Samuel Johnson was first to point out the similarities in style and content of some poets of the Jacobean and Carolinian periods
. Choose the correct words to complete the passage below. Metaphysical poetry in the ____ century broke away from conventions of lyric poetry. The difference is apparent in the choice of ____imagery, intellectual wordplay, and the use of colloquial language. John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and George Herbert wrote in this style.
First blank options
A) fifteenth
B)seventeenth
C)nineteenth
D)eighteenth
Second Blank Options A) Natural B) cacophonous C) Scientific D) Euphonious
Metaphysical poetry in the seventeenth century broke away from conventions of lyrical poetry. The difference is apparent in the choice of cacophonous imagery...
Johnson put five poets in this category: John Donne, Andrew Marvel, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and Henry Vaughan. However, they never worked as an organized literary movement. They didn't even read each other. It is only today that we can consider them akin.
As for cacophonous imagery, it was one of their foremost characteristics. The word choices and similes would often be shocking and unusual, not just for their own time but even later. For example, comparing two lovers' souls with two compasses in Donne's A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.
