Read-along
The Metaphysical Poets
The argument is everything.
- Next cohort
- Next cohort 30 October
- Length
- Length 14 days
Fourteen poems by John Donne and Andrew Marvell, one a day for two weeks. The metaphysical poets believed a poem was an argument, and an argument could be a love letter, a seduction, a meditation on death, a prayer that sounds almost like a threat. Donne used a flea, a compass, a sundial, a skull. Marvell used time itself, a garden, a drop of water. Both believed the body and the soul were not opposites but the same problem, and that the most serious things could only be said slant, through wit.
Read one big book alongside other readers, a day at a time. Cohorts set off on the date above.
The first button needs the app on this device; the second gets it there.
Day by day
- Day 1. The FleaJohn Donne, 3 min
- Day 2. The Sun RisingJohn Donne, 3 min
- Day 3. To His Coy MistressAndrew Marvell, 3 min
- Day 4. The CanonizationJohn Donne, 3 min
- Day 5. The Definition of LoveAndrew Marvell, 3 min
- Day 6. The ExtasieJohn Donne, 3 min
- Day 7. A Valediction: Forbidding MourningJohn Donne, 3 min
- Day 8. The GardenAndrew Marvell, 3 min
- Day 9. Air and AngelsJohn Donne, 3 min
- Day 10. A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's DayJohn Donne, 3 min
- Day 11. Good Friday, 1613, Riding WestwardJohn Donne, 3 min
- Day 12. Death Be Not ProudJohn Donne, 3 min
- Day 13. Batter My HeartJohn Donne, 3 min
- Day 14. On a Drop of DewAndrew Marvell, 3 min