Why were the metaphysical poets given that name?

It was Samuel Johnson who first referred to certain 17th-century English lyric poets as “metaphysical.”  The group is most readily defined by such writers as John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, and Henry Vaughan.  Johnson’s appellation stuck as an appropriate moniker due to the heavy use of metaphysical conceits in these poets’ works – at a time when poetry was mostly composed of mythological allusions and natural imagery, these artists were focusing on more spiritual motifs, weaving religious and philosophical contemplations into their works.  They examined the soul as subject, from the perspectives of classical philosophy and also from a more occult spiritual viewpoint.  Johnson described the movement as being characterized by a “discordia concors” -- the use of seemingly incongruous images and comparisons which nonetheless work together to create an almost ethereal emotive image and challenge the reader to view the subject from a wholly new perspective.  A popular example is the extensive comparison of two lovers’ souls to a draftsman’s compass in John Donne’s “A Valediction:  Forbidden Mourning:”

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Metaphysics is the philosophy of human experience; it attempts to understand the nature of our existence and the limitations of our perception.  The metaphysical poets struck out to address these questions in verse.  In addition, metaphysical poetry is generally very witty and clever, taking an intellectual approach to often very sensual themes.  “The Flea,” also by John Donne, is a prime example, in which he writes,

Oh stay! three lives in one flea spare
Where we almost, yea more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage-bed and marriage-temple is

Here the speaker is attempting to convince his new bride to sleep with him, though she has reservations.  He uses a flea that has already bitten them both as a persuasion –  within the creature their blood is already mixed, and they are therefore already as one.

So we can see that these poets, though they were only loosely affiliated in real life, separated themselves from the standard of their era with their intellectual, philosophical contemplations on love, God, the human condition, the true nature of things, and the relationship between all of these ideas.  They were bold and unpredictable in their metaphors and sought to explore the spiritual in verse.