George Herbert: Life and works a metaphysical poet

George Herbert: Life and works

                                                                                            

Family Background:  George Herbert was born on the 3^rd April 1593 at Montgomery. He was born in the same year as Izaak Walton, his biographer, and Nicholas Ferrar, his friend who published Herbert’s poems under the title The Temple.) Herbert belonged to a famous aristocratic family of the Welsh Border Country. He was the fifth son; the eldest, Edward, became a leading statesman, philosopher and poet, and in 1629 received the title of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Their mother was Magdalen, daughter of Sir Richard Newport of High Ercall, Shropshire. Her husband died in 1596, leaving her with a family of seven sons and three daughters: “Job’s number and Job’s distribution “as she would herself often say. One of the great ladies of the late Elizabethan and early Stuart period, she chose as her second husband the wealthy Lord Danvers who was over two decades younger than herself. Her house in Chelsea soon became one of the foremost centres of intellectual activity. Emerging from such a context George Herbert naturally aspired toward knowledge and, beyond knowledge, toward position. 

At Trinity College, Cambridge:  Magdalen Herbert had all her sons brought up in learning, but most of them chose the life of the court or the army. A different career awaited George Herbert. At Westminster school the foundations of his scholarship were laid. From there he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge from where, at the age of sixteen, he sent to his mother two sonnets, composed by himself, as a New Year’s gift. In these two sonnets he asks why poetry should deal wholly with the theme of love and why it should not be written in praise of God. This early ambition to become a writer of sacred poetry never faded from his mind though it certainly clashed with some other aims and aspirations conceived by him.

As Public Orator at the University: Herbert achieved a rapid progress at Cambridge University. He became a Fellow of Trinity college in 1616 and Reader in Rhetoric in 1618. He now aspired to the office of the Public Orator at the University, thinking it to be the finest position there, because it was a position which brought the incumbent into contact with the royal court. The retiring Orator, Sir Francis Nethersole, had held important political offices, and Herbert’s high connections, courtly manners, and knowledge of languages were likely to win him similar promotion. As a result of his earnest efforts to get the post, he was installed Orator on the 18^th January 1619, and held the post till his mother’s death in 1627.

Secular Hopes Dashed to the Ground: As the Public Orator, Herbert was the official mouthpiece of the University and was expected to use the language of flattery in addressing those whom the University had to honour. He showed himself an adept in this art, and his hyperboles of praise were of a striking kind. In fact it is impossible to acquit him of self-seeking in the performance of his duties as Orator. As his biographer writes: “Herbert enjoyed his gentile humour for clothes and courtlike company, and seldom looked towards Cambridge, unless the king were there, and then he never failed”. Herbert was, indeed, able to win the royal favour after praising an oration by James I. The flattered monarch returned the compliment by describing Herbert as the University’s jewel. However, Herbert impressed himself not merely on a flattered king but on men of far greater perception, notably the saintly Lancelot Andrewes on the one hand, and the wordly Francis Bacon on the other. But Herbert’s worldly hopes pf advancement came to nothing. His hopes died with the death in rapid succession of his two most influential friends, and of the king himself in 1625.

As a Country Priest at Bemerton :  Meantime, in 1624 Herbert had become Member of Parliament for Montgomery. In the same year he was granted leave from his Cambridge post and took a share of the living at Lladinam, Montgomery, and already began to turn his attention towards the Church. In 1626 he was ordained deacon. He spent the next two years quietly, in uncertain health. In March 1629 he was married to Jane Danvers, a cousin of his friend, the Earl of Danby. In April 1630 he accepted the living of Bemerton (near Salisbury) and, in September of the same year, was ordained priest.

Premature Death: Less than three years after becoming a priest Herbert died in 1633, just before his fortieth birthday. On his death-bed he sent an unpublished book of poems to his friend, Nicholas Ferrar, with the message that he would “find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master in whose service I have now found perfect freedom”. Herbert left it to the judgment of Ferrar whether to publish this book of poems or to burn it.  The book appeared in the same year (1633) under the title of The Temple. Herbert published no poetry during his life-time.

      Holy Mr. Herbert: His biographer calls him “holy Mr. Herbert”. Nor is there any doubt about his holiness. His life was indeed “most holy and exemplary”. His poetry is wholly devotional, and by virtue of both his piety and the sacred character of his verse he is regarded as the saint of the metaphysical school of poets. “The piety, the reverence, and the holiness are never absent from Herbert”.