Aspects of imagery, syntax and metrics in the poetry of George Herbert
- Authors: Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning
- Date: 1977
- Subjects: Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2294 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011613 , Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Description: I intend In this thesis to examine some central features of George Herbert's art - aspects of his imagery syntax and metrics. These topics have been chosen because they encompass large areas of his poetic practice, ramifying as they do into questions of theme, tone and structure. Even a partial. survey of Herbert' s imagery, such as the one I attempt to offer, should enable the reader to judge the range of experience that Herbert brings to bear upon a comparatively circumscribed number of themes, (The "Affliction " poems, for example, are wonderfully diverse, although they have a common thematic centre). A brief examination of the traditions within which Herbert's manipulation of imagery falls should allow one also to judge his resourcefulness, especially in the composites of emblem and symbol he devises on occasion; which in the concluding analyses I attempt to show the structural significance of image patterns in representative poems from The Temple. Thus Chapter I falls into three sections: a brief discussion of emblematic and symbolic traditions together with Herbert 's place in relation to them, a deliberately selective glance over some images (a full examination is far beyond the scope of this thesis), and finally some close analyses of poems in the course of which I try to show the imagery operating as a structural and coordinating device. In Chapter II, I move on to the closely related area of syntax, examining Herbert's formulation of his material, and finding - amongst other things - that there is evidence of "grammatical" imagery where the disposition of a sentence provides a concrete embodiment of the theme. This interrelationship of imagery and syntax (and of imagery and metrics) is a corollory of poetry's organic nature, and in order to stress the mutual collaboration of these features, I have subjected a single poem, "The Flower" to an analysis from three different angles, assuming that each approach will further illuminate the others. All the lyrics would yield riches if treated in this way but my limits of space have naturally precluded so elaborate an undertaking. Even In the analyses of poems that are treated only once, I have been at pains to allow in a glimmering of topics other than that in hand, so as to enlarge the scope of my examination. Although the material in Chapter II is designed to highlight the structural, tonal and thematic effects of syntax in turn, such divisions remain theoretical rather than actual, for they combine almost indivorcibly into a complex whole. Chapter III is patterned like Chapter I in that it moves from a general survey of Herbert's metrics, his rhyme and his stanzaic design, to further close analyses of his metrical procedures in particular lyrics. Both here and in the preceding chapters I have undertaken to look at Herbert's work in close detail, because, as I have already suggested, his is an art of compression, of telescoping a whole range of meanings into the neatest and most compact shape. Given the differences in mode and intention, his poetry often puts one in mind of Jane Austen's fiction - at least in the profundity it achieves within a consciously limited scale and a critical magnifying glass seems to me to be the most apposite aid for such a study as I have undertaken.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1977
- Authors: Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning
- Date: 1977
- Subjects: Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2294 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011613 , Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Description: I intend In this thesis to examine some central features of George Herbert's art - aspects of his imagery syntax and metrics. These topics have been chosen because they encompass large areas of his poetic practice, ramifying as they do into questions of theme, tone and structure. Even a partial. survey of Herbert' s imagery, such as the one I attempt to offer, should enable the reader to judge the range of experience that Herbert brings to bear upon a comparatively circumscribed number of themes, (The "Affliction " poems, for example, are wonderfully diverse, although they have a common thematic centre). A brief examination of the traditions within which Herbert's manipulation of imagery falls should allow one also to judge his resourcefulness, especially in the composites of emblem and symbol he devises on occasion; which in the concluding analyses I attempt to show the structural significance of image patterns in representative poems from The Temple. Thus Chapter I falls into three sections: a brief discussion of emblematic and symbolic traditions together with Herbert 's place in relation to them, a deliberately selective glance over some images (a full examination is far beyond the scope of this thesis), and finally some close analyses of poems in the course of which I try to show the imagery operating as a structural and coordinating device. In Chapter II, I move on to the closely related area of syntax, examining Herbert's formulation of his material, and finding - amongst other things - that there is evidence of "grammatical" imagery where the disposition of a sentence provides a concrete embodiment of the theme. This interrelationship of imagery and syntax (and of imagery and metrics) is a corollory of poetry's organic nature, and in order to stress the mutual collaboration of these features, I have subjected a single poem, "The Flower" to an analysis from three different angles, assuming that each approach will further illuminate the others. All the lyrics would yield riches if treated in this way but my limits of space have naturally precluded so elaborate an undertaking. Even In the analyses of poems that are treated only once, I