell, and more—available to Poetry+ users:

• Movement overview PDF: The Metaphysical Poets
• Full PDF Guides on poets:
  • John Donne PDF Guide
  • Andrew Marvell PDF Guide
  • Henry Vaughan PDF Guide

Tune in and discover:

• Why conceits lie at the heart of metaphysical poetry
• How these poets balance contradiction, faith, and philosophy
• What “vegetable love,” fleas, and collars have in common
• Whether the metaphysical poets ever really existed as a movement

Transcript

The Makings of a Movement: The Metaphysical Poets (Transcript)
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Maiya: Hello and welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast, brought to you by PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+. I'm Maiya. I'm here with my co-host Joe today to talk about a very special episode on a really interesting movement in poetry. And that movement is the metaphysical poets.

The key themes we'll be touching on today will be the importance of conceits, philosophical interrogation, and also how we actually define movements. Now, Joe, can you tell us a little bit about where this term, the metaphysical poets comes from? How this specific movement was defined and really who were the key players in this?

Joe: Thanks, Maiya. So the metaphysical poets didn't self-define as such. The term was actually first used much later at the end of the 18th century by the prominent literary critic and figure Samuel Johnson. And so he's looking back at the metaphysical poets and he gave them this name because the movement itself spans a fairly long time.

We're talking the late [00:01:00] 16th century and most of the 17th century in terms of the key figures, ome of the names that some of our listeners may be familiar with. The most famous of the metaphysical poets is John Donne, who lived from 1572 to 1631. And he's kind of the major figure in this movement.

And we're gonna talk about his influence on the other poets within it in this episode at great length. Other poets in the movement include George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughn alongside others. But those are the main four poets we're gonna be talking about today. One thing that some of our listeners might have noticed is we are talking about a very long period of time here. So if we think about the beginning of the movement, the oldest poet in the movement, John Donne. He was born, as I said, in 1572, whereas Henry Vaughan, who's the last member of the movement to die, doesn't die until 1695.

So you're talking about 123 years span between the birth of the oldest member of the movement and the death of the youngest that is much larger than some other movements that Maiya and I might go on to discuss in subsequent episodes of Beyond the Verse.

And we're gonna talk a little bit later on about how well the metaphysical poets really match up to other [00:02:00] poetic movements. How do they subscribe to the characteristics of a movement? And can a group of poets over such a long period of time be considered cohesive, be considered to be responding to the same circumstances?

But we'll get into that a little bit later on. But first, Maiya, in terms of the poetry that came outta this movement, what defines it and what shared characteristics does it have?

Maiya: That was a really great overview for our listeners, and I think what's important to note is that part of the reason we look back on the metaphysical poets as being so different is because they were really born out of an age that, you are talking about Elizabethan poetry. It was very much concerned with sensory equality and beauty and desire.

and actually what we have with the poets that we're talking about today is more of a philosophical interrogation. As I said at the start, they really ask questions of these huge grand themes such as love, religion, faith, mortality, time and transience, and the difference between human and divine knowledge. Their intent was very much to have their readers question, and this [00:03:00] really sets them apart. So aside from these being the typical themes, they are very much defined by some central concepts. I'll list a few of these off for us now. So one would be that they're written generally in a colloquial style. They are full of paradoxes and irony, and as I said previously, this questioning is really central to each one of these poems. But the most important thing that we're gonna talk about today is conceit. These are comparisons between very grand themes and very small, seemingly not really related objects.

And one of the poems that we are gonna talk about to start off this episode is The Flea by John Donne. Now In The Flea, he uses the idea of his lover and him being bitten by the flea in their blood, mixing within this creature to represent greater themes of love and marriage, and it's a really fascinating poem to begin with. So Joe, if you wouldn't mind, could you read one of the stanzas from this poem for us, please?

Joe: I'd love to. So this is stanza two of John Donne's The Flea. . Oh [00:04:00] stay three lives in one flea spare where we almost name more than married are. This flea is you and I and this are marriage bed and marriage. Temple is though parents grudge. And you. We are met

and cloistered in these living walls of Jet though use make thee apt to kill me. Let not to that self-murder added be and sacrilege three sins in killing three. So Maiya, why this stands up? Why this poem? Where would you like to begin?

Maiya: Thank you for the reading, Joe. I actually think where I'd like to begin is the third line of that second stanza. This flea is you and I. When we talk about poems that come out of this Elizabethan era, it's really interesting to me that many of the other poems that we would talk about, offer some sort of veiling or mystery that makes the poem interesting.

This Is not a veiled metaphor. And I find what Donne does incredibly well throughout [00:05:00] this poem is really make claustrophobic the space in which you're reading the poem. Obviously we're talking about love here, which is so often seen as expansive and joyous, by making claustrophobic this particular moment, I find he really exemplifies what the metaphysical poets are so excellent at doing. He manages to take this really huge concept and boil it down into one simple moment, especially by bringing in those darker themes. You know, we have self murder here.

The begrudging of the parents, the marriage bed. It is simplified into this one single moment of their blood mixing within this flea, this thing that has the capacity to, cause disease and kill them. And I think it's a really beautiful way to kind of mix joy and horror in a very strange sense. But what Donne does absolutely incredibly is really leave no room for doubt. But what do you think Joe?

Joe: That was really interesting, Maiya. I think that was fascinating. [00:06:00] Thank you. I mean, The Flea is such an interesting poem. It's such a strange poem. just to give listeners a little bit of background here, this poem was written likely in the 1590s, but it wasn't published until after Donne's death.

