The term "metaphysical poetry" is commonly used to name the work of the 17th-century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne (1572-1631). With a rebellious spirit, the metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. The diction is simple as compared with that of the Elizabethan or the Neoclassic periods, and echoes the words and cadences of common speech. The imagery is drawn from the actual life. The form is frequently that of an argument with the poet's beloved, with God, or with himself. Donne and his followers, due to the change of the taste, were rarely read during the 18th and early 19th centuries. However, the late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed a renewed interest in Donne and other metaphysical poets. This new recognition has arisen from a realization of the seriousness of their art, an interest in their spirit of revolt, their realism, and other affinities with modern interests, as well as from the fact that they produced some fine poetry. T. S. Eliot, John Ransom, and Allen Tate are examples of modern poets who have been mostly affected by the metaphysical influence.

John Donne is the leading figure of the "metaphysical school.“ His poems give a more inherently theatrical imssion by exhibiting a seemingly unfocused spanersity of experiences and attitudes, and a free range of feelings and moods. The mode is dynamic rather than static, with ingenuity of speech, vividness of imagery and vitality of rhythms, which show a notable contrast to the other Elizabethan lyric poems which are pure, serene, tuneful, and smooth-running. The most striking feature of Donne's poetry is cisely its tang of reality, in the sense that it seems to reflect life in a real rather than a poetical world. Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, Marvell and Cowley are also considered to be metaphysical poets.

Donne was born into a prosperous merchant family. His early education was attended to by a private tutor; then he studied both at Oxford and Cambridge, but left without taking a degree because of his Roman Catholic background. In 1591, Donne began his legal studies at the Inns of Court in London, where he spent much of his time studying law, languages, literature, and theology.

Upon completing his studies, Donne became private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, the eminent Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. His great prospects of the worldly success were ruined by his secret marriage with lady Egerton's niece, Ann More in 1601. For over ten years from then on, Donne had been working hard, fighting against poverty. Donne's conversion to Anglicanism had no single date, rather it was a gradual process. In 1615, after a final attempt at secular ferment, John Donne entered the Anglican Church and took orders. Donne took his new vocation seriously and performed his holy duties exceptionally well, acquiring a great reputation as an imssive deliverer of insightful sermons. After his wife's death in 1617, Donne wrote little secular poetry; instead, he devoted all his time and efforts to his priestly duties, writing sermons and religious poems. Donne was appointed the Dean of St. Paul's in 1621 and kept that post until his death.

In his life, Donne wrote a large number of poems and prose works. Most of The Elegies and Satires and a good many of The Songs and Sonnets were written in the early period. He wrote his prose works mainly in the later period. His sermons, which are very famous, reveal his spiritual devotion to God as a passionate acher.

The Songs and Sonnets, by which Donne is probably best known, contains most of his early lyrics. Love is the basic theme. Donne holds that the nature of love is the union of soul and body. The operations of the soul depend on the body. The perfection of human lovers will not be made with souls alone. This thought is quite contrary to the medieval love idea which merely put stress on spiritual love. What is more, idealism and cynicism about love coexist in Donne's love poetry. On the one hand, Donne, in love of his wife, finds the meaning and the infinite value Of love; on the other hand, he is concerned with the change and death confronting human love. He sometimes exsses the futility and instability of love in his poems. In his gloomy poem "Farewell to Love," we can see his disillusionment. When eulogizing a woman, Donne tells us very little about her physical beauty; the charms of rosy cheeks, and lips like cherry can not be seen in his lines. Instead, Donne’s interest lies in dramatizing and illustrating the state of being in love. This is also distinctive from the Petrarchan sonneteers who paid so much attention to physical charms.

Donne's chief power as a religious poet is shown in the Holy Sonnets and the last hymns. Only in A Hymn to God the Father do we find an assured faith; elsewhere there is always an element of conflict or doubt. The best of the Holy Sonnets exss these struggles with unparalleled force.

In his poetry, Donne frequently applies conceits, i.e. extended metaphors involving dramatic contrasts. His conceits may be spanided into two kinds: easy ones and difficult ones. Easy conceits, found in all Elizabethan poetry with images concerning mythology and natural objects, are not a novelty; but the difficult ones rely largely on the choice of imagery. Donne’s images are linked with new resources such as law, psychology and philosophy which endow his poetry with learning and wit, and which provide certain intellectual difficulties. By combining the easy conceits with the difficult ones, Donne achieves surprisingly good effects in his poetry.

Donne's poetry involves a certain kind of argument, sometimes in rigid syllogistic form. He seems to be speaking to an imagined hearer, raising the topic and trying to persuade, convince or upbraid him. With the brief, simple language, the argument is continuous throughout the poem. It begins with a certain idea but ends in quite a contrary one. It is not only playful but paradoxical; it is not only witty, but implies different kinds of feelings, which can only be interted through the rhythms and inflections of the verse.

Donne's great prose works are his sermons, which are both rich and imaginative, exhibiting the same kind of physical vigor and scholastic complexity as his poetry. As a matter of fact, his weekly sermons are an intellectual exercise supplying food for thought, a purging of conscience, and a study of rhetoric. Some of Donne's sermons are carefully contrived with a dramatic, irregular immediacy to exss a concern with personal quest for religious experience rather than settled certainties. And it is the obsession with death that characterizes Donne's mature religious works.