Reading George Herbert in the Light of His Contemporaries
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“AND IN ANOTHER MAKE ME UNDERSTOOD”: READING GEORGE HERBERT IN THE LIGHT OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES Anne Judith Menkens A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English. Chapel Hill 2009 Approved by: Reid Barbour Darryl Gless Megan Matchinske John Wall Jessica Wolfe © 2009 Anne Judith Menkens ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Anne J. Menkens: “And in another make me understood”: Reading George Herbert in the Light of his Contemporaries (Under the direction of Reid Barbour) This dissertation examines the ways critics have coupled George Herbert with different authors and thinkers of his era and analyzes the effects of these pairings on what Herbert has meant to readers. The specific fellow writers considered are Richard Hooker/John Calvin (in whose company Herbert looks like a religious partisan); Francis Bacon (as “modern” thinker, examining the physical world separated from a religious interpretation); and John Donne (as artist, creating dramatic speakers in conversation with God). To a great extent, critics have used such couplings to convey the values they wish to impart to readers and build the literary canon thereby. Herbert is a special case because of the sheer variety of appropriations made of his work since its first publication and the often contentious nature of these appropriations. Moreover, Herbert seems aware of his own work’s flexibility and describes the uses of this quality in social discourse. The review of the literature traces not only the roller coaster ride that has been Herbert’s critical reception but also the dozens of introductions to Herbert’s works. Then, for each case, we look first at the shifting scholarship surrounding the fellow authors and then examine how Herbert engages with the questions raised by the other authors’ works. “Herbert on the Religious Spectrum” examines the contentious area of study that places his work on the religious spectrum between presbyterianism and what would later be called “Anglo-Catholicism. “Herbert and Bacon” starts with Herbert and iii Bacon’s mutual admiration and examines how both men’s works use nature to talk about God in complicated ways. And “Herbert and Donne” examines the assumptions and biases surrounding Herbert’s coupling with John Donne, the fellow poet-priest and “founder” of the “metaphysical school” of which Herbert was considered a member by many critics from the late-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. In every case, we parse where critics’ concerns start and Herbert’s end, concluding, ultimately, that Herbert’s intention in using argument, philosophy, and artistry, and in examining his own role in the discourse of religion, science, and art, is to fulfill a pastoral mission. iv To my mother, Gladys Clark Menkens, and my father, Edward George Menkens. My parents gave me a love of reading and introduced me to the life of the mind. These are precious gifts. Thank you. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I came to this project after several years of not engaging with English literature or its criticism. I am grateful to my dissertation director, Reid Barbour, for his endless patience for all the “catching up” I had to do, as well as his consistently insightful reading and kind and constructive comments. John Wall offered good, close reading (and lively discussion) of my Chapter 3; Darryl Gless and Jessica Wolfe provided a warm welcome back to the department and fruitful initial conversations; and Megan Matchinske asked the all important “so what” question that helped me bring my argument home more effectively than I would have done otherwise. These individuals may take their breadth and depth of understanding of these topics for granted, but I surely do not. Thanks also to my colleagues at the North Carolina Institute for Public Health, for their support and encouragement of me during this process. Thanks and deep gratitude to Jonathan Weiler, who read every word and offered unfailingly keen insights at every turn. I truly couldn’t have written it without him. To my soon-to-be husband, Greg Duyck, whose support and love are the foundation upon which all my work and aspirations are built. And, finally, to my loving, dear, and brilliant daughter, Lillian, who is the light of my life—indeed, the “light” in which I hope always to be read. Thank you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1 The Idea of Coupling ...............................................................................................1 Why Herbert? ...........................................................................................................3 The Problem of Coupling.........................................................................................6 Case #1: Herbert on the Religious Spectrum ...........................................................8 Case #2: Herbert and Bacon and the Scientific Method ........................................10 Case #3: Herbert and Donne: Talking to God .......................................................11 Drawing Conclusions .............................................................................................13 Notes ......................................................................................................................16 II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .......................................................................17 Introduction ............................................................................................................17 The Seventeenth Century: The “companion to the primitive Saints” ....................18 Eighteenth Century: “Enthusiasm without sublimity” ...........................................22 Nineteenth Century: “The Mission of poetry is refining, pure and holy” .............23 Twentieth Century and Beyond .............................................................................27 Twentieth Century Tendency #1: The Temple Poems as Art ................................29 Twentieth Century Tendency #2: The Religious Wars ..........................................34 The Current Era......................................................................................................38 vii Reading Herbert in the Light of His Contemporaries ............................................40 Notes ......................................................................................................................41 III. HERBERT ON THE RELIGIOUS SPECTRUM..................................................42 Introduction ............................................................................................................42 The Critical Landscape ..........................................................................................47 Putting Herbert on the Theological Map ...............................................................50 Herbert and Hooker................................................................................................52 The “Mother” Church ............................................................................................53 “Give to Thy Mother” ............................................................................................58 Preaching and the Sacraments ...............................................................................61 “Let not Sinne devoure thy fold” ...........................................................................70 “This contagious infidelity”: The Church Militant ................................................74 IV. HERBERT AND BACON AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD .........................81 Introduction ............................................................................................................81 Francis Bacon’s Great Instauration .......................................................................84 The Literary Relationship between Bacon and Herbert .........................................86 “Why dost thou prie”: Herbert the Anti-Scientist ..................................................87 “Monuments of his Doctrine”: The Right Study of Creation ................................89 Things Human and Divine .....................................................................................93 The Footsteps of the Creator ..................................................................................95 Metaphysics ...........................................................................................................97 The Ends of Learning: (Re)Building the Temple ................................................103 The Language of “Sweetnesse” ...........................................................................109 viii Conclusion ...........................................................................................................112 V. HERBERT AND DONNE: TALKING TO GOD ...............................................114 Introduction ..........................................................................................................114 A Timeline of the Donne-Herbert Coupling ........................................................114 Herbert as “Deficient Donne”: The New Critical Perspective .............................118 “Cutting up a man that’s dead”: Correspondence and Communication ..............132 The Uses of Doubt ...............................................................................................139