Jhon Donne (1572-1631)

John Donne was a leading poet and his poetry differs from others.During his time many changes took place in the fields of science,philosophy,religion and politics.As a result English social and intellectual life was passing from medieval to modern.People began todevelop an enquiring mind.On the other hand this new trend broke down the old social order.As a result a great mrlancholy came over the society.The plaque of 1953 that killed thousands of men,women and children worsend this mood.It convinced how helpless people were.The result was the type of poetry that Donne and some other poets wrote.They came to be known as metaphisical poets.Their poetry is logical and soul searching.Donne's poetry depends upon passionate argument.His rhythem shows the stresses and strains of his careful thinking.Sometimes his word order is complicated and uses an additional vowel in spelling.This makes it difficult to understand Donne until we get use to his language.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

With the advancement of science and importance given to reason, poetry based on emotions went out of fashion.So the latter part of the seventeenth century and in the early part of the eighteenth century it was replaced by a keen interest in science, philosophy...etc.Thus we see in the poetry of Dryden very little use is made of image and symbols.

                      William Wordsworth created a new trend by keeping out serious intellectual concern from poetry and concentrating on emotions.In the preface of his first publication William Wordsworth explains his idea of what poetry should be.He believed that it was the poet's sacred duty to communicate as wide an audience as possible.He says that  "poet is a man speaking to men in the language of men". So in his poetry he uses simple and clear language that could be understood by ordinary people.His topics were also drawn from common life.Another important remark by him was that poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.It takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.So in poems we can't see direct experience of poets but what is created in the imagination of the poet, after careful selection and modification of the impressions gained through the experience.Because of this his poetry has a dream world quality and he came to be known as Romantic.

The Romantic poets

Romanticism is an innately human tendency;it has always appeared in art in one form or the other.By the turn of the century,the society had disintegrated and the entire national set-up had altered radically under the influence of industrialization and the French Revolution.New sections of people mattered.The common man could no longer be ignored.the poets like Blake,Wordsworth,Keats,Shelly,Byron...etc rebelled against society.They reacted against the concerns,language and forms of Augustan poetry.Satire was downgraded and poetry was not.Nature in its manifold forms was the major centre of interest for the romantic poets.

The Augustan Poets

The Augustan age has been called the age of satire and the label suggests several important truths.Satire was the dominant mode of poetry. The outstanding poets were Dryden,Pope and Dr.Johnson.But the closing decades of the age saw the emergence into importance of meditative pastoral verse.the distinctive temper of the age can be termed critical and satire was an appropriate vehicle for it.the poets scrutinized society and man mainly as a social being.They criticized individuals and society in terms of norms generally accepted by their society.the norms were reason,truth,moderation,good sense,decorum and other values of same kind.

                                                                        The age has a standard mode of writing-the heroic couplet.its rhetoric was different from that of metaphysical poets like Donne.It is that of a "gentleman" addressing a society of "gentlemen",a kind of cultivated public utterance rather than impassioned personal argument.

The Metaphysical Poetry

In the 1950's Jhon Donne originated the metaphysical school of poetry which flourished in the first half of the seventeenth century.The term school suggests similarities among such poets as Donne,George Herbet,Henry Vaughan and Andrew Marvell, Though there are differences among them.

                                                                                        Metaphysics,in the strict sense of the term, is a "bunch of philosophy concerned with the ultimate nature of being and knowing".In this sense, Lucretius and Dante are metaphysical poets.They experss metaphysical concerns in poetic terms.But Donne is not a metaphysical poet in a strict metaphysical sense.He is a learned man and incorporates his learning in his poetry.yet he merely refers to various areas of thoughts.In this poetry  there are special features like.......

                            

1. unconventional
2. witty arguments
3. extra ordinery themes
4. blends very contrast ideas like love and death
5. has an additional vowels
6. sees the similarity between the lover and his girl
7. displays the knowledge of philosophy,astronomy,religion,mythologyand geography
8. reflects understanding and influence of Rnaissance
9. syntax,wrong word order to emphasize
10. thems like love,death,religion and beauty

                                                           

Sonnets

The sonnets were not meant to be sungthough they were often mellifluous.the sonnet form evolved in Italy.It consisted of an octative,eight lines rhyming  abbaabba , and a sestet,six lines rhyming cdcdee or cdedce-fourteen lines all.The British imported the form and its worthy pioneers were Wyatt and Surrey. British poets adapt the form to suit the nature of their language. They divide the sonnet into three quartrains, four lines each rhyming ababcdcdefef , and a couplet at the end, rhyming gg. Perhaps the British were forced to use seven rhymes where as the Italians employed five partly, because English is a less inflected language than Italian and as a consequance, offers a less rhyming syllables.

                                                                        Philip Sidney and Edmund Spencer helped to create a vouge for sonnets.Therefore when Shakespeare began writing,he found available a standered form and a mass of conventional matter. His sonnets contain stock themes and stock language, yet he has placed his stamp on whole series.his sonnets do not simply pivot round the traditional relationship between the lover-poet and his lady-muse.eg;Full Many a Glorious Morning..............,Shall I Comparethee to a Summer's day...............,My Mistress'Eyes...... etc.

Elizabethan Poetry

King Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558.No noteworthy writing appeared during the first ten years of her reign which was a period of 'nation-building'.The great Elizabethan Age is usually dated from 1579.

                                                                        The Elizabethan Age was an extraordinarily fertile period in the history of English music and song.Music and song were an integral part of the way of life of every segment of society-the courtiers,the upper class, the ordinery towns folk  and countrymen. In this period, there appeared outstanding composers like "William Byrd,Orlando Gibbons,Jhon Dowland,Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Morley.It  was a habbit and also a fashion among the educated to write poems.Those poems could be sung.The bulk express stock themes, situations and attitudes in stock language, and the best among them are simple and tuneful,yet do not matter as poetry. Still, writers such as Spencer,Sidney,Daniel,Drayton and Campion manage to retain something individual even as they write within convention.

Ballads

Ballads are short narrative poems.Those have transmitted orally from generation to generation and from society to society.Later they were written down. They were sung, often with accompaniment and dance before audience.Since ballads were passed on by word of mouth, several genuine versions (equally)of a single ballad exist.Also more than one tune can be seen for a single ballad.

                                                                                          The popular ballad is essentially a primitive form of art.It expresses the thoughts and feelings of small and simple,rather isolated societies. It flourished mainly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.The origins of popullar ballads are complex.they cannot be assigned to single authors.In early theories ballads are regarded as the coperate expression of the folk.resent research brings out the importance of bard,the singer of tales,in shaping ballads and transmitting them.He occupied the privileged position in primitive societies. He contributed to the versions he sang.He was the agent of transmitting ballads.Still he was virtually the voice of his community. So it seems that ballads express group feelings and attitudes. 

Introduction to poetry

Since man was born,people have been talking about poetry in different terms.It can be a ballad,lyric,song or what so ever. Poetry has a natural flow of emotions and feelings.But the feelings alone would not have been enough.There must be always a fact that inspired the poets to write poems.There are reasons like natural beauty of the environment,social criticisms,ethnic conflicts,racial desegregation etc.Different poets have written on different themes. The theme depend on the fact as well as the period in which the poem composed.