THE METAPHYSICAL POETS - The Metaphysical Poets 1921 essay

Sep 20, 2026

Uploaded by Patrick

T. S. Eliot’s 1921 essay “The Metaphysical Poets” presents key arguments about poetry and the “dissociation of sensibility.” It discusses how the seventeenth-century metaphysical poets formed a distinct movement or school, outlines their characteristic fault, and explains their unification of sensibility—fusion of thought and feeling into a single faculty. Eliot contrasts this with later English poetry’s loss of such unity and draws parallels with nineteenth-century French Symbolists, especially Jules Laforgue.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time6 min

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“The English Metaphysical Poets”

The metaphysical as a movement or school

Unification versus dissociation of sensibility

Elizabethans and poetic unity

Parallels with French Symbolists

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THE METAPHYSICAL POETS:

In his 1921 essay ‘The Metaphysical Poets’, T. S. Eliot made several of his most famous and important statements about poetry – including, by implication, his own poetry. It isin this essay that Eliot puts forward his well-known idea of the‘dissociation of sensibility’, among other theories.
“The English Metaphysical Poets”
T.S. Eliot begins this essay first published as a review of J.G. Grierson’s edition of metaphysical lyrics and poems of the 17 th century with Dr. Johnson’s use of the phrase “metaphysical poetry” as a term of abuse or as the label of quaint and pleasant taste.
The main concern of this essay is to what extent the so called
metaphysical formed a school and how far this school is a digression from the main current. He also points out the characteristic fault of the metaphysical poets.
Although the metaphysical poets were a distinctly English ‘movement’or ‘school’ (Eliot uses both words, while acknowledging that they are modern descriptions grouping together a quite disparate number of poets), Eliot also draws some interesting parallels between the seventeenth-century English
metaphysical poets and nineteenthcentury French Symbolist poets like Jules Laforgue, whose work Eliot much admired.
Eliot says that the metaphysical poets possessed unification of sensibility, which some later poets like Milton, Dryden, Tennyson, etc. lacked. But in later the 17th century, a ‘Dissociation of sensibility’ set in from which English poetry has never recovered. By ‘sensibility’ he means a synthetic faculty, a faculty and feeling, which can fuse into a single whole the varied and disparate, often opposite and contradictory experiences.
He says that the Elizabethans had such sensibility. As they widely read, they thought on what they read, and their thinking and learning modified their mode of feeling. Eliot provides concrete illustrations to show that such unification of sensibility, such fusion of thought and feeling is present in the poetry of the metaphysicals. After the
metaphysicals, a change came over English capacity of uniting poetry.

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FAQs

What is “dissociation of sensibility” in Eliot’s essay?

Eliot argues that “dissociation of sensibility” set in from later in the seventeenth century, after the metaphysical poets, and English poetry never recovered from it. He links it to a loss of the ability to fuse thought and feeling into a unified faculty.

How does Eliot describe the metaphysical poets as a movement or school?

Eliot says the metaphysical poets were a distinctly English “movement” or “school,” while noting that these are modern descriptions grouping very diverse poets. His concern includes how far this “school” digresses from the main current.

Which later poets does Eliot contrast with the metaphysical poets?

Eliot contrasts the metaphysical poets’ unification of sensibility with later poets such as Milton, Dryden, and Tennyson, which he says lacked that unity. He also connects the metaphysicals’ qualities to Elizabethan sensibility.

Sep 20, 2026

Uploaded by Patrick