My Reflection on Flipped Learning Task : Metaphysical Poetry by Dr Rajendrakumar K. Mandaliya

I am obliged to write this reflective blog as the influence of the way we were taught in the subject of metaphysical poetry by revered professor Dr Rajendra K. Mandaliya from SP University - Anand has been carved an unexpungeable impression on the students' minds. We have had an expert lecture on the unit of metaphysical poetry through the medium of flipped learning method and the awaited speaker was Dr Mandaliya who lucidly made students to get along with metaphysical poems.

It has been remarkable experience of having seen the videos and taken dictation provided by sir. So, here I would like to give the glimpse of what I got from the flipped learning and especially review on the revered teacher. I hope that the fellows might have echoed as same as I have done. We were assigned to learn from the pre-uploaded videos of Dr Mandaliya Sir. Here I begin how great and impressive experience it has been and what impact it encapsulates through the means of flipped learning even being poems of serious tone but taught in sublime method by sir.

First I will reflect the experience I have got during learning through digital means. The process was altogether well from the beginning to end. One interesting thing I found which was to get the dictation at your pleasure in case if you miss a word or a sentence by means of play and pause functions available on Youtube platform. This is one of the many benefits to learn from online mediums. Another thing is that one can get quality learning by dint of online tools even being at distant places, especially in hard times like Corona Lockdown and curfew - despite what the teaching and learning process have found its way to reach out to those who are victims of such weary situations.

It is my personal experience that whatever sir has given us in those nine days is unique in itself for sir is devoted in poetry teching as the matter of fact. We never ever felt at loss throughout the sessions for sir was facilitating the way amidst the strange woods of metaphysical poets' words and far-fetched conceits which they employed to stand unique from their predecessors.

Now let us go to the subject - Metaphysical Poetry itself.

☆ What is Metaphysical Poetry :

• Merriem-Webster defines the term 'Netaphysics' as : 'abstract philosophical studies : a study of what is outside objective experience'

The word 'Metaphysics' is made up of two Latin words : 'Meta' meaning 'Beyond' and 'Physics' meaning 'Material Existence;' so, combined together, both the terms mean 'Beyond the Materialistic or Physical Approach.'

☆ Dr Samuel Johnson on Metaphysical Poetry :

In the chapter on Abraham Cowley in his Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779–81), Samuel Johnson refers to the beginning of the 17th century in which there "appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets". This does not necessarily imply that he intended "metaphysical"" to be used in its true sense, in that he was probably referring to a witticism of John Dryden, who said of John Donne:

"He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love. In this...Mr. Cowley has copied him to a fault."

There is no scholarly consensus regarding which English poets or poems fit within the Metaphysical genre. In his initial use of the term, Johnson quoted just three poets: Abraham Cowley, John Donne, and John Cleveland. Colin Burrow later singled out John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, and Richard Crashaw as 'central figures', while naming many more, all or part of whose work has been identified as sharing its characteristics.

☆ Characteristics of Metaphysical Poetry :

When Dr. Johnson used the term metaphysical poetry, it was in a negative sense , to criticise the poetry of Donne and his followers. But with the passing of the time the tone of the term was changed and it became a term of appraisal, giving merit to the School of Donne.

Dr. Samuel Johnson highlights certain characteristics of metaphysical poetry.

• The first characteristic is that all metaphysicals were the men of learning and scholarship by becoming scholarly in the writing of their poems. They wanted to distinguish themselves from the Elizabethan age and so they used difficult language in their poems.

• According to Semual Johnson the poetry of Donne and his followers stood a trial of their finger but not a trial of their ears. The meaning is, they were scholars in the writing of poetry but there is no music or rhythm in the metaphysical poetry. All the metaphysicals were scholars and they could prove it but they could not prove that they loved music.

• Far fetched images and conceits is the most remarkable feature of the metaphysical poetry. Those poets were not happy with the routine images used by the Elizabethans. They wanted to bring new images to distinguish themselves, and so they need their images from different field like biology, science, agriculture and engineering. Sometimes they depended upon geometry also to bring their images. And to use them for the writing of their poems. George Hurbert’s “Pulley” and Marvel’s poem with the best “ to His coy Mistress” are the best examples.

