George Herbert: Poems Selected by Jo Shapcott

by george-herbert

In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to some of the greatest poets of our literature.

George Herbert (1593-1633) was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was appointed Reader in Rhetoric in 1618 and Public Orator in 1620. He was a Greek and Latin scholar, was fluent in modern languages and an accomplished musician. In 1626 he resigned his seat in parliament and took holy orders, becoming Rector of Bemerton, a tiny rural parish on Salisbury Plain, in 1630. The Temple, Herbert's great structure of poems from which the present selection is drawn, first appeared in 1633, the year of his death.

96 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Gastjäle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fairly tepid poems about pricks of conscience and struggles with vices from a threadbare Christian perspective. Not much to be gleaned out from here once the religious layer is removed, since there is no personal touch to these poems like in Donne's and since there are no curious interpretations as to the nature of God or his manifestations—the answer to everything is the cookie-cutter Lord God. At the very least some of the poems had some formal experimentation going on, and Herbert was not without a certain ear for sonority. But yeah, rather uninspiring choir-preaching.

[Elizabeth Bridcut · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these I loved, some I don't think I really 'got' some didn't grab me as much as others but overall I appreciated these poems. One poem about struggles with unwanted thoughts had the line 'my thoughts are all a case of knives' which was really evocative and has stuck with me. His Christian faith suffuses his poems and I find that a delight.

[Milo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The selection is only small, but even in its smallness – and we must assume some discernment in the choosing – there surmounts one poem above all. Herbert’s first ‘Prayer’ – perhaps belonging to a slightly different tradition than his otherwise witty, often pious, sometimes pained writing – is an astounding set of words. Almost every line is worth quotation. ‘Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear’ sounds like an Old English translation; ‘Heaven in ordinarie, man will drest, | The milkie way, the bird of Paradise | Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the souls bloud, | The land of spices; something understood.’ – extraordinary! In this poem Hervert vaults over his typically pleading or reflective manner into that more transcendent mode of metaphysics: the poet vanishes into towering structures – word through and from and to God, a great universal conduct. If Herbert wrote only this, he is worthy of remembrance. Though I like much else. ‘Thus doth thy power crosse-bias me’, in the first ‘Affliction’, I think is an especially good cut in one of his more tortured poems, in which the course of his life is broken into several important turns. Here there is a sorrow rather than a mutual glory: it is not merely that God is wonderful, but that he has made the other path so grisly. This is the counter-action rarely argued. ‘Providence’ is the great anthropocentric litany: a description of the world that finds it a perfect device, in which all parts seem to line a common and togethered purpose: all the world spins about Man, for whom (alone) the mystery is both unveiled and through whom (alone) it can be spoken. ‘Light without winde is glasse: warm without weight | Is wooll and furre: cool without closeness, shade: | Speed without pains, a horse: tall without height, | A servile hawk: low without losse, a spade.’ This instrumentalism of the earth is of course wrongfooted, but it is a remarkable Terminator-vision spread of earthly vision, by which the multitude of earth poses itself all in reflection of human (via Godly) ingenuity. There is an easy music to Herbert’s verse; after being so long ivied by the intricate weeds of Keats, and yet more obscure clouds of Shelley, there is such clarity in Herbert’s direct speech. His poem on church windows seems itself an appropriate metaphor: light through glass, a shaped illumination. Certainly, he is clever with his rhymes and schemes, making of his poems architectural shapes. In ‘Mans medley’, Herbert sounds out a central concern: ‘To this life things of sense | Make their pretence: | In th’ other Angels have a right by birth: | Man ties them both alone, | And makes them one, | With th’ one hand touching heav’n, with th’ other earth.’ It is this double-touching in which Herbert must find all his angst; there is at times a jittering in his verses that slightly unseats me. That there is a waiting – a waiting for the cruel and broken world to find redemption in death; it is this accidentally suicidal line that often makes of Christianity an ugly religion, one that can – at once – find such praise in this universe of God, and yet all the while wish for Oblivion. A greater time awaits; a land without those things that, in their contrary directions, compose the earth. But this is perhaps a necessity of the utopian vision: the earth, if interpreted in its less virtuous, more mercenary (and ultimately baffled) nature does not then demand a post-death improvement. Here we are glassed-dust (the glass soon itself to dust); the ever-greater awaits. A feeling stated with sometime beauty, though not in that beauty without some solemn touch.

[Grady Ormsby · Rating 2 out of 5]

George Herbert: Poems Selected by Jo Shapcott is a volume from the series of books from Faber and Faber featuring poems of notable poets selected by contemporary poets. Herbert was a Welsh-born poet, orator, and priest, often named among the metaphysical poets. Included in her ten volumes Shapcott has written lyrics or had her poems set to music by numerous composers. This is fitting because of the musical connection. Herbert played the lute and composed songs mostly of a devotional nature. He is known for his intricate rhyme schemes, stanzas combining different line lengths and other formal devices. In 1633 all of Herbert's English poems were published in The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (don’t tell me you didn’t giggle a bit when you read that title!). Many of his poems are addressed directly to God. His version of Anglican piety seems to include lots of groveling and self-abasement. The book has an introduction by W. H. Auden.

[Summer Bohannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

How utterly fitting to finish my first reading of Herbert after a stay in England. Having attended many Anglican services in recent months, I was primed to recognize the symbolism and analogies that Herbert uses. His poems on the church buildings especially bring to my mind's eye the glory of the architecture of the English churches, then passing through it (like a window) to the glory of the Lord on the other side. The poems of George Herbert give you new language for your faith -- new hope embedded in ancient words.

[Leo Mercer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice selection, and a great introduction to his poems. They really spoke to me: on the one hand, they're very experimental (lots of interesting forms, shapes, word plays), but in content they're very expressive, personal and often powerful. They're deeply religious poems, but I found the authenticity and truth they aspire to spoke to me too.