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    ! 16th-17th Century Poetry

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    Arohe Roy Lazz
    George Herbert is considered a religious poet because the subject matter of his poetry is fully devoted to religion. Though associated with the metaphysical poets, he was exceptional in his religious treatment of subjects in his poems. He was influenced by the Anglican Church from his upbringing and later served as a clergyman, and his poems represent his sacred mind and love for God. Herbert finds satisfaction in writing religious poems, and his works often explore man's relationship with God, rebellion, and final submission.

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    ! 16th-17th Century Poetry

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    Arohe Roy Lazz
    61 views2 pages
    George Herbert is considered a religious poet because the subject matter of his poetry is fully devoted to religion. Though associated with the metaphysical poets, he was exceptional in his religious treatment of subjects in his poems. He was influenced by the Anglican Church from his upbringing and later served as a clergyman, and his poems represent his sacred mind and love for God. Herbert finds satisfaction in writing religious poems, and his works often explore man's relationship with God, rebellion, and final submission.

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    George Herbert is considered a religious poet because the subject matter of his poetry is fully devoted to religion. Though associated with the metaphysical poets, he was exceptional in his religious treatment of subjects in his poems. He was influenced by the Anglican Church from his upbringing and later served as a clergyman, and his poems represent his sacred mind and love for God. Herbert finds satisfaction in writing religious poems, and his works often explore man's relationship with God, rebellion, and final submission.

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    61 views2 pages

    ! 16th-17th Century Poetry

    Uploaded by

    Arohe Roy Lazz
    George Herbert is considered a religious poet because the subject matter of his poetry is fully devoted to religion. Though associated with the metaphysical poets, he was exceptional in his religious treatment of subjects in his poems. He was influenced by the Anglican Church from his upbringing and later served as a clergyman, and his poems represent his sacred mind and love for God. Herbert finds satisfaction in writing religious poems, and his works often explore man's relationship with God, rebellion, and final submission.

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    George Herbert as a Religious poet

    George Herbert is considered as a religious poet because of the subject matter of his poetry which is
    fully devotional and religious in nature. By his poetry, he completely surrenders himself to God and his
    master, Jesus. Although he was associated with the metaphysical group, he was exceptional for his
    treatment towards religion in his poetry. For his devotion to God, he is known as the saint of the
    metaphysical group. And his religious thought afterward influenced other metaphysical poets. However,
    his devotion to God reflects in his poems, and we find a great touch of religion in almost all of his
    poems. He wrote a large number of religious, philosophical, and reflective poems in the service of god.

    He was a Churchman of the Anglican Church. And his religious faith had grown and developed in this
    Church. He was influenced by it right from his childhood under the benign guidance of his pious mother
    and seasoned family chaplains. And long after the complication of his University graduation, he was
    ordained and placed over the little church of Bemarton. As he was brought up in religious atmosphere
    and his religious faith is shaped by his pious mother, we see that his poems are the representations of
    his sacred mind and thought. His poems are nothing but the true expression of love towards God and
    Jesus. As Rose Macaulay says, "Herbert is, in a sense, the first of the Anglican poets; the first Anglican
    poet, that is, whose whole expression and art was coloured by and confined within the walls of his
    Church."

    Herbert finds and gets satisfaction writing religious poems. Even the two sonnets that he sent to his
    mother when he was only seventeen year's old are the symbol of what kind of poet he wanted to be. In
    his after years, he writes divine poems and sees beauty only in God. However, Herbert is called the
    devotional or the religious poet because he deals with such subjects. The theme of most of his poems is
    religion. He deals with the soul, God, life after death, the relation between human spirits and senses and
    so on. He talks of man's relation to God, of body to the soul, of the life here and to the life hereafter. In
    this relation, he often shows rebellion, reconciliation and the final submission.

    There are many poems in which Herbert devoutly offers his homage to God or Christ, and make
    surrender of himself to the Almighty. "Easter-Wings" is one of such poems. Easter is a festival in the
    Christian church commemorating the resurrection of the Christ which is observed on the first Sunday
    following the full moon that occurs on or just after March 21. The Sunday on which this festival is held is
    called Easter-Sunday . The poem celebrates Jesus Christ’s resurrection. It means Christ’s return to life on
    the third day his crucifixion. The biblical story of man’s creation by the almighty and man’s final fall from
    blissful Eden (heaven) and man’s abode gifted by the god being seduced by Satan. On that Easter-
    Sunday Herbert wished to sing the victory of Jesus Christ soaring above the sky harmoniously like a lark.
    The poet says:

    “O let me rise

    As larks, harmoniously.

    And sing the day thy victories;

    Than shall the fuH further the flight in me”


    The underlining idea is that the fall of man is the essential basis of his rise, or in other words if there is
    no fall, there can be no flight. Here he says,

    "Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,

    Though foolishly he lost the same,

    Decaying more and more,

    Till he became

    Most poore."

    The collar is regarded as one of the most important and also as one of the most interesting poems of
    Herbert. Its importance lies in the mental and spiritual conflict which Herbert actually experienced in the
    course of his priestly life. Having become a priest, Herbert found that he had sacrificed all worldly
    ambition and the pleasure of life, and he therefore felt restless and discontented. He wants to be free
    like a road and independent of all restraints. He does not want to lead a life of slavery to the church and
    to God. Herbert often wants to revolt against Christianity but not against God. His attitude is vividly
    expressed in “The Collar”-

    “I struck the hoard, and cry’d. No more

    I will abrood

    What? Shall I ever sigh and Pine?

    As the poet was thus arguing and getting more angry, the voice of God gently rebuked him for this
    rebelliousness, saying: “My child, do not he rash” . On hearing God’s gentle warning, the poet at once
    come back to his sense and realized his folly. The poet at once rejoined to this voice, and becoming
    humble and said: “ My Lord, I am still your servant .” Thus the poem began with an angry and with a
    mood of violence ends in the poet’s complete surrender to his God.

    Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of existence, truth and knowledge and
    this philosophy inspired Herbert to meditate upon the Divine Authority and discover the hidden truth
    lying in our life? Herbert’s poetry is a sequence of religious poems, conceived and cast in the pattern of
    a morality play. The chief subjects of his poetry are the Incarnation, the Passion and the Redemption.

    Herbert’s poetry is metaphysical by virtue of its subject matter. His poem “Easter Wings” is a reflection
    on the resurrection of Christ. It conveys the philosophy of the realization of man’s sinfulness, the
    miseries misfortunes, sorrows, sickness and disappointments which are the very basis of his
    regeneration and resurrection.

    In conclusion we can say that Herbert is a great metaphysical poet both in matter and method. In
    emotion and thought, he is a poet of the inner spirit. In style he is intellectual, in diction he is homely
    and graceful and in the construction of his poems he is logical. In belief and faith, he is a perfect
    Christian. So undoubtedly we can consider George Herbert is a devotional or religious poet.

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