And one of the reasons for that is because Donne went on to become a very senior member of the clergy in St. Paul's Cathedral. And this poem would've been fairly scandalous for a member of the clergy to publish, because effectively what the speaker in this poem is arguing is that he and the woman that he's addressing have basically already had sexual intercourse because this flea has bitten them both and their blood is mingling inside of the flea and that. Merging of fluid is made synonymous with the act of sex.

And the poem is full of kind of sexual illusions, references to the swelling of the flea, kind of examples where he's using phallic imagery and evoking the image of an erection. And it would've been very scandalous. Remember the clerk he publishes, I've mentioned, but it's a really unusual poem because it's also rooted in this argument, this notion that he's trying to build a case to convince this woman.

And before [00:07:00] Donne went into the clergy, he trained as a lawyer. And there is something very legalistic about this poem. , Maybe things were different in the Elizabethan era, but this is not really the way we expect people to try to seduce or to woo people, to win them over with a very complicated argument about the fact that a flea represents the fact you've already had sex. I mean, it's very strange as a poem and.

quite striking and Maiya's right, the use of the flea as the central conceit is absolutely typical of the metaphysical poets because what you have is this very extended metaphor that extrapolates quite odd philosophical learnings from what should be a love poem.

I mean, in theory we're talking about the desire to unite, to marry, to have sex. And yet what Donne does is he looks at that through the lens of this quite complicated argument around whether or not blood mixing, whether someone else's blood means that that union has already taken place. it's a very.

Intellectual view of desire and that kind of intellectualizing of human experience is something that I really, really associate with the metaphysical [00:08:00] poets. And just as we delve into some of the details in this poems, really worth remembering that Donne, like all great poets, is doing several things at once.

So Maiya mentioned the darkness of this poem, the mentions of death, and we might view some of those references to be slightly outta place in this poem, which is otherwise about desire.

But of course, the death of the flea actually represents the death of that desire. There are a lot of dark references in this poem, references to Death, and I just wanna unpick some of those, because there was lots of layers to what Donne is doing here. 

As we continue with the poem, the female addressee actually kills the flea. So those references to death become real because the death of the flea might well represent the death of this union in the eyes of the speaker.

But it's also worth unpicking the significance of the small references to death because they mean something different in the Elizabethan Jacobean context to what they might mean today. 

There's a French phrase, ti more, which means the little death. And death and images of death were actually often used as euphemisms for orgasm. The idea that you could come to climax and be reborn. So when we hear these references to death in this poem, we have to view them in [00:09:00] two ways at once. We have to view them on the one hand about.

The impending death of this union. if she decides to kill the F flee, if she decides to reject the speaker's advances, this potential relationship could die before it really begins. But we also have to view them through the lens of euphemism, through the lens of this potential for sexual union and for climax And Donne's ability to balance those two competing influences is one of the things that makes his poetry so rich and so varied.

Maiya: I couldn't agree more. And I think The fact that you've mentioned balance at the end there is one of the absolute critical parts of this poem. As you were speaking then, I was thinking about the actual symbolism of the flea. It is a creature that carries disease.

It is not a creature that can be easily romanticized. And what I find really fascinating here is, as you said, Joe, this is not a traditional way that you would look at romancing a partner. what Donne is doing is taking the purity of virginity, the maiden head that is listed in the first stanza and contrasting it with this disease [00:10:00] ridden flea. Something that is so far removed from that purity, something that is tainted and asking someone to meet him.

Somewhere in the middle, I always find that he's potentially asking someone to meet him in the middle. He's saying, okay, we have this moment of innocence and we also have this thing that is awful, and nothing we can do in between those two moments could be as bad as that. it's a slightly disruptive way of romancing, I think it goes against, a modern reader, the ways in which you would look towards a love poem.

Joe: Definitely. And it's a poem that feels like it's attempting to do several things at once, as I've mentioned. I'm not sure how much I view it as a. quintessential love poem. I mean, listeners who want to go and check out the episode we did on Shakespeare's sonnets, and I would advise 'em to do so because we talked to great length in that episode, or even the episode we did on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem How Do I Love Thee?

Because in those episodes, Maiya and I talked a lot about what makes a great love poem and to what extent poems that are held up as great love poems, can be regarded as great wands in the 21st century. I mean, things change [00:11:00] in the, what we regard as romantic changes over the centuries, but with this poem, I can't help but feel that Donne kind of, even in his time, knew that what he was doing was, not rooted in romance, but was rooted in a desire to complicate.

It's almost like the poem is. A deliberate challenge. And again, this is one of the criticisms that was leveled at the Metaphysical poets by Samuel Johnson, this idea that they're constantly over intellectualizing and that they're more interested in finding complicated conceits than they are in what those conceits actually express.

And I think there's definitely an element of that here that Donne is reveling in how impressive and left field the conceit of the fleet is rather than using it as a genuine vehicle for expressing his desire. but the story of this poem really encapsulates one things we're gonna talk about later on the episode, about the difficulty of talking about the metaphysical poet as something cohesive.

' this poem was written in the 1590s. Well, that is before. Marvell was born before Henry Vaughan was born. George Herbert was likely only a [00:12:00] baby or a small toddler when this poem was written. So the length of time is huge between the conception of this poem and the work of the other poets in the movement.

Not only that, but it wasn't published until after Donne's death in 1633. So you have a huge gap between the composition of this poem and the work of many of the other poets in the movement. But you also have a huge gap of more than 30 years between the writing of this poem and the publication of it, which as I mentioned, was largely because Donne was a senior member of the clergy, and it wouldn't really have been appropriate to publish a poem like this while serving in that role.

But that means that one of Donne's most famous poems, in fact, many of his most famous poems are published posthumously. And how that affects the legacy of a poet is huge because when you're writing during your lifetime, there is a sense to which you are in dialogue with the work that already exists.

