The English Poems of George Herbert

by George Herbert

This fully annotated edition of the complete English poems provides the text of the reliable first edition of The Temple (1633). Appended are six poems not included in The Temple, three versions of "The Elixir", and several secular poems which Herbert intentionally "parodied". An outline of the poet's life and a comprehensive bibliography are also provided.

In his introduction Professor Patrides argues in detail the sense in which Herbert's simplicity conceals complexity, and his apparent artlessness the highest reaches of art. An analysis is also offered of the man himself, who since his own time has remained something of an enigma.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction

247 pages, Paperback

First published August 8, 2015

About the author

George Herbert (1593-1633) was a Welsh-born English poet and orator. Herbert's poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognized as "a pivotal figure: enormously popular, deeply and broadly influential, and arguably the most skillful and important British devotional lyricist."

Born into an artistic and wealthy family, Herbert received a good education that led to his admission in 1609 as a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, Herbert excelled in languages, rhetoric and music. He went to university with the intention of becoming a priest, but when eventually he became the University's Public Orator he attracted the attention of King James I and may well have seen himself as a future Secretary of State. In 1624 and briefly in 1625 he served in Parliament. Never a healthy man, he died of consumption at the early age of 39.

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Herbert's poetry is remarkable for two qualities above all others: its consistent beauty and its surprising variety. That variety is of a particular kind, as the poems are all devotional—no musings on romantic love, evocations of the beauty of nature, or narratives of excitement and adventure are to be found here. Within its bounds, though, Herbert's verse addresses and embodies a kaleidoscope of experiences of lived Christian faith; and it does so in an astonishing diversity of poetical forms that are beautiful both as discrete melodies, and in the harmony of their whole. Why Herbert does not quite reach the pinnacle, for me, can be best explained by an invidious but inevitable comparison with Donne, in two respects. The first is an issue of emotional engagement: with a few exceptions (the ones everyone cites, like "Easter Wings" and "The Flower"), Herbert's individual poems do not strike and remain in my memory as Donne's do. The second reason is one of intellectual challenge: whereas to me Donne's complexities make his poems exquisite knots to be untied, Herbert's poems are gorgeous threads that sometimes become entangled in themselves—lovely golden threads, though.