John Milton, Thomas Carew, Sir William Davenant, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Sir Walter Ralegh, Robert Southwell, John Donne and Richard Crashaw are some of the 17th century poets who became known as metaphysical. In this anthology, Dame Helen Gardner has collected together those poets who, although never self consciously a school, did possess in common certain features of argument and powerful persuasion.