Concepts of Harmony in Five Metaphysical Poets

The present monograph Concepts of Harmony in Five Metaphysical Poets analyses the significance of Pythagorean cosmology for the understanding the world and man in the English Renaissance. The author perceives Pythagorean cosmology as a key concept for the arts in the Renaissance, especially music and poetry. A gradual wane in the belief of the concept of a universal cosmic harmony is markedly reflected in the work of the five major "metaphysical poets" under study: Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Marvell and Crashaw. They struggle to keep the metaphorical potency of the Pythagorean concept while stressing the process of their language experiments. However, this leads to a general metaphorization of the world: the mission of the poet shifts from interpreting universal truths about the world and the human fate in it to keeping the power of poetic language as the very instrument of such metaphorization. In that sense, this struggle for harmonising the "un-musical"or "mute" nature of the universe has ever since become one of the main challenges of poetry.