Metaphysical poets Flecknoe" and Joseph Addison, in quoting him, singled out the poetry of George Herbert as providing a flagrant example. 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, writing for the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", singles 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. Herbert Grierson’s "Metaphysical
Metaphysical poets the start of the 20th century. Edward Taylor, who is now counted as the outstanding English-language poet of North America, was only discovered in 1937. Grierson attempted to characterise the main traits of Metaphysical poetry in the introduction to his anthology. For him it begins with a break with the formerly artificial style of their antecedents to one free from poetic diction or conventions. Johnson acknowledged as much in pointing out that their style was not to be achieved “by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery and hereditary similes”. Another characteristic singled out by