George Herbert Bio - Francesca

George Herbert Biography

(3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633)

Born in Wales, George Herbert is recognised as ‘one of the foremost British devotional lyricists’ as well as being an Anglican priest. He received a good education that led to his holding prominent positions at Cambridge University and Parliament. As a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, Herbert excelled in languages and music. He went to college with the intention of becoming a priest, but his scholarship attracted the attention of King James I. Herbert then served in Parliament for two years. After the death of King James and at the urging of a friend, Herbert's interest in the divine was renewed.

In his late thirties he gave up his secular ambitions and took holy orders in the Church of England for the rest of his life. His background in the church had a huge impact on the themes of his metaphysical poetry as he wrote religious poems characterized by a precision of language, a metrical versatility, and an ingenious use of imagery and conceits that were so key to the metaphysical school of poets. Many of his poems have intricate rhyme schemes, and variations of lines within stanzas described as 'a cascade of form floats through the temple'. He explores the architecture of faith and his complex relationship with God through his poems and shares a tone of desperation similar to Donne’s, but instead of striving for a physical unification with a lover, pursues unification with the Divine despite his imperfect physical. Herbert himself, in a letter to Nicholas Ferrar, said of his writings, "they are a picture of spiritual conflicts between God and my soul before I could subject my will to Jesus, my Master".

Herbert's poetry has also been set to music by several composers, one of them being Ralph Vaughan Williams.

 

The Altar

A broken ALTAR, Lord thy servant rears,
Made of a heart, and cemented with teares:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workmans tool hath touch'd the same
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow'r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy Name:
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctifie this ALTAR to be thine.

This poem is what’s called a ‘pattern poem’ in which the words of the poem itself form a shape suggesting an altar, and this altar becomes his conceit for how one should offer himself as a sacrifice to the Lord. As mentioned earlier, it can be said that Herbert's poems are actually a record of his own devotional life. Thus the altar metaphor should provide insight to his personal relationship with God.

Some of George Herbert’s other works:

The Church Porch

The Sacrifice

The Windows

Easter Wings

Paradise