• One critic Helen.C.White depends the metaphysical poets stating that:

“ It was the demand of time for Donne and his School to write poetry in a different way. Had they presented the theme of love and Christianity in the same manner, just like the Elizabethans, they would have been rejected by the readers. Change was the demand of time and they gave that change in their poetry.”

• One more critic Helen Gardener mentions that :

“ Donne and his School changed the whole perspective of writing poetry. They wrote poems in a way in which it was not even imagined by others”

☆ Some of the Major Metaphysical Poems :

~> John Donne (1572-1631) :

(1) Death, Be not Proud :

The speaker directly addresses and personifies Death, telling it not to be arrogant just because some people find death scary and intimidating. In fact, death is neither of these things because people don’t really die when death—whom the speaker pities—comes to them; nor will the speaker truly die when death arrives for him.

Comparing death to rest and sleep—which are like images of death—the speaker anticipates death to be even more pleasurable than these activities. Furthermore, it’s often the best people who go with death—which represents nothing more than the resting of the body and the arrival of the soul in the afterlife.

Death is fully controlled by fate and luck, and often administered by rulers or people acting desperately. The speaker points out that death is also associated with poison, war, and illness. Drugs and magic spells are more effective than death when it comes to rest. With all this in mind, what possible reason could death have for being so puffed up with pride?

Death is nothing but a mere sleep in between people’s earthly lives and the eternal afterlife, in which death can visit them no more. It is instead death—or a certain idea of death as something to be scared of—that is going to die.

(2) Flea :

Look at this flea and you'll see how small the thing that you deny me really is. It bit me first and now it bites you. In the flea, our two bloods are mingled together. You know that this isn’t sinful or shameful; it’s not a loss of virginity. And yet the flea gets to enjoy your blood without courting you first, and it grows fat digesting our combined blood. And that is more than we are allowed to do.

Wait, don’t kill the flea and kill us with it! In the flea’s body, we are almost, no, more than, married. The flea is you and me. It is our marriage bed, our wedding chapel. Though our parents’ disapprove, we are safe within these dark, living walls. Though you may want to kill me, do not add suicide and sacrilege to your list of sins: three sins will come from killing the flea.

Cruel and unpredictable woman, have you stained your nails purple with the flea’s innocent blood? The flea is guilty of nothing but sucking a drop of blood from you. Yet you exalt in your victory over the flea and say that neither you nor I are weaker for killing it. That’s true enough and you should learn from that how false your fears are. You will lose as much honor when you give your virginity to me as this flea’s death took from you.

(3) The Sun Rising :

Hey sun, you old, disruptive busybody, why are you shining past the windows and closed curtains to pay an uninvited visit to me and my girlfriend? Do lovers really have to structure their schedules around your movements across the sky? You rude, inflexible, and insensitive jerk, go scold boys who are late to school and apprentices who are sulky about their early morning. Go tell the king's hunting party that the king is about to ride out on a hunt, and urge lowly farm workers to start their harvesting duties. Love, in all its forms, is above the influence of seasons and weather. It is also above the influence of hours, days, and months, which, unlike love, wear out like old rags as time passes.

Why should you think your beams are so worshipped and strong? I could block them out by closing my eyes, except that I wouldn't want to stop looking at my lover that long. Assuming that her eyes aren't so bright that they've blinded yours, go check, and tomorrow evening tell me whether both the East Indies and West Indies are where you left them, or whether they are right here next to me. Ask to see the kings you saw yesterday, and you will hear that they are all lying here in this bed.

My lover is every country, and I am every prince. Nothing else exists. Princes only pretend to be us; compared to our love, all honor is a cheap copy, and all wealth is a futile attempt to attain riches. You, sun, should be half as glad as we are that the whole world fits here in the bedroom. Your old age demands that you take it easy. Because your job is to keep the world warm, you can do your job by keeping us warm. By shining here on us, you can shine everywhere; this bed is your center, and the bedroom walls are the outside boundaries of the solar system.

