Poet Spotlight: George Herbert

If I were running a blog on contemporary poets, I could turn this into an interview. Unfortunately, one of the difficulties of writing about classical poets is that most of them are long dead. (George Herbert, for instance, died in 1633, and I don’t have a good way of interviewing him. If I went to visit him in heaven, I wouldn’t know how to come back.)

Biographical Information

George Herbert was born in 1593 and he died in 1633. (Before I did the research for this blog post, I had no idea he died so young. He was only 39 when he died. I’d pictured him living to be much older--perhaps because my copy of the complete collection of his works features a sketch of an elderly-looking man with a bushy white beard.)

Herbert was born into a well-off family, was well-educated, and became a member of Parliament. After King James I died, however, he turned away from pursuing a political career.

He sought a profession in the church, and several years later, he was appointed rector of a rural parish. It was there that he spent the rest of his life, there that he did the most work on his collection of poems, The Temple.

He died from consumption in 1633, only three years after taking holy orders.

Why I Like Him

George Herbert is one of my favorite poets. Although his poems generally adhere to strict meter and rhyme schemes, he wrote in a wide variety of structures, and he was creative. Furthermore, he was a devout Christian, and many of his poems center on themes that deeply resonate with me. As I read through his poems, my heart echoes his prayers, and I am inspired to write my own.

Unique Features of His Poetry

There are several features of Herbert’s poetry that I especially admire.

·         His shape poems. Some of his poems are in the form of the poem’s subject. “The Altar” is the most obvious example of this. “The Altar” is also one of my favorite poems. You can read it here.

·         The way he breaks his rhyme scheme to convey certain emotions. For example, in his poem “Home” he breaks his rhyme scheme in a jarring manner. Decide for yourself why he chose to do that. You can find the poem here.

·          He doesn’t stick to a single rhyme scheme. He employs rhyme schemes of all sorts and stanzas of all lengths.

·         He uses strong metaphors and creative images. Check out his poem “Redemption”.

The Quiddity

Another one of my favorites of his poems is titled “The Quiddity”. The word “quiddity” is an odd word—and one that has unfortunately not often used today. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, it means, “Whatever makes something the type that it is: essence,” or “a trifling point”.

Dictionary.com says, “a trifling nicety of subtle distinction, as in argument”. I love that the word has two almost opposite meanings. Whether or not Herbert was familiar with both of the meanings, I don’t know, but I think he incorporated them both neatly in his poem.

As a poet and a Christian myself, I can resonate with what Herbert says in the poem. I can nod along almost all the way through the poem—but I don’t quite know what the last line means. (If you search the Internet, it seems like no one else really knows either.)

Having tried to sum up the essence of Herbert’s poems in this post, as well as addressing the subtler points and quirks of his poetry, I’m content to end on the note of quiddities.