Blackwell Reference Online

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The supposed rupture between thought and feeling in the seventeenth century. T.S. E liot coined the term in his essay on “The metaphysical poets” in 1921, describing it as “something which happened to the mind of England between the time of Donne … and the time of Tennyson” so that sensibility ceased to be “unified” and poets “thought and felt by fits, unbalanced.” Eliot later noted that it “had a success in the world astonishing to its author,” and it in fact became the foundation of an entire revisionist literary history, especially in the work of F.R. L eavis and the New Critics. Later critics have shown that it is extremely doubtful whether any such historical event actually took place. See also B rooks , C leanth ; N ew C riticism ; T ate , A llen 1951 : “Contributions to a dictionary of critical terms. II: Dissociation of sensibility.” . 1921 (1975) : “The metaphysical poets.” 1957 : The Romantic Image . ... log in or subscribe to read full text