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The Metaphysical Poets
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T.S. Eliot Poet John Donne
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T.S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot American-English poet T.S. Eliot published his essay “The Metaphysical Poets” (1921) as a defense of the 17th-century poets by that name and as a creative manifesto.

The Metaphysical Poets

How T.S. Eliot’s defense of 17th-century poets doubled as a Modernist manifesto.
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René Ostberg
RenĂ© Ostberg is an associate editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
René Ostberg
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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History

“The Metaphysical Poets” is an essay published by American-English poet T.S. Eliot in 1921 that became an influential piece of literary criticism. The essay helped stir 20th-century interest in and appreciation for the Metaphysical poets of the 17th century, which included John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and George Herbert. In the essay Eliot argues that the work of these poets embodies a fusion of thought and feeling that later poets were unable to achieve. He introduced his...

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