Chapter 9 - Metaphysical Subjects and Cavalier Objects in Seventeenth-Century Plant Lyrics

Summary

Seventeenth-century Cavalier poetry (by Jonson, Waller, Lovelace, Suckling, and Herrick) tends to focus on what the poet predictably wants from the material world, often based on analogies between plants and the desired objects, which are often young women. Metaphysical poetry of the same period (by King, Herbert, Donne, Whitney, Wroth, and Vaughan) focuses instead, often by a plant metaphor, on what the poet is, fears to be, and wishes to be. For the Cavalier poets, plants are primarily objects of sensual appetite: focal points of the male gaze, fruit for erotic cravings, and instruments of the carpe diem tradition. For the Metaphysical poets of the same period, plants are usually metaphors for the speakers’ own subjectivity, and instruments of the project of the nosce te ipsum tradition: knowing oneself matters more than seducing others. Other poets (Fane, Marvell, Traherne, and Lanyer) actively resist that binary distinction. Great House poems and feminist perspectives illuminate the social stakes in the opposing poetic tendencies.