Whereas when work that you wrote isn't published until after your death, that work stands apart from your life and that complicates the way in which you have a relationship to. It had Donne, published this poem in the [00:13:00] 1590s and it had inspired controversy or it had been banned or any kind of things that may have happened subsequent Donne.

Poetry is written in that context, whereas we have to analyze, Donne subsequent life in poetry in the context of the fact we know this poem exists, but that nobody else did on. It wasn't well known to the public. And that balancing act makes it very tricky. For Maiya and I talking in the 21st century, or of course Samuel Johnson looking back when he was writing about the metaphysical poets in the late 18th century, and we'll talk about this towards the end of the episode, so we'll move on now, but I just really want listeners to be aware of how complicated it is to talk about this movement and.

Simply giving them a name, the metaphysical poets does not mean that the way to talk about them becomes simple and obvious because the context of the poets are so complicated, largely because of the times in which they're alive, the geography of where they lived, and of course the massive historical and cultural changes that occurred between the beginning of the movement and the end of it.

Maiya: Joe is absolutely right. It's really important to recognize the differences [00:14:00] between the kind of latter poets of the metaphysical movement and the earlier poets. I think for. Me and especially when I was doing my research before this episode, and, Joe, I'd be interested to know whether you agree or not, but I find that John Donne as a poet, even as a metaphysical poet, if we decide to group them all in together, stands apart from many of the latter poets that, came within this movement.

Because I found that, and not to say that John Donne didn't write religious poems or poems that questioned faith and belief in God, but many of the metaphysical poets that we look at later, their primary focus was faith.

Their primary focus was interrogating religion and how that related to other aspects of their life. Donne, for very good reason is, one of the most famous of these posts because his work explores much broader themes. But I'm interested to know how when critics were looking back at this work, how they decided to make this grouping.

And as you said, I'm sure we'll talk about this a little bit later once we've gone through the bulk of the actual poetic analysis. But one of the things that really stands out to me in this poem is the innocence I was talking about before and of course what's really interesting in this poem is [00:15:00] that there is a Christian framework built into the poem . When we talk about innocence here, we have two very different representations.

We have the innocence that the speaker initially views his partner as having, and then we have the desecration of innocence. the ruin of it cruel and sudden has thousands purple to thy nail in blood of innocence.

This is a line that always stands out to me on a reread of this poem because not only do we see a really traditional Christian framework being built around the woman as someone who is either an innocent, a maiden, a virgin, or someone that succumbs to things like lust.

The Collar purple throughout literature Has been used to represent riches and luxury and excess. And here the, murder of the flea represents that excess. It is a moment at which the maiden steps beyond her expected role.

Of course, in a lot of poems from the kind of 1,617 hundreds, masculinity is very much defined by virility violence. And the violence in this poem comes from [00:16:00] the woman. So, as I was saying before, I think what's really fascinating to me is when we explore a lot of the, later metaphysical poets and faith is something that is so central to their argument or to their interrogation. Donne here is actually doing is maybe just built around the general attitude of the population at the time.

Maybe faith, to me wasn't inbuilt into it. However, it's absolutely unavoidable when you're looking back. So, as Joe said earlier, sometimes when things are published posthumously or they're grouped into a movement that spans hundreds of years. It means that we view it differently To me, I find it very hard to step out of this poem and not view it as something that has that Christian framework.

Because every time we talk about the metaphysical poets, we say, oh, well, you know, they interrogate faith and they interrogate religion and they interrogate what love is. And all of those things combine in this poem. So instead of viewing it as a traditional love poem, what Donne is questioning and maybe a little bit ahead of his time, is what truly is [00:17:00] innocence?

Is innocence all to do with the position of the woman as a maiden, as a virgin? Is it all to do with that or can we actually extrapolate that and look at actions and consequences as well? But Joe, I'd love to know your opinion about, how the masculine and feminine interplay in this poem.

Joe: Well, it's a really fascinating question and I think I was really struck when you were talking there about one of the key tensions in metaphysical poetry, and it's right at the forefront here because one thing we haven't mentioned yet is the concept of carpe diem, which as many of our listeners will know, is a Latin, phrase, which means seizes the day.

It comes from horace's oes. But carpe diem is a really important concept for the metaphysical poets. This notion of immediacy, this notion of embracing the present. And on the one hand, you get that really strongly in this poem because when you draw back the curtains of this poem, this is a man trying to convince a woman to sleep with him.

Now, he happens to be using an incredibly strange extended metaphor to do that, but in many ways, he's encouraging her to embrace [00:18:00] carpe diem to forget about the future. Forget about your modesty, forget about the anger of your parents, and let's do this now. So on the one hand, you have that sense of immediacy, but the genius or perhaps the strangeness of the metaphysical poets is that sense of urgency, that sense of spontaneity, is wrapped in a really contemplative poem, a really philosophical poem that, as Maiya mentioned, is asking complicated questions around the nature of innocence, the role of men and women, the reality of whether or not blood mixing signifies intercourse.

And I find that tension to be really unusual in a poem like this, because. To my mind, the intellectualizing that I associate with metaphysical poets stands at odds with the idea that we should all be seizing the moment because one of them feels really fast and really urgent, and really intense, and one of them feels slow measured, considered.

And the ability to have those two contrary states of mind existing in the same poem is utterly fascinating to me. 

Maiya: No, I completely agree. And, I think one of the [00:19:00] poems as you were talking then that came to mind was The Funeral by Donne and The Funeral poses a really interesting question about what marriage represents, especially jumping off the back of, the flea because of course The Funeral being the title of the poem immediately sets a precedent.

It immediately makes the reader believe that we're going to be talking about death. And here the death that we talk about is not the death of a partner. It's not a poem about loss, it's about the death of the speaker and how he wishes to go. And I'll, read two stanzas from the poem for listeners benefit.

