Abstract
Norris wrote practically no poetry after 1687. Perhaps like Coleridge he found good poetry and good philosophy incompatible, but no more than Coleridge did he pursue poetry as a side-track while maintaining his main interest elsewhere. It may be that Norris’s poetry would be less easily identifiable with the Metaphysical tradition had he gone on writing verse after 1687, but as it is, even as the last of the Metaphysicals, Norris reveals an involvement in the forces and forms of poetry which succeeded the Metaphysical tradition. This is inevitable given the date of Norris’s poetry; what is remarkable is that Norris’s poems are so strongly and homogeneously marked by the Metaphysical tradition.
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References
John Norris, A Murnivall of Knaves: or Whiggism Plainly Displayed and (if not grown shameless) Burlesqued out of Countenance (London: James Norris, 1683), Dedication. Quoted in G. Walton, p. 141.
Thomas Heyrick, “On an Indian Tomincios, the Least of Birds,” Miscellany Poems (1961) Printed in Rare Poems, ed. Marshall, p. 111.
Thomas Fletcher, “The Impatient,” Poems on Several Occasions, and Translations Printed in ibid., p. 97.
Edward Taylor, Sacramental Meditations, I, 19, in Poems, ed. Donald E. Stanford (2nd ed. abridged; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963 ), p. 32.
Robert Blair, The Grave (1743), Chalmers, XV, 66.
John Norris, The Picture of Love Unveiled. Made English from the Latin of Amoris Effigies. To which are prefixed, I. A. brief account of the author and translator. 2. Some reflections upon love and beauty (4th ed.; London, 1744), Preface. Waring’s work was published in 1649 and Norris’er’s Song to his Ms translation in 1682.
Oswald Doughty, English Lyrics in the Age of Reason (London: D. O’Connor, 1922), and Forgotten Lyrics of the 18th Century ( London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 1924 ).
William Blake, “Song,” Poetry and Prose, ed. Geoffrey Keynes ( London: Nonesuch Press, 1956 ), p. 9.
Elizabeth Rowe, “ Laplander’s Song to his Mistress,” Poems on Several Occasions, To which is prefixed An Account of the Life and Writings of the Author (London: D. Midwinter, 1767), p. 188. For a detailed account of the history of the Lapland Cult, see Frank Edgar Farley, “Three Lapland Songs,” Publications of the Modern Language Association, XXI (1906), 1–39.
Thomas Fletcher, “Song,” Poems on Several Occasions and Translations (1692). Printed in Rare Poems, ed. Marshall, p. 96.
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© 1971 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Hoyles, J. (1971). Poetry: The Last of the Metaphysicals. In: The Waning of the Renaissance 1640–1740. International Archives of the History of Ideas/ Archives internationales d’histoire des ideés, vol 39. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3008-3_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3008-3_10
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