Herbert's "Poetic Theory"

Herbert's "Poetic Theory" by Joost Daalder Although scholarship has accumulated much valuable material, I believe that the main advance in our approach to Herbert in recent decades has been in the area of criticism. And this is where most progress was needed, in view of the tendency of earlier academics to see Herbert as some sort of inferior Donne, or at least a simple or plain poet. Mary Ellen Rickey and notably Helen Vendler have taught us to see Herbert with fresh eyes, making us aware of the real complexity and richness of his verse.' But with respect to Herbert's poetic theory, as Rosemond Tuve styled it,2 these critics have rather let us down. For example, we find Rickey writing about "Jordan" (I) and (II): We must not confuse the quality here lauded with any modern concept of plainness involving thinness, absence of adornment, or naivete. Verbal plainness for Herbert always was the vehicle of sincerity and sharpness of expression; its antithesis was not beauty or intricacy of idea, but pretension and imagerial clutter. The nightingale and spring incurring his disfavor in "Jordan" (I) do so because they are companionate to fictions onely and false hair, and the metaphors scorned in "Jordan" (II) offend him because they are a long pretense, a falsifying of the plain intention of devotion, (pp. 1 73-74)3 It is not difficult to see the influence of Tuve here, who had claimed that "Herbert is no ascetic" (p. 185) and (with special reference to "Jordan" [M]) that what Herbert criticizes is "Not subtlety of metaphor nor richness of style but his own intellectual pride, in his own earlier writing" (p. 190). In the 18Joost Oaalder view of these critics, Herbert, in the "Jordan" poems, does not reject the beauty of poetic language, but the attitude of those using it — those writing about "fictions onely and false hair" in "Jordan" (I) and himself in "Jordan" (II) ("As flames do work and winde, when they ascend, / So did I weave my self into the sense").4 Tuve warns us explicitly against trying to find in Herbert "a manifesto against fine style and over-subtlety" (p. 192). At the risk of over-simplification, I would suggest that Vendler sees a significantly different theory of poetry when she speaks of "those sparkling notions and embellishments, which Herbert does not permit himself in 'Jordan' (II) and 'The Forerunners' " (p. 253). According to this interpretation, Herbert does reject the beauty of poetic language, and, pace Tuve, would appear to show himself an ascetic in this. Others have adopted the view that this is his general, or at least dominant attitude to poetic beauty. H. R. Swardson saw "damaging arguments against poetry" in the first stanza of "Jordan" (I).5 He considered that "Jordan" (II) contends that "All of the devices that make for excellence in the literary tradition seem misapplied when the subject is heavenlyjoy" (p. 71), and, although not always, Herbert most of the time exhibits "a suspicion of poetic craftsmanship" (p. 81). My own view is that it is as wrong to call Herbert an ascetic as not to regard him so, and in particular I feel uncomfortable with any attempt to impute to him some supposed "poetic theory" as something which he consistently adhered to. I would not go so far as to say that Herbert's view of poetic beauty was as variable and temperamental as Aldous Huxley's phrase about his "inner weather" suggests. But I do not believe that we can locate more than momentarily held positions in any of the poems. No poem is any more final and definite, as a statement of Herbert's "poetic theory," than any other. Even the following statement by Leonard Mustazza, in a recent article about "The Forerunners," seems to me to go too far: In some ways . . . "The Forerunners" bridges the gap between the plain expressions of praise the poet cherishes and the more elaborate verse he envies the amatory poets for. Perhaps more than any other poem about the poet's craft in The Temple, this one synthesizes HERBERT'S "POETIC THEORY"19 Herbert's view of poetry and helps the reader...