【正文】
? Metaphysical poetry highly intellectual poetry characterized by bold and ingenious conceits, incongruous imagery, plexity of thought, frequent use of paradox, and often by deliberate harshness or rigidity of expression The main themes are love, death, and religion. The chief representative of the school was John Donne ? Conceit is an elaborate, often extravagant metaphor making an analogy between totally dissimilar things. Love is a spider which dropped into the wine of life, turns it to poison. ? Characteristics of his poems: ? dazzling wordplay, often explicitly sexual。 subtle argumentation。 surprising contrasts。 colloquial language。 irregular meter。 intricate psychological analysis。 and striking imagery selected from nontraditional areas such as law, physiology, scholastic philosophy, astronomy and mathematics which endow his poems with learning and wit and also make them difficult to understand. ? John Donne39。s masculine, ingenious style is characterized by abru