TY - BOOK ID - 1828100 TI - Metaphysical wit PY - 1991 SN - 0521340276 0521035295 0511553390 9780521340274 PB - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Poetry KW - Comparative literature KW - Thematology KW - anno 1500-1799 KW - Metaphysics in literature KW - Literature, Comparative KW - English poetry KW - English wit and humor KW - European and English KW - History and criticism KW - English and European KW - Arts and Humanities KW - Literature KW - Literature, Comparative - European and English KW - English poetry - Early modern, 1500-1700 - History and criticism KW - English wit and humor - History and criticism KW - Literature, Comparative - English and European KW - Metaphysics in literature. KW - History and criticism. KW - English and European. KW - European and English. KW - Philology UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:1828100 AB - English metaphysical poetry, from Donne to Marvell, is notoriously witty. In this 1992 book, A. J. Smith seeks the reason for the central importance of wit in the thinking of the metaphysical poets and argues that metaphysical wit is essentially different from other modes of wit current in Renaissance Europe. Formal theories and rhetorics of wit are considered both for their theoretical import and their appraisals of wit in practice. Prevailing fashions of witty invention are scrutinized in Italian, French and Spanish writings, so as to bring out the nature and effect of various forms of wit: conceited, hieroglyphic, transformational and others from which the metaphysical mode is distinguished. He locates the basis of Renaissance wit in the received conception of the created order and a theory of literary innovation inherent in Humanist belief, which led to novel couplings of time and eternity, body and soul, man and God. ER -