George Herbert

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This article is about the poet. For the Lord associated with King Tutankhamun, see George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon.

George Herbert (April 3, 1593 – March 1, 1633) was an English poet, orator and a priest. Being born into an artistic and wealthy family he received a good education which led on to him holding prominent positions at Cambridge University and Parliament. In his late thirties he gave up his secular ambitions and took holy orders in the Church of England, spending the rest of his life as a rector in Bemerton, near Salisbury. Throughout his life he wrote religious poems characterized by a precision of language, a metrical versatility, and an ingenious use of imagery or conceits that was favored by the metaphysical school of poetsThe Grolier 1996 Multimedia Encyclopedia, Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc..

Contents

1 Early life
2 Priesthood
3 Works
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

Early life

Herbert was born in Montgomery in Wales. His family was wealthy, eminent, intellectual and fond of the arts. His mother Magdalen was a patron and friend of John Donne and other poets; his older brother Edward, later Lord Herbert of Cherbury, was an important poet and philosopher, often referred to as "the father of English deism". Herbert's father died when George was three, leaving a widow and ten children.

After graduating from Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge (where he achieved degrees with distinction), Herbert was elected a major fellow of his college. In 1618 he was appointed Reader in Rhetoric at Cambridge and in 1620 he was elected to the post of "public orator", whose duties would be served by poetic skill. He held this position until 1628.

In 1624 he became a Member of Parliament, representing Montgomeryshire. While these positions were suited to a career at court, and James I had shown him favor, circumstances worked against him: the King died in 1625, and two influential patrons of Herbert died later in the decade.

Priesthood

He took up his duties in Bemerton, a rural parish in Wiltshire, about 75 miles southwest of London in 1630. Here he preached and wrote poetry; also helping to rebuild the church out of his own funds.

In 1633 Herbert finished a collection of poems entitled The Temple, which imitates the arhitectural style of churches through both the meaning of the words and their visual layout. The themes of God and love are treated by Herbert as much as psychological forces as metaphysical phenomena.

Suffering from poor health, Herbert died of consumption only three years after taking holy orders. On his deathbed, he gave the manuscript of The Temple to Nicholas Ferrar, the founder of a semi-monastic Anglican religious community at Little Gidding (a name best known today through the poem Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot), telling him to publish the poems if he thought they might "turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul", and otherwise, to burn them. In less than 50 years, The Temple had gone through thirteen printings.

Works

All of Herbert's surviving poems are religious, and some have been used as hymns. They are characterised by directness of expression and some conceits which can appear quaint. Many of the poems have intricate rhyme schemes, and variations of lines within stanzas.

Herbert also wrote A Priest to the Temple (or The Country Parson) offering practical advice to country parsons. In it, he advises that "things of ordinary use" such as ploughs, leaven, or dances, could be made to "serve for lights even of Heavenly Truths".

Richard Baxter said, "Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth a God, and whose business in the world is most with God. Heart-work and heaven-work make up his books". Dame Helen Gardner adds "head-work" because of his "intellectual vivacity".

Herbert influenced his fellow metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan who, in turn, influenced William Wordsworth.

References

Izaak Walton (1593–1683), The Lives of John Donne and George Herbert [link]

External links

[Luminarium: George Herbert] Life, works, essays
[George Herbert] Bio and Poems
[Selected Poetry of George Herbert] at Representative Poetry Online
[The Life of Mr. George Herbert] by Izaak Walton (1593–1683)