METAPHYSICAL POETRY : Reflective Blog
# Guest Lecture Dr.R. K. Mandaliya sir Organised by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir.
"Metaphysical means
something superior."
• Metaphysical portry is extremely intelligent and witty. It is deeply religious but is also ironical. Metaphysical is about exploration and philosophy not about science and mathematics.
• It is a little bit different from other types of poetry. Poems classified in this category do share the same characteristics. They are all of highly intellectualised , use strange imagery and contain complicated thoughts.
One example of metaphysical poetry .
• Meaning of Metaphysical poetry.
But Today I wrote about Edmund Spenser's poem One day I wrote her name....
• The sonnet 'One day I wrote her name ...' is a fine example of what poetry is and does. It is written by well known Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser ( 1552-1599). Spencer has written many of poems like 'Faerie Queen','The Shapherd's Calendar', 'Epithalamion' ect. Charles Lamb admiringly called him ( Spencer ) " The poet's poet".
Edmund Spenser
• Spenser's Amoretti, a finest specimen of Elizabethan sonnets , is addressed to his beloved Elizabeth Boyle whom Spencer marries later. Thus his is the Amoretti a saga (long time) of love. It is the collection of 88 sonnets. This Sonnets No. 75( One day I wrote her name upon the strand) highlights a traditional question of mortality and permanence. Edmund Spenser employs figurative language to evoke not only imagery but also an emotional response from the reader. The poem shows us a vivid picture : the couple is along the seaside, the man is trying to write the lady's name on the sand, but waves come and wash it away. Then he writes again, but all in vain. The lady persuades him to give up and says that as time passes, she will also die just as the name wiped out by tide. But the man holds a different point of view : He believes his verses will make her immortal. Let us try to analyse the sonnet at three different levels.
• At the phonological level, it can be seen that, being a sonnet, the lyric carries 14 lines with the perfect rhyme-scheme. Spencer's big innovation to the 14 line sonnet was a new rhyme scheme. Instead of following the traditional Italian rhyme scheme :
ABBA ABBA CDECDE
• Spencer wrote his sonnets with the rhyme scheme :
ABAB BCBC CDCD EE
• The major innovation of the Spencerian sonnet is the couplet at the end. Those final rhyming lines provide the poem with a major sense of closure. In "Sonnet 75", the final two lines of the poem rhyme beautifully:
• Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live , and letter life renew."
• The poem is written in almost perfect iambic pentameter (sonnets). It is a pair of syllables with the first one unstressed, the second stressed. In line no.5 when his beloved speaks...
• " Vain man, " said she,"
that dost in vain assay,
The line's first two syllables call our attention, because they are two stressed syllables in a row –– what we call a spondee.
• At the structural level, we can find the use of archaic words in the lines of the lyric like : paynes – pains, tyde – tide, agayne – again, vayne – vain etc. The use of 'y' in place of 'i'. The simplicity in the structure of sonnet reflects intense love of the poet for his beloved. The use of different nouns and adjectives heightens the felling of the poet to make his love eternal.
• At the semantic level, the poem is packed with meaning. The first four lines show the futility of life ––– or love ––– lasting forever, like writing in the sand. The speaker says third he does this: writing his sweetheart's love in the stand, but at the Waves comes and wash it away waste twice. Spenser metaphorically compares tied rising and falling to the process of life. Also, in the sentence" But came the tyde, and made my paynes his prey" , the poet personifies the seawater to a beast and compress the "name" to "his prey" , which implies that time and Tide wait for no man, and that everyone is doomed to die.
• One day I wrote her name upon the strand
But came the waves and washed it away :
• In the next 4 lines, the speaker's lady love tell him that he works in vain to immortalize her, " A mortal thing..." She points out that one day she will die ––– her body will fall to decay as all living things must ––– in that moment, she says her name will be lost, wiped out as the Wave erases the letters in the sand. In essence, she is telling him to " pull himself together: this is the way of life and death".
And eek my name nee wyped out lykewize.
• The author's love for his woman is so great that he refuses to accept what she has said, and strives to prove her wrong. Other things that are " based" may die and rot, but he insists that by writing this poem, he will immortalize her so that long after her death, even the heavens will remember her " glorious" name. In this he is nous not speaking natural beauty, but but her spiritual " loveliness."
• ... Her seeks to immortalize... Not the physical beauty of the beloved, but those spiritual qualities....[of her] spiritual beauty...
• Perhaps he is not only promising that men and Angels will remember her and she will live on, but someone essence of this woman he loves so passionately will live on in him with his words.
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
• At the end of the poem, rhyming couplets of to summarise the poems intent. This is domain thought the speaker is trying to share ––– to make understood. He claims that while the rest of the world will pass away ––– be " subdued" by the circle of life and death ––– his love will allow them both to live on in this verse.
• The poet believes that while people pass away, words internalize a person that he or she may live on beyond the boundaries that apply to most humans. The theme of immortality achieved thought literature is not uncommon, and in all the years that have passed since the poem's inception, thought we do not know her name, which still remember his love for her ––– which does not leave on in poetry.
• In a nutshell, we can say that in Sonnet 75," One day I wrote her name.... He claimed to have found permanence in the monument created by art. Spenser believes that by eternalizing the beautiful essence of her spirituality, She will live on in the next life ––– as will their love ––– beyond the end of time on earth.
• Conclusion
• Metaphysical poetry is not intended to be read in a passive way. Its use of paradox, imagery, conceit and wit is meant to awaken the reader. Metaphysical poetry asks the philosophical questions about religion, faith, spirituality and being.
