Metaphysical poets of Wotton himself that prefaced the collection of Wotton's works in 1651. A life of George Herbert followed them in 1670. The links between Donne’s elegists were thus of a different order from those between Donne and his circle of friends, often no more than professional acquaintanceship. And once the poetic style had been launched, its tone and approach remained available as a model for later writers who might not necessarily commit themselves so wholly to it. Metaphysical poets The term metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose
Ebenezer Cooke (poet) Ebenezer Cooke (poet) Ebenezer Cooke ( – ), a London-born poet, wrote what some scholars consider the first American satire: "The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr" (1708). He was fictionalized by John Barth as the comically innocent protagonist of "The Sot-Weed Factor", a novel in which a series of fantastic misadventures leads Cooke to write his poem. Little is known about the life of Cook (sometimes spelled "Cooke", but spelled Cook in his published works). It is known that Cooke, like the persona of his poem, voyaged to Maryland as a young man. He entered the