(4) The Extasie :

The poem, ‘The Ecstasy’, is a clear and coherent expression of Donne’s philosophy of love. Donne agrees with Plato that true love is spiritual. It is a union of souls. But unlike Plato, Donne does not ignore the claims of the body. It is the body that brings the lovers together. Love begins in sensuous apprehension and spiritual love follows upon the sensuous. So the claims of the body must not be ignored. The union of bodies is as essential as the union of souls. Thus, Donne goes against the teachings of both Plato and the Christian Divines in his stresses on sensuous and physical basis even of spiritual love.

In this respect, he comes close to the Renaissance and Modern point of view. Indeed, for the first time, in this poem, the word ‘sex’ has been used in the modern sense. Donne’s emphasis on the physical basis of love is a measure of his realism. Indeed, despite all his metaphysical flights, the poet strikes an “earthly note”, when he ends the poem with the souls returning to their respective bodies and finding no change in them. ‘The Ecstasy’ is, in fact, one of the most “metaphysical” poems of Donne.

The passion and certainty of ‘The Ecstasy’ make it one of Donne’s greatest poems. At the same time, the realistic earthing of the poem’s metaphysic which takes place at the end makes it one of the most metaphysical, in terms of literary features, t of all his poems.

~> George Herbert (1593-1633) :

(1) The Collar :

‘The Collar’ by George Herbert is a thirty-six line poem about a speaker’s struggle for freedom. It was written by Herbert in 1633 while he struggled with his own religious beliefs. The poem does not conform to one particular rhyme scheme but jumps from half or slant rhymes to full end rhymes. There are a few moments that are more consistent in their patterns, such as the final four lines of the poem which rhyme abab. Herbert chose this pattern, or lack of pattern, to mimic the chaos of his speaker’s own thoughts.

The poem begins with the speaker stating that he will stand for his present life no longer. It is time for him to make a change and he intends to resurrect the parts of himself the lost in his youth. He will seek out real pleasures and no longer worry about what is right and wrong.

As the poem continues, the extent of his confinement is revealed. He has crafted a prison for himself out of his own belief. The ropes will no longer keep him and he will utilize his fears to his own benefit. He will be a stronger man.

The final lines bring the speaker back to his religious reality. The voice of God penetrates through his “rav[ing]” and calms his ardor. He will not do as he said he would; he has been taken back into the fold of the church.

~> Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) :

(1) To His Coy Mistress :

If we had all the time in the world, your prudishness wouldn't be a problem. We would sit together and decide how to spend the day. You would walk by the river Ganges in India and find rubies; I would walk by the river Humber in England and write my poems. I would love you from the very start of time, even before the Biblical Flood; you could refuse to consummate our relationship all the way until the apocalypse. My slow-growing love would gradually become bigger than the largest empires. I would spend a hundred years praising your eyes and gazing at your forehead and two hundred years on each of your breasts. I would dedicate thirty thousand years to the rest of your body and give an era of human history to each part of you. In the final age, your heart would reveal itself. Lady, you deserve this kind of dedication—and I don't want to accept any lesser kind of love.

But I am always aware of time, the way it flies by. For us, the future will be a vast, unending desert for all of time. Your beauty will be lost. In the grave, my songs in praise of you will no longer be heard. And worms will take the virginity you so carefully protected during life. Your honor will turn to dust and my desire will turn to ashes. The grave may be a quiet, private place—but no one has sex there.

Therefore, while your beauty sits right at the surface of your skin, and every pore of your body exudes erotic passion, let's have sex while we can. Let's devour time like lovesick birds of prey instead of lying about letting time eat away at us. Let's put together our strength and our sweetness and use it as a weapon against the iron gates of life. We may not be able to defeat time in this way, but at least we can make it work hard to take us.

☆ Conclusion :

Arriving to the conclusion of the topic, we shall find that the sea of English Poetry is quite an infinite one having pearls like metaphysical poets bright shining in the exposure of readers' and crutics' appreciation. Let us derive a sublime pleasure by squeezing the genius of such great poets.

Thank you!

¤ (Word Count : 2701)

☆ References :

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/jude-the-obscure/themes

https://poemanalysis.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_poets?wprov=sfla1