Eliot in his essay, "The Metaphysical Poets", in order to show that the metaphysical poets are not 'a digression from the main current' and they have a unified sensibility, makes a distinction between the Victorian poet(reflective) and the metaphysical poet (intellectual).

                According to Eliot, there is a gradual dissociation of sensibility between "the time of Donne or Lord Herbert of Cherbury and the time of Tennyson and Browning." According to Eliot, "Tennyson and Browning are poets, and they think; but they do not feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a size." But the metaphysical poets can feel as well as think - "A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility." Victorians poets either feel or think. They are not simultaneous in feeling or thinking. According to Eliot, "when a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disperate experience" and by this process they create a new one.

               Though in this essay Eliot objects against Tennyson and Browning, he is somehow grateful to them. Eliot uses Browning's dramatic monologue in his many early works. Eliot borrows also from Tennyson in his many poetry. And in his "Preludes", he refers directly to Tennyson's poem, "Maud". Eliot had a private admiration for him, but he is suffering from anxiety of influence, that's why, he can't directly acknowledge their genius.