Lope de Vega and the Early Conception of Metaphysical Poetry

A LTHOUGH the term has been used to describe the poetry of Donne and his followers, little attention has been paid to its original significance other than the recognition that it was somewhat derisive. Dryden first used the word metaphysics rather facetiously in describing the poetry of Donne, but it was Dr. Johnson who gave metaphysical poetry its critical meaning when he used it in his Life of Cowley as an unfavorable criticism of the poetry and wit of the early seventeenth century.' Though nineteenth-century writers found Johnson's use of the word inappropriate, in the twentieth century it was considered a perfect description of a certain type of poetry, and H. J. Grierson, T. S. Eliot, and others popularized it as a term of praise.2 These writers first defined in a broad sense as a style or mode employed in different epochs by certain philosophical