And then Joe, I'll throw a question to you and I hope that illustrate some of the skills and some of the talents of the metaphysical poets and especially Donne himself. So from the first stanza will go, whoever comes to shroud me do not harm nor question much. That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm, the mystery, the sign, you must not touch for ‘tis my outward soul Viceroy to that which then to heaven being gone, will leave this to control and keep these limbs, her provinces from [00:20:00] dissolution for if the sinewy thread my brain, lets fall through every part can tie those parts and make me one of all those hairs which upward grew and strength and art have from a better brain can better do it, except she meant that I, by this should know my pain as prisoners then are manacled when they are condemned to die. Now, effectively the, symbol that we're talking about in this poem is a bracelet of hair, something that has come from his lover, something that has represented in many ways the eternal nature of their love. Of course, I'm sure for listeners benefit, we don't need to touch on the importance of circularity an ongoing path, something that represents eternal love, eternal pain. Whichever way this is construed, timelessness is really important, but we move very quickly in this poem from this bracelet being a symbol of love, a symbol of his outward soul.

This is a really beautiful way to describe a [00:21:00] partner, to then it being a man that condemns him to die. And I really think this is such a fascinating contradiction that again . Interrogates what marriage is, what death is, how they interact with one another. And Joe, the question I have for you, is a big one, but what do you think Donne's intention is here? Because of course when we talk about a funeral poem, we talk about loss. We expect a certain level of ode or beauty, and I don't find that we get this here. So if this isn't a poem that tracks loss, what is the intention?

Joe: That's a big question and I'm gonna have a go at answering it, I think what the poem serves to do is elevate human connection by. blending the profane and the sacred. And what I mean by that is this, effectively the speaker is saying that when they die, they want to be buried with this bracelet of hair and that nobody should touch it.

In theory, there's no problem with that at all. Okay? Modern readers will be very, very well versed in the idea of people being buried or cremated with objects of importance, [00:22:00] wedding rings, et cetera. The reason this becomes challenging in this poem is because of the way that hair is described, because remember, Donne is writing this as a member of the clergy.

Donne's description of the hair seems more sacred in his description of the church in which this funeral is taking place, or the altar. that he was praying to. And it's that elevation of the human and of course the elevation of the romantic and potentially even the sexual that I think makes this poem such a challenging piece.

That description of the hair being the outward soul is not only a very beautiful description, as Maiya mentioned, that's especially the case to modern readers. But that's also something that is potentially very sacrilegious. The idea that you find something immortal and something almost worthy of worship in humanity and in women in particular, does go against.

The idea that you should be worshiping God. God is the source of your eternal salvation, not this ative hair. So from my mind, what he's doing is he is being very provocative and he absolutely knew that this was provocative [00:23:00] By blending the sacred and the profane, he is elevating one at the expense of the other.

He is rather than paying tribute to this immortal presence of God, he is choosing to view the human, the feminine, the romantic, as the thing that will kind of sustain his eternal life. And it's that decision for me that is at the heart of the per that controversy, that willingness to provoke.

joe_1_03-16-2025_153318: Now, by happy coincidence, our 25th episode of Beyond the Verse, which we did on Sylvia Plath's poetry, also coincided with the day in which we analysed our 5000th poem on PoemAnalysis.com. Yes, 5000 poems. So, what I would suggest to any listeners, who want to explore more about poetry, who are enjoying the podcast, is go to PoemAnalysis.com, sign up for a Poetry+ membership, which will give you access to all of the materials that accompany those 5, 000 analysed poems. We've talked about this in [00:24:00] previous episodes of the podcast, but just to quickly run through some of the member benefits, we have a weekly newsletter, written by yours truly, in which we go through key poetic news, book recommendations, and much more.

We have bespoke resources available to Poetry+ members, including a PDF learning library which has more than300 PDFs on all kind of elements of poetry, including individual poets, form, symbols and imagery within poetry, and lots more.

Not to mention the fact that you can access tons of bonus materials that are on those articles I mentioned, more than 5, 000 articles on different poems that are exclusively available to Poetry+ members.

For those of you who are enjoying the podcast and can't wait for us to get to 5, 000 episodes, you can go and read about 5, 000 poems right now at PoemAnalysis.com. 

Joe: Welcome back to this episode of Beyond the Verse in which Maiya and I are discussing the Metaphysical Poets. Now, for most of the first half of the episode, we were talking about John Donne, but now we're gonna move on to talk about some of the other [00:25:00] poets in the movement. We're gonna start with George Herbert, who was a contemporary of Donne.

He was 21 years younger, but they did know each other, which is very different to the other poets in the movement. As we're going to go on to discuss, I'm gonna do a short reading from George Herbert's poem, The Collar, which begins as such. I struck the board and cried No more. I will abroad. What shall I ever sigh and pine my lines and life are free.

Free as the road looses the wind as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn to let me blood and not restore what I have lost with cordial fruit? Sure, there was wine before my size did dry it. There was corn before my tears did drown. It is the year only lost to me. Have I?

No bays to crown it. No flowers, no garlands, gay, all blasted, all wasted. Now Maiya, I know that like me, you share an interest in titles when it comes to poems, and this title [00:26:00] really interests me, The Collar. Can you tell us a little bit about what meaning that title might have and whether or not there might be more than one?

Maiya: Absolutely. This title has so many meanings. Of course, the primary meaning of this title refers to The Collar that priests wear. George Herbert was a priest, and of course you can tell from the reading that Joe just did, that he's exploring a life beyond faith.

