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
Metaphysical Society much love"; Tennyson, "because after ten years of strenuous effort no one had succeeded in even defining metaphysics." According to Dean Stanley, "We all meant the same thing if we only knew it." The members from first to last were as follows: Citations Metaphysical Society The Metaphysical Society was a British society, founded in 1869 by James Knowles. Many of its members were prominent clergymen. Papers were read and discussed at meetings on such subjects as the ultimate grounds of belief in the objective and moral sciences, the immortality of the soul, etc. A description of one of the meetings