The Baroque and the Neoclassical Poetry in the 17-th-century English literature

The two great styles of the 17th century which shaped themselves on the basis of the social-cultural and aesthetic changes were baroque and neoclassicism.

Baroque extends from the late 16 to about the middle of the 18th century; as a period it embraces the art beginning with that of late Michelangelo and ending with rococo. Baroque is the art of restless oppositions, of violent clashes, of polarities bought momentarily into precarious balances and of passions briefly brought under control, be it in architecture, or painting, or writing. Its philosophy is that of sudden and dramatic change, its belief is that of constant flux and disbelief in anything permanent. Baroque is an art of paradox and deceit, illusion-making and illusion breaking.

Its hallmark is a passionate and stylized language of metaphysical poets like John Donne, Andrew Marvell, as well as John Dryden.

Neoclassicism (from late L. classicus = a model) bases itself on three principles. First, its underlying philosophy is that of rationalism. For this reason a neoclassicist poet would think in terms of abstract types rather than individual characters. The obvious outcome is that lyrical poetry would be undernourished. Second, the neoclassicist drama sets fixed rules for the artists of all ages and all nations. Basing themselves on Aristotle’s Poetics neoclassicists set up the rule of three unities – of space, time, and dramatic action. They believed the dramatic art would gain in expressiveness if the action were laid in one location, taking up 24 hours to develop.

Third, neoclassicists were Greek and Roman culture oriented. They thought Roman art to be the model to follow.

The greatest among English neoclassicist poets is John Milton.

Baroque, John Donne, and the Metaphysical Poets

The seventeenth-century period in English literature means, in chronological terms, the period from the 1620s to the 1690s. Two facts need be mentioned as having a certain impact on the development of literature then, one is the development of science, primarily mathematics, physics and astronomy, the other is the development of writing as a lay profession, together with literary criticism. Note that the 17th century science pursued experiment as the main strategy of research, and also, the first attempts to earn one’s living by writing, i.e. by publishing one’s works were recorded then. As for the beginnings of literary criticism, there are found in the work of John Dryden (1631-1700), a playwright, poet, and critic, e.g. ‘Of Dramatic Poesy’ (1668).

I suggest our focusing first on the 17-century baroque poetry.

It is known through the work of the so-called metaphysical poets (the definition coined by Dr. Samuel Johnson in his 2-volume work The Lives of the English Poets, 1779-81), namely Andrew Marvell (1627-1678), George Herbert (1593-1633), Richard Crashaw (1612-1649), Henry Vaughau (1622-1695) and John Donne (1572-1631).

Let us turn to Donne’s poems, as he is definitely the Poet from the capital ‘P’ in the group. What makes his poetry written three centuries ago so vivid to a contemporary reader? Mind, I do not mean to say that his poetry is popular, or that it is often read on the Underground, or that it is found in every person’s library (though some of this may be true to some Russian readers, thanks to Brodsky’s and Kruzhkov’s translations of Donne’s poems into Russian). Yet to the English readers, Donne’s poetry which had long been neglected became familiar as a result of the critical revaluation accomplished by T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and other modernist writers and critics of the early 20th century (see T.S. Eliot’s essay Metaphysical Poets, 1921). A proof of this can be found in the much quoted title-cum-epigraph to Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, which comes from Donne’s Book of Pray and Meditations (1623):