He's feeling trapped and he's wanting access to freedoms that he doesn't currently have. Of course, in itself, The Collar that a priest wears is simply indicative of their role, but here we also have the entrapment of a collar. You think modern readers, of course, will think about the way that you collar a pet to ensure that they are yours. This is, again, referring to the relationship between a God, divine figure, and the priest. The fact that he feels as if he is owned or he doesn't have freedom to be a single individual person. He feels as if his life is owed to this divine presence, and yet also in many ways, this [00:27:00] refers back to the claustrophobia I was talking about in the flea. There is a real stifling feeling in this poem and. You know, listeners may not have been able to tell from Joe's reading, but as you read this poem, the lines are not regular at all. There is a real sense of switching.

Of course, we have the direct question, what shall I ever sigh and pine a direct question to the reader, and yet Herbert then immediately reverts to a kind of stream of consciousness type of, thought process. There is a real flick between constraint and freedom in this poem that The Collar perfectly encapsulates.

I think it's such an excellent title. And, before I pass this back over to you, Joe, to do a little bit more analysis, one of sections of this poem I'd really like to focus on is those lines. My lines and life are free. Free as the road looses the wind as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I know harvest, but to thorn now one of the concepts we've really pressed on is how the metaphysical poets their poetry to [00:28:00] interrogate themes now I think it would be very commonplace for any listener who has even just dabbled in poetry to understand that much of the time. When we talk about religion and poems, we either have something that offers bounty and pleasure and peace, or we have something that is entirely rejected. This of course, is not the case in this poem, but what I really love is that idea of harvest. As a priest, this is incredibly sacrilegious. to sit there writing about how you want nothing more than freedom from God. God is supposed to be a figure, especially for a priest that provides happiness and bounty. As I said before, this is a poem that could focus on generosity and instead it focuses on blight and absence. Really, there is no wine, there is no corn, there is no harvest. You get the impression of something or someone who is absolutely desolate. so all of this provides context to the road and the wind, because of course the road and the wind are slightly [00:29:00] more abstract. You can't see the wind, fills the entire air. There is no sense of boundary to it and the road, there is no sense that the road ends. It just goes on. So what I really love is the comparison between these kind of very abstract terms, the road and the wind that represent freedom. And actually the harvest would be something that has a boundary. It would be a patch of land, it would be acres of land. it's something that you tend to and grow. And of course, by the end of this poem, the priest, the speaker is taken back into the fold. God welcomes him back as a child again. so what we have here is both. rejection of the freedoms and the boundlessness that the road and the wind can take because they have no form to a life that is at least in some ways, managed and cultivated. And I think it's such an interesting question because of course, as a priest, there are many sacrifices you have to make for that. But by the end of this poem, we come to understand that the speaker's desire for [00:30:00] freedom doesn't outweigh his desire for routine and practicality and, generosity towards that specific way of life. But Joe, I'd love to know your thoughts on this poem. I think it's such an interesting one.

Joe: I couldn't agree more and that was wonderful, Maiya. Thank you. And I was also really drawn to those lines and I'll, come to 'em in a moment, but it's one of the great mediations on doubt and faith that I can remember reading.

It's a wonderful unapologetic admission of doubt and of frustration with a religious life, both in terms of its physical limitations on earth, but also perhaps the sense that it's all for nothing. There's a real sense of doubt in the poem, only for it to return, only for it to come back and the speaker to have his faith reaffirmed by the end of the poem.

It's a really fascinating one, but just on those lines that you mentioned. My lines and life are free. Free as the road looses the wind as large as store. When I first read those lines, I immediately thought that those were an expression of creative freedom.

My lines and life are free, meaning my ability to write verse, my ability to write [00:31:00] poetry sets me free. And actually, like Donne's a really person, we're talking about how Donne was unable to publish quite a lot of his verse because it was potentially sacrilegious or certainly controversial for remember, of the clergy to be writing.

Herbert, as Maiya mentioned, was also a member of the clergy. So there is a sense that your lines might set you free privately, but ultimately you can't publish. So to what extent does this poet expression set you free? But Maiyas also mentioned that lines can refer to a lot of land. And I don't mean lot in terms of quantity, I mean lot in terms of an allotment and amount of land.

So this to me really calls to mind the book of Psalms in the Bible in which there is an extract which reads, the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.

Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. And what the lines mean in that context is the outer limits the boundary. And in that case, it's talking about a literal boundary of land. You have inherited a set amount of land from your father. Well, of course, as a member of the clergy, Herbert is not inheriting land.

The land of the church belongs to God and [00:32:00] he lives there. So what does this lot represent? Is it a physical boundary or is he giving thanks to the outer limits of his kind of personhood, the outer limits of his belief system that God has given him? And the idea of using the word lines, which obviously in this context means limits.

To evoke a sense of freedom is again, one of the central contradictions that defines the metaphysical poets. How can limits set you free? And to my mind, this could be the limits of his faith, there are doubts in his mind that exists. His faith is not limitless, but ultimately it is those limits. It is that relationship between his faith and his doubt that makes his faith worthwhile.

And we see that kind of rejuvenation of faith at the end of the poem. It's a really beautiful way of expressing faith and doubt. But of course, even if we go back to my first interpretation, if we go full circle here, maybe lines do mean his gift for poetry, his ability to write great verse 

my lines in life are free. But of course, given his faith, he would believe that that kind of gift for poetry was itself a gift from God. So even [00:33:00] as this poem expresses doubt, even as it expresses a desire to reject or push against the confines of faith, both on earth and also potentially in the divine realm, it still embraces them.

It's that ability to push and to embrace at the same time that I think makes this poem so enduringly. Interesting.

