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Metaphysical poet
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Portrait of poet John Donne George Herbert
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Portrait of poet John Donne
Portrait of poet John Donne John Donne, detail of an oil painting by an unknown artist, after Isaac Oliver, c. 1616; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Metaphysical poet

English literature
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History

Metaphysical poet, any of the poets in 17th-century England who inclined to the personal and intellectual complexity and concentration that is displayed in the poetry of John Donne, the chief of the Metaphysicals. Others include Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, John Cleveland, and Abraham Cowley as well as, to a lesser extent, George Herbert and Richard Crashaw. Their work is a blend of emotion and intellectual ingenuity, characterized by conceit or “wit”—that is, by the sometimes...

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