Metaphysical Poetry :: essays papers

Metaphysical PoetryDiscuss the uses of metaphors of colonization in metaphysical poetryand/or Milton.Movement across or through space becomes a process of colonization of that space.During the period of Miltons paradise Lost as well as myriad of poetsconstruction of an epoque submerse in metaphysical literature, anumber of significant events both socio-political, entwined with asystematic religious metamorphism of the sixteenth and seventeenthcentury led to a time of unrest and discovery. The creators andauthors of work of this periods placed their emphasis not specific altogetheryon a level of morality or self ground but rather a rediscoveryof the body and soul, almost a edition of existensionalism or physicalcosmos with a geography. All things are subject to the Mind... Itmeasures in one thought the whole circumference of heaven and by the analogous line it takes the geography of the earth. The seas, the air, thefire alone things of either, are within the cognition of t he mind.It has an influence on them all, whence it lakes all that may beuseful, all that may be helpful in government. No limitation is decreed to it, no restriction is upon it, but in a free sphere it hasa liberty upon all. And in this liberty is the excellence of the mindin this power and composition of the mind is perfection of a man... Manis an authoritative master of himself his own safety, and tranquillity byGod... are made aquiline on himself.1 In this short example ofPuritanism text as it stands, completely contains a number of variousreferences to the process of colonization, of expanding, perceiving allgeographically and manipulating, devising man or perhaps morespecifically the colonisers omniscient and God-like. The social re fixerself-reliant and independent with the knowledge that God is hisguardian of safety and tranquillity. In this particular the growingnumber of Puritans played a significant fictitious character both in the cultivationand transformation of the Christian religion and strange territories.The Puritans themselves comprised of those in the Church of Englandunhappy with limitations of the Elizabethan Settlement some werePresbyterians, and all were to some extent or other Calvinists (thoughnot all Calvinists were Puritans). They were a people of scrupulousmoral rigour and favoured plain styles of dress, detesting any form ofluxury or decadence. The name Puritan later became a catch-all enunciatefor the disparate groups who led much of the New World colonization andwon the English Civil Wars. New World colonization began as azoic as1480 by English seamen performing spectacular feats of exploration