Maiya: Well, thanks Joe. I think we would be remiss if we didn't touch on andrew Marvell's poetry before we close up this episode I'd really like to explore To His Coy Mistress. And I'll read a few lines from the poem and then we'll get in depth on what it represents and what it means. So the poem opens, had we but world enough and Time, this Coist lady were no crime. We would sit down and think which way to walk and pass our long loves day thou by the Indian ganji side. Should rubies find I by the tide of Humber would complain I would love you 10 years before the flood. And you should, if you please refuse till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow [00:34:00] vaster than empires and more slow. A hundred years should go to praise thine eyes and on thy forehead, gaze 200 to adore each breast, but 30,000 to the rest. Now, I find this poem enduringly fascinating in the way that it explores time.

But the line I'd really like to focus on here, and I'd love to know how you view this line is my vegetable love should grow faster than empires and more slow. What is it about that line that is so powerful?

Joe: To my mind it's a sense of scale. I think that on the one hand you have temporal scale, the lifespan of a single vegetable versus a lifespan of an empire. And then even more so because it says more slowly than both of those things,

I think encapsulates the scale of affection that the speaker is talking about here. Maiya mentioned this pers a great mediation on time, but it's also a great mediation on urgency, which of course is in relation to time. The sense that time is running out, the sense that we have to do this [00:35:00] now 'cause things won't always last, and we'll talk later on in this poem about one of the great conceits.

Of the metaphysical movement, which I'll come to. But on the vegetable love, there is something obviously natural being evoked there. There is the idea that this love is something that sort of is from the earth, that it's something that ultimately should be embraced. It's something good for you.

I don't wanna oversimplify this, but the idea that vegetables are things that are healthy. The idea that their love is something restorative, something nourishing. But then we have the mention of empires and what we have there is the sense of grandeur.

That love is not simply humble and nourishing, but also something great and significant and something it will last and something it will be written about. And to hold those two things in tandem. Because ultimately we might consider the humble to be incompatible with the grand. We might consider the brief life of a vegetable to be incompatible with the kind of vast expanse of centuries and perhaps even millennia that is represented by empires.

And yet the ability to hold them. At the same time, these two competing versions of the love that he feels, that I think is really fascinating because once again, we [00:36:00] have a paradox. We have something that cannot be and yet is, and that is one of the defining characteristics of metaphysical poetry, the ability to hold contrary ideas in tandem without giving way to one or the other.

But what do you think Maiya? 

Maiya: I think you're absolutely right. And I, think that urgency in the way that this poem plays with time is really one of the most important paradoxes because of course as any person who loves and is loved, , you are aware that you have a certain amount of time, it's your mortality.

You will eventually one day pass. And of course for many people, it's the fact that you have an allotted amount of time that makes the things you experience on earth sweeter. It's the fact that you have 70, 80, 90 years to enjoy life and to enjoy love and have friends and travel that makes all of those experiences so sweet. But in this poem, there is almost a, pressure that takes away from that joy. There's a line I keep thinking about that follows shortly after the section I just read that says, at [00:37:00] my back, I always hear Times wing, a chariot hurrying near insofar as this poem explores the importance of the present moment, the speaker is actually unable to enjoy the moment with their love. The present moment, as Joe said, is incompatible with the amount of time they had left. And actually, as you explore this poem, what you realize is that. This poem does not relate to the present moment at all. This is a mediation on, if we had all the time in the world, this is what we would do. But at no point does it really explore the humble and pleasant singular moment. All of their love is mediated against the fact that they're running out of time as opposed to mediated by the fact they've already had some. And what I find incredibly powerful in this poem is the fact that, on a first read, it's absolutely construed as a love poem, but every time I revisit it, I'm left feeling a little bit emptier by the fact that all of this is, occupying an almost dreamlike state.

[00:38:00] this is a poem about what if, which of course is the central conceit for so many metaphysical poets. It's a questioning and it's an interrogation, but there's a real lack of presence in the poem. for the current moment, I find.

Joe: Absolutely. I'm so glad you picked out that metaphor of times Winged Chariot, because for me, this is the one I was alluding to earlier on. This is one of these great metaphors, these great conceits of all of English literature, actually. It's such a powerful image, and I just wanna delve into the symbolism of that a little bit more because when we're thinking about a wingèd chariot, the idea of a chariot that flies.

My head immediately goes to ancient Greek mythology. I'm thinking about Apollo's Chariot. I'm thinking about dragging the sun, and anybody who's interested in conversations between Maiya and I about the sun, there's lots of them out there, including I think Chinua Achebe's Love Cycle. The episode we did on that poem in particular, we had a long conversation about the symbolism of the rising and falling of the sun.

But to briefly paraphrase some of that conversation, we normally think of the rising and falling of the sun, which is as evoked by this winged chariot metaphor as something evident of eternal time. [00:39:00] As something restorative, as something. It means the sun is going to rise again. It's going to return, and yet the way in which it's portrayed , here is all about the ending.

It's the idea of the fact the sun is pursuing you, that the sun is going to set on your life with no guarantee that it will rise again, and the ability to kind of subvert that symbol and make it. Something really, really predatory, really, aggressive rather than something that promises new life is, so powerful.

The ability to twist an existing symbol and make it new is something that TS Elliot himself would've been proud of. And maybe we'll talk about TS Elliot in just a moment.

Maiya: Well, you're certainly not wrong Joe. We have had many a conversation about the sun, and again, I'm gonna carry on on this at the end of this poem. The final two lines are, thus though we cannot make our son stand still, yet we will make him run. and I find that word used predatory of really interesting descriptor here because of course, as Joe mentioned, the sun rises and falls [00:40:00] every day. It is a continuous cycle. We've already touched on how some of the other metaphysical poets use this concept of eternity or cycles. And yet here there is a desire to make the sun stand still. To me, this absolutely contradicts The general assumptions that you would make about the sun instead of craving eternity, craving the rise and fall, they're craving a moment of stillness. And this goes against everything we expect of that cycle of the sun.

