Transcript Herbert & Crashaw - Faulkner University

Religious Poetry
(1593-1633)



Considered the finest of the religious metaphysicals
was an Anglican poet who struggled for years between
choosing a religious life or one that was both academic and
public.
His collection of religious poems, The Temple: Sacred Poems
and Private Ejaculations (1633), shows him both
• Expressing his own sense of the conflict between the claims
established on man by worldly wit and sophistication and those
of true Christian devotion and
• Exploring the significance of the main symbols and beliefs of
Protestant Christianity
 Like
Donne, Herbert writes poetry which
grabs the reader's attention by its
opening statement of theme, but unlike
Donne, he maintains interest and
excitement by the unexpected ways he
transforms traditional Christian material.
 Herbert's
poetry is marked by
alternating modes of shock and repose:
conflict is balanced by calm trust,
disturbed speculation by simple faith,
ingenious language by simplicity of
statement.
 The ultimate struggle or conflict in
Herbert's poetry is between the world
and complete surrender to God.

Herbert's poetry differs from Donne's in four
essential ways:
• His work combines religious autobiography with
presentation of great Christian themes.
• He uses musical devices and analogies to a greater
extent than any other metaphysical poet.
• He does not focus on the struggle for a "right" faith
or a true religion, because he professes to have
found it.
• He produced shaped or pattern poetry.
 perhaps
best known for his technique of
exploring analogies between
emblematic objects--such as the human
body or parts of the church building and
its furniture--and religious truths.
 He does so primarily through the use of
shaped verse.
 Shaped
verse is a poem so constructed
that its printed form suggests its subject
matter or its theme.
(1612/13-1649)



A Catholic convert, Crashaw very nearly lived the last part of
his life exiled among the religious metaphysicals.
Although like Herbert he is considered a religious
metaphysical, Crashaw's poetry reveals a sensibility and a
technique markedly different from that of either Herbert or
Donne.
His collection of poetry entitled Steps to the Temple (1646)
clearly refers to Herbert's earlier work, which he is said to have
admired. Crashaw's poetry, however, is far removed stylistically
from Herbert's.

poetry is characterized by a deliberate search for startling and
paradoxical expression meant specifically to shock and excite
the reader. He achieves this goal in three related ways:
• he presses all of the senses into the service of the expression of
religious passion,
• he uses erotic and other images of physical appetite and desire
in a paradoxical way, and
• he utilizes extravagant paradox involving the secular and the
divine, tears and ecstasy, the sensuous and the spiritual.