[sewar]

English Poets of the Earlier Seventeenth Century

The earlier seventeenth century, construed as the period extending roughly from the beginning of James I's reign to the restoration of Charles II, witnessed an unparalleled poetic achievement in England. This achievement flourished in part because of the specific transitions England underwent in the period. The institutions upon which the society rested were challenged, which led to unprecedented opportunity for experiment in politics as in poetry. But most of the poetic institutions were in place even before this period began emerging from the tremendous dramatic and non dramatic achievements of the 1590s and they continued beyond the restoration producing the consummate example of Renaissance epic in English, Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), well after the "Renaissance" had ended.

To say, however, that these conditions persisted beyond their logical terminus is, in a way, to impose an arbitrary historical scheme retroactively, to engage in the convenient fictions of "periodizing." Since such deductive reasoning remains an inevitability in approaching a primary .... (even with the best of intentions, in the quest to be "historical"), I hope to cull the presuppositions I bring together to inform a larger narrative of literary history as inductively as possible. Consequently, I propose to engage the specific intersections of four thematic categories with three theoretical concerns. While overlapping between topics will inexorably obscure the integrity of each topic, this process should enable a greater comprehension of both the discrete category and the larger concern.

Before I enumerate the categories into which, I believe, all the poets on my list can be organized, I'll explain the theoretical concerns that will order my approaches to these categories. The first theoretical concern, broadly conceived, is represented by the dyad structure and epistemology. By beginning with structure, I intend to demonstrate how an intimate knowledge of the intrinsic forms of a work of art contribute to (and indeed govern) the work's modes of meaning. To say this is not to reduce or oversimplify the concerns that a poet's sense of intrinsic form engages: the form of the ....... always relates to the epistemological concerns of the writer. In choosing the word "epistemology," I indicate the period's interest in its own new and inherited forms of knowledge, specifically religious, scientific, and classical.

The second theoretical concern meets the first on many levels. Politics and genre the two terms that best represent this next concern are historically entwined in every period, but especially so in a period in which the education of the young depends so heavily upon the study of rhetoric. That is to say, in literature, genre is a code communicative of many complex operations of the poet's mind, not the least of which is the possibility for political engagement. From epigram to epic, the poetry of seventeenth century England is majestically topical, although staunchly resistant to exclusively topical interpretation.

But poems, it must be said, do not undertake anything poets do. Indeed, the poets who communicate by means of genres have intentions, and these intentions are historical events, just as the occasions for which they are written are historical events. Hence, my third theoretical concern is with authorship and gender. This dyad marks the point where history becomes theory and theory history. More specifically, the period saw a great increase in the number of poets writing, poets from a wider range of classes and inclusive of both genders. In short, the emergence of the status of the "professional" author in the period an eventuality occasioned by the increased commercial potential of printed poetry collections, and in some instances occasioned in distinct opposition to the vicissitudes of print culture opened the way for a richer, more various poetry. In many ways, this process was the most distinguishing feature of the age, producing the conditions in which its greatest poets flourished.

These theoretical concerns, broadly delineated, will be applied to the poets on my list, who are organized under the rubric of four thematic categories. These categories of necessity will be even broader in conception, more inclusive, which itself strikes me as a move toward better understanding the period in its own terms. This is not, however, to conform to the older conceptions of "Cavalier" and "....physical," to the schools of Donne and Jonson. For such a conception of the period is not only misleading, but radically inaccurate when one considers the extent to which these poets share integral forms, features, concerns, and even addressees. In place of the familiar binarisms, I propose to categorize the poets who should fall into more than one of these categories as 1) classical, political, secular, occasional; 2) sacred; 3) love; 4) epistemic (i.e., scientific, technological, psychological, topographical, "country house"). Of course, these thematic categories will be challenged by the works themselves, particularly by the greater works, which inexorably challenge us in our attempts to quantify or qualify their theoretical concerns or thematic strains.

I posted this essay because i wanted every one to hare and spread some ideas about ....physical poets in that age.
Their intellectuality was prominent to all the critics. T.S Eliot appreciated their poems a lot. Ben Johnson said that Donne the leader of ....physical poet deserves to be hanged.
I really wish that every student from the English department share in the discussion about this topic.

[ArtyQueen]

Pleased to see your first topic that including interested subject which is poetry,Well done
So let's support the topic ....... more and more

...............



Here

[ArtyQueen]

The ....physical Poets - study guide

Introduction
What is a ....physical poem?
Love in the poems
The poems' arguments
Imagery
Comparing the poets Openings
Themes and subjects
Stanzas and poetic form
Preparing for exams
The poems classified by subject
Poems to compare

[sewar]

Thank you for your support
i hope that the rest of the members will share us in the discussion