It goes against all of the presumptions that have been made throughout this poem about wanting their love to be eternal. Because of course, as we explore, there are many moments in this poem that have happened and the speaker is writing prior to them. and I find that craving for stillness really sits at odds to our general conception of how we would want love to be eternal. And there's a few. Points in this poem that I think when you get to that last line, make you rethink those earlier moments.

speaker tells us that he would love his partner until 10 [00:41:00] years before the flood. This, of course, refers to the biblical flood upon which Noah's arc was built.

and to be very simplistic about it, animals were saved in pairs. This of course. In many ways is a love story of sorts. This is a pairing off of two individuals who will then go on to repopulate to bring joy back to earth. However, 10 years before the flood is such a specific timing. And yet he also doesn't say that he will love her after he says, I will love you 10 years before the flood until the moment of the flood. So again, it's this moment of stillness, this moment of huge, drastic change that actually doesn't offer much past or beyond that point. This poem we have references to the desert of vast eternity, but of course, a desert is something that has been scorched by the sun.

It's something that is more often than not, especially in literature, barren and vast, nothing can grow out of it. So to conceive of eternity as something that doesn't provide growth or nourishment, as Joe was saying before, is a very strange and quite [00:42:00] odd way of describing something that is meant to be a nourishing love again.

You know, I think with a poem like this, I often think about one of the other poems you've discussed on this podcast before our episode on Ozymandias, where the vast empire that was built has crumbled to dust. There is nothing left of it. And of course, empires in their moment are grand, but they don't last forever. They're not eternal as is the vegetable love that we talked about. Vegetables are cultivated, grown, consumed, and then we have to start the process all over again. Each cycle that we talk about within this though, described so beautifully and, initially conceived as something that is eternal, is actually a stoppable process.

none of these are, continuous and I find that such a strong contradiction when again, in your first instance, this is a love poem and yet the love that we see It stops and starts and is thrown into the future and not really pulled back. So again, what I think this roots back to is, is the fact that, the metaphysical poets, one of their key strengths is [00:43:00] playing with contradiction, is making you believe one thing by exploring something entirely different. but Joe, I know you have some thoughts on how we group the metaphysical poets together, And so to end this episode, I think it'd be really interesting to discuss our views on whether we do view all of these metaphysical poets as a singular group, whether it's kind of like the romantics and we have an earlier generation and a latter generation, or, perhaps there's something entirely different.

But please go ahead and tell us your thoughts.

Joe: Well, thanks Maiya, and that was a wonderful, wonderful deep dive that you gave on To His Coy Mistress. And again, there are so many more poems in this movement that we would love to explore. We just don't have time in today's episode. But anyone who wants to learn more about any of the individual poems and the movement, you can go to PoemAnalysis.com and check out dozens of poems by the different metaphysical poets.

We haven't even got into Henry Vaughan, so there's lots there to enjoy. Just taking a broader view to end the episode, thinking about the utility, of using terms like metaphysical poets, does that actually ignore the differences between them? And I mentioned earlier on about the sheer [00:44:00] length of time we're talking about, and I really want to sort of emphasize to listeners.

How much changed in this period that we think of as being cohesive? 'cause as soon as you give a name to a group of poets, you imply the shared experiences, shared characteristics, shared outlook on the world, non poetry. But it is impossible for them to have that much in common simply because of how much the world had changed.

lemme just give some examples. When John Donne was born, Quinn Elizabeth, I, I was on the throne. By the time that Henry Vaughan died in 1695. King William III and Queen Mary II were joint monarchs of England. There were seven different monarchs in the period that we're talking about, if you include those two as their joint reign. Not to mention the fact that there was an 11 year period called the interregnum after the Civil War in which Britain had no monarch. We're talking about so much cultural, historical, political change.

We had the English Civil War in this period. So later writers like Andrew Marvell and Henry Vaughn are writing some of their poetry, at least in that context. But of course, John Donne and George Herbert were writing before the Civil War took place, you had the great fire of London, [00:45:00] you had the gun power plot.

There were so many events that shaped the public consciousness, and this is like taking a poet writing today in 2025 and aligning their work with somebody that was born in 1902. That's the length of time we're talking about. And the risk we run when we talk about a movement that spans that length of time is that we miss the nuances of all the things that happen in 120 year period. The experiences of the events I've mentioned for those poets changed the later poets, just in the same way that the experience of a poet writing in 1970 is different to someone writing in 1912 because of the significance of the two world wars, for example. To pick just one example of the way the world changes.

So in many ways, this is. Very, different to the kind of poetic movements that, we might associate with the 20th century, for example. you might think about the surrealists or the futurists or the Dadaists people who were much more concentrated in a particular place in a particular time, and whose members were simply interacting a lot more.

I mean, John Donne and George Herbert knew each other, as you've mentioned, but [00:46:00] when John Donne died, for example, Marvell and Vaughan were 10 years old. they didn't interact with him. Literally. Yes, they were very influenced by his work and by the work of George Herbert.

But there's no guarantee that Andrew Marvell and Henry Vaughan ever met despite living in roughly the same period of time. So. It is a much, much looser version of a poetic movement, I think, than Maiya. And I might be familiar with thinking about later movements in the 20th century. But what do you think Maiya, and is there still something useful to be gained from grouping them together in this way?

Maiya: Joe is right. Joe, you and I were talking before the podcast as well about how our conception of what a movement is so often relates to writers being in the same city, in the same rooms, fighting over one another about how they create manifestos and what their intentions were.

