George Herbert - Religious Metaphysical Poetry

  Herbert’s distinguishing characteristic is his simplicity of diction and metaphor.

George Herbert followed the lead offered by John Donne, but he also made contributions which were quite distinct. Herbert’s distinguishing characteristic is his simplicity of diction and metaphor. He retains the colloquial manner, and, to an extent, the logical persuasive presentation of ideas, but he draws his metaphors from everyday domestic experience, employing a range of simple commonplace imagery in contrast to the sophisticated imagery of Donne. ’Conceits’ are not an important part of Herbert’s poetry, and his appeal is not so intellectual as Donne’s.

A technique Herbert introduced was the ending of a poem with two quiet lines which resolve the argument in the poem without answering the specific points raised by it. In this way Herbert conveys the insight that one cannot argue or reason with God; one either feels God’s presence, or loses the feeling. In these respects Herbert can be considered to have broken new ground, into which Henry Vaughan followed later.

Unlike Donne, Herbert wrote no love poetry, having decided, when he began writing poetry at Cambridge, to devote his poetic works to God. Herbert’s poetry is about struggles of a religious kind, but the struggles are neither so desperate nor so personal as Donne’s. Herbert writes for others, recording his struggles in order that others may follow his example. The thought in Herbert’s poems can be seen as a continuation of the thought in his sermons, and it is this purpose behind his poetry which largely determines his style. In the opening stanza of ’The Church Porch’ he writes,

’A verse may finde him, who a sermon flies, And turn delight into a sacrifice.’

Donne’s Holy Sonnet ’Batter my Heart’ and Herbert’s ’The Collar’ are both poems about the struggle to maintain faith in God.

Donne’s ’Batter My Heart’ shows the poet involved in a deep-rooted struggle with his own soul. He almost seems to doubt whether God exists at all, and the power of the diction and imagery is indicative of serious turmoil. In the opening line Donne writes,

’Batter my heart, three person’d God;’

Herbert, showing the influence of Donne, writes in his opening line:

’I struck the board, and cry’d, No more.’

Both openings are abrupt and dramatic, and both are delivered in a personal and colloquial manner. Another similarity is that both poems take the form of arguments, using logic to make the reasoning convincing and persuasive. Donne writes,

’. . . for I
Except you’enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.’

Herbert writes:

’What? Shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the rode,
Loose as the winde, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?’

Donne’s thinking is more intellectual, while Herbert’s arguments relate more to feelings, the kinds of feeling with which we can all identify. Consequently, we notice a difference in style. Herbert’s lines are simpler and shorter, and we understand them easily, whereas understanding Donne takes effort and concentration.

In comparison to Donne Herbert puts less emphasis on conceits, exotic imagery, and ingenious thought, and looks to another source for stylistic inspiration - the Bible, or, more specifically, the language of Christ and the Parables. Where Donne goes out of his way to find an exotic or striking image, Herbert looks for the homeliest commonplace image he can find. In ’The Collar’ for example we have a thorn, wine, fruit, and cable. We can see the reason for this preference in Herbert’s own observations on Christ’s use of common imagery:

’by familiar things he might make his doctrine slip the more easily into the hearts even of the meanest . . . that labouring people might have everywhere monuments of his doctrine . . . that he might set a copy for the parsons.’

Where Donne wrote for a limited readership, passing his poems around the wits and noblemen of court, Herbert did not want his vocabulary or imagery to be a barrier to any reader’s understanding.

The most striking difference between the two poems comes in the final two lines of each poem. Donne’s poem ends with a ’conceit’, (quoted above), ingeniously juxtaposing the concepts of ‘enthrall’ and ‘free’, and ‘chast’ and ‘ravish’. Herbert’s final lines have quite the opposite effect:

’Me thought I heard one calling, Child!
And I reply’d, My Lord!’

The impact is achieved through the simplicity of a call of one word and a response of two words. Herbert’s technique was taken up by later poets, such as Henry Vaughan, who use it at the end of ’The World’.

In many poems, such as ’Affliction’, ’Man’, and ’The Flower’ Herbert follows Donne’s example in addressing God directly, and these seem to be the most personal of his poems. We see him exploring his personal relationship with God, wanting to understand God better and to make himself more worthy.

We see in Herbert a poet who although derivative of Donne, used the medium of Metaphysical poetry for a sincere exploration of his own faith, and in doing so broadened the scope of the genre to allow the poet a more personal approach than that apparent in Donne.

About the author:
Ian Mackean runs the sites http://www.literature-study-online.com, which features a substantial collection of Resources and Essays, (and where his site on Short Story Writing can also be found,) and http://www.Booksmadeintomovies.com.



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