have been at pains to allow in a glimmering of topics other than that in hand, so as to enlarge the scope of my examination. Although the material in Chapter II is designed to highlight the structural, tonal and thematic effects of syntax in turn, such divisions remain theoretical rather than actual, for they combine almost indivorcibly into a complex whole. Chapter III is patterned like Chapter I in that it moves from a general survey of Herbert's metrics, his rhyme and his stanzaic design, to further close analyses of his metrical procedures in particular lyrics. Both here and in the preceding chapters I have undertaken to look at Herbert's work in close detail, because, as I have already suggested, his is an art of compression, of telescoping a whole range of meanings into the neatest and most compact shape. Given the differences in mode and intention, his poetry often puts one in mind of Jane Austen's fiction - at least in the profundity it achieves within a consciously limited scale and a critical magnifying glass seems to me to be the most apposite aid for such a study as I have undertaken.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1977
Defined by wine : a study of sacramentalism in George Herbertʾs poetry
- Authors: Goddard, Kevin Graham
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation , Christian poetry, English -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2177 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001828
- Description: This dissertation proposes that George Herbertʾs poetry may profitably be understood as a sacramental means by which the divine is made present in temporal existence. In order to support this claim, the relation between sacramental symbolism and literary symbolism, particularly Herbertʾs, is examined from a number of perspectives. The symbolic meanings suggested by Herbertʾs title (The Temple), and their relation to sacramentalism are considered in the opening chapter. This includes a consideration of some of the background to the analogical thinking prevalent in both the seventeenth-century and Herbert. It is followed in the second chapter by an examination of some of the modern theories about how literary symbolism may relate to sacramental symbolism, a discussion which is followed by a consideration of this dissertation's argument in relation to modern scholarship. The chapter ends with a reading of ʺThe Flowerʺ. The third chapter discusses the poet's attempt to imitate the divine by ʺcopyingʺ both Scripture and Nature, and this includes a consideration of the allegorical and hieroglyphic modes of thought prevalent in the poems. The concern with imitation encourages an examination of the poet's frequent invitation for God actually to assume the poet's role, and this is the subject of the fourth chapter. The argument suggests that the poet's attempt to ʺsacrificeʺ his own writing may be seen in his concern with corporate imagery and corporate (impersonal) structures. The five ʺAfflictionʺ poems are examined as examples of the first, while structures such as synecdoche and metonymy are examined as examples of the second. The final chapter considers aspects of narrative time in the poems, particularly the sense often evoked of the eternal being imminent in the present. This involves a consideration of both liturgical imagery, and what may be called liturgical structures as they can be seen to operate in the poems. Particular examples of the latter are the relation between the liturgical anamnesis and the poems, as well as certain narrative structures that may be called ʺachronisticʺ.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1988
- Authors: Goddard, Kevin Graham
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation , Christian poetry, English -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2177 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001828
- Description: This dissertation proposes that George Herbertʾs poetry may profitably be understood as a sacramental means by which the divine is made present in temporal existence. In order to support this claim, the relation between sacramental symbolism and literary symbolism, particularly Herbertʾs, is examined from a number of perspectives. The symbolic meanings suggested by Herbertʾs title (The Temple), and their relation to sacramentalism are considered in the opening chapter. This includes a consideration of some of the background to the analogical thinking prevalent in both the seventeenth-century and Herbert. It is followed in the second chapter by an examination of some of the modern theories about how literary symbolism may relate to sacramental symbolism, a discussion which is followed by a consideration of this dissertation's argument in relation to modern scholarship. The chapter ends with a reading of ʺThe Flowerʺ. The third chapter discusses the poet's attempt to imitate the divine by ʺcopyingʺ both Scripture and Nature, and this includes a consideration of the allegorical and hieroglyphic modes of thought prevalent in the poems. The concern with imitation encourages an examination of the poet's frequent invitation for God actually to assume the poet's role, and this is the subject of the fourth chapter. The argument suggests that the poet's attempt to ʺsacrificeʺ his own writing may be seen in his concern with corporate imagery and corporate (impersonal) structures. The five ʺAfflictionʺ poems are examined as examples of the first, while structures such as synecdoche and metonymy are examined as examples of the second. The final chapter considers aspects of narrative time in the poems, particularly the sense often evoked of the eternal being imminent in the present. This involves a consideration of both liturgical imagery, and what may be called liturgical structures as they can be seen to operate in the poems. Particular examples of the latter are the relation between the liturgical anamnesis and the poems, as well as certain narrative structures that may be called ʺachronisticʺ.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1988
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