And of course, that is potentially for us, a downfall for the sort of study we've Donne because we expect things to be created that way. However, of course, the metaphysical poets are called the metaphysical poets. it wasn't just one person who decided that they were going to group, these poets together. It has [00:47:00] been a tradition to group them together. And I think, to be honest, if I was going to put my spin on it, I definitely would say that. there is an earlier generation and a latter generation though often it's not seen like that because there are so few metaphysical poets and you know, if we were to, separate them into generations, it would effectively be to say that Donne and Herbert were writing in one period and then 50 years later we had a few other writers who picked up the mantle, but. I don't think it's worth dismissing entirely. There's more than enough evidence to suggest that, whether it's purely through inspiration or by intention. There is a grouping here. There is so much similarity that we've discussed throughout this episode, but I also think it's worth taking with a pinch of salt. You know, if you personally disagree that Andrew Marvell's writing doesn't in any way for you relate to the earlier works of Donne, then perhaps there's more interrogation to be done.

I think if anything, maybe it would be an honor to them to actually have their work interrogated against one another. Because of course, if you compare Marvell's [00:48:00] on a drop of Jew to Donne's The Flea, you're going to struggle to see formal characteristics that reflect one another. But of course, the questions that are asked are so great. So I understand why people group them together.

But I don't know, it's such a tough question. I don't know if I would personally see them as the same, to be honest. But I think that's part of the joy of, what we do. And, for any listeners today who are looking to analyze these poems that you get to make up your own mind, you get to dispute and argue, and. Pick out the bits that, for you, dispute the whole notion of a movement, and I think that's, such a joy to have. 

Joe: Yeah, definitely. And I think it's worth noting that if we could summon Henry Vaughn and Andrew Marvell and John Donne and we could ask them, what do you think of your presence in the metaphysical movement? They would've absolutely no idea what you were talking about. Of course, Donne did not know who some of these poets even were as they were children at the time he died.

And I think there's something to be said for what the metaphysical poets tell us about the arbitrary nature of poetic legacy. Because if these poets were already being read in tandem because their works were similar, but they weren't [00:49:00] formally grouped together, as I've mentioned, until Samuel Johnson wrote about them in, a biography of the lives of the poets in 1779, and.

He was the first person to coin the term metaphysical poet, which maybe we should have led with this at the top. But metaphysical comes from the branch of philosophy that deals with the kind of first principles of things, including the idea of being, the idea of knowledge, identity, time, space, these kind of very large abstract ideas.

And Johnson used this term pejoratively. He uses as a kind of criticism. He believed that these poets were grouped by their willingness and their desire to over intellectualize. They valued ingenuity over simple truths. 

In fact, why don't I just read a little bit about what Johnson wrote about them. He said the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together. Nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and illusions, and any listeners who want to add that word, heterogeneous just means consisting of dissimilar parts.

So what effectively Johnson was doing is criticizing these poets. The things that he believed they shared was a desire to create comparisons, conceit and symbols [00:50:00] at the expense of the poetry itself. His view was that they were more interested in coming up with clever comparisons than they were with making important poetic points and look.

This conversation Maiya and I have been having, I think there's definitely an element of truth in that they certainly were very fond of their conceits, but perhaps that's a harsh interpretation. And again, these things stick. He was the first person to group them in this way, and he was the first person to give them that name, metaphysical poets.

And he did it pejoratively. He did it as a criticism. Jump forward 150 years and you have TS Elliot who, Maiya and I did an episode about TS Elliot's the Wasteland in recent times, which I really encourage listeners to go and check out. But TS Elliot, wrote a poem one year before the publication of the Wasteland in 1921, he wrote an essay title to the metaphysical poets in which he kind of rehabilitated this movement.

And he stressed the importance that these poets had. And again, I'll give a short reading from that essay Elliot wrote, and he was talking at this point about his generation of poets and what they could learn from the metaphysical poets. And he wrote, the poet must become more and more comprehensive, more [00:51:00] elusive, more indirect in order to force to dislocate if necessary language into his meaning.

So where is. Samuel Johnson looked back at the metaphysical poets and criticized them for overcomplicating and over intellectualizing in 1779. In 1921. Elliot is praising the poets for that very quality, and he's saying that his generation need to learn from it. The idea that challenging your reader intellectually is part of the role of the poet.

And for me, this really speaks to something that Maiya and I have talked about over several episodes, which is that the way in which poetry operates is as this great tide. It comes in and it goes out, and often things are a reaction to what came before you. And it creates this really strange effect where poets from 200 years ago, who may have been disregarded for a long time suddenly come back into vogue because they speak to something at.

is present in our contemporary moments. Contemporary writers look back at somebody from 150 years ago and see something relevant to them today, even if people in the intervening 150 years saw nothing of value. It's such an [00:52:00] interesting way of thinking about the past because ultimately our experience of the past are interest in the past, is always mediated by our experience of the present.

Well, we hope you enjoyed this episode Beyond the Verse. I had a brilliant time where I could have discussed that at great length more if we had the time. But as I mentioned, anyone who wants to learn more about any of the individual poets in this movement, the movement itself or any of the individual poems should go to PoemAnalysis.com and sign up for a Poetry+ membership.

Now, because there are lots of bespoke resources on these poets and this movement only available to subscribers in our PDF Learning library. Maiya, what are we talking about in next week's episode of Beyond the Verse?

Maiya: In next week's episode, Beyond the Verse, we will be talking about the charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred. Lord Tennyson, I've wonI, for one, am very excited for that episode. It was a poem I studied all the way back in school and has been one that I've revisited throughout my university career, throughout my poetic career. Now I think it's one that is absolutely worth discussing, so I think that's gonna be a great episode.

But for now, it's goodbye from me.

Joe: And goodbye from me and the whole [00:53:00] team at PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+.