God's Silence: On Herbert's Deniall

God's Silence: On Herbert's Deniall by Merio A. Di Cesere As one of the richest poems in The Temple, "Deniell" hos ettrected ß fair share of critical attention, but it hes to some extent eluded even our best critics. Not unreesonebly; it is en unusuel poem which seems Almost too usuel. There ere several brood erees which hove not received sufficient ettention: the prosody, the conclusion, the theologicel context, end the narrative cherocter. My own study leeds me to believe that the prosody is intricete, subtle, demending, end remerkebly effective; that the conclusion needs to be delicately understood within the total poem; that the poem is fundementelly e textured nerretive of spiritual dryness, with contrapuntal structures and ambivalent conclusion. Before looking at the main critical commentary on this poem, let me set forth the text, marked up (with abundant qualms end misgivings) to offer my understending of occented end unoccented end lengthened syllables, caesural pauses, and enjambments:1 X / X / X / When my Devotions could not peirce__ X / X / X Thy silent eares; / X--/xx/x/ Then wes my heert broken, // es wos my verse: X / X / X / X My brest wos full of feeres__ /x/x And disorder: x// xx/x/ My bent thoughts, // like e brittle bow, ? /x/x Did fly osunder. 86Merio A. Di Cesere /xx//xx/x/ Each tooke his wey, // some would to pleasures goe, /xx/? /? Some to the warres end thunder__ /x/x Of Alarmes. X / - / X - X / As gooa goe any where, // they say, /XX/ As to benumme__ / x/x/x/X/ Both knees & heart, // in crying night & day, x-XCome , // Come, my God, // o come, / x/x But no hearing. IxI- XlXl Oh that thou shouldst give dust a tongue__ ? IxI To cry to thee, ? / - IxIx... And then not heare it crying: // all day long__ ? / ? I ? I My heert wes in my knee, IxIx But no heering. /xx/-XX/ Therefore my soule // ley out of sight, xlxl Untun'd, // unstrung: ? Ix Ix? I ? ? My feeble spirit, // uneble to looke right, xxlIxI Like e nipt blossome, // hung— /x/x Discontented. ? / xlxlxl O cheere, & tune my hartles brest, xlxl Déferre no time. x I ? I x IxIxI Thet so thy fevors // granting my request, /XX/- / They & my mind // mey chime, X / X / And mend my Rime. HERBERT'S "DENIALL"87 The prosody offers ebundent end lively surprises. The leek of rime in the fifth lines of five stenzes hes been noticed, admired, and given perhaps a shade too much importence by most commentators. I do not think it is the main source of the jangling dishermony every reeder feels. The prosodie dislocation of the text is aggreveted by the non-riming fifth lines, but the pattern supports rather then dominetes the multiple end shifting rhythms of the poem.2 Every line-form in the stonzo-structure has its own specific end unique character; there are four different line lengths (tetrameter, dimeter, pentameter, trimeter); only the dimeter is repeated, but the final dimeter is trochaic, not iembic, until the lest stenze.3 These trocheic dimeters — commonly gentle or soothing rhythms, less forceful or assertive than iambic dimeters — are, here, bleak in their effect. I suggest thet it is just this smoothly réguler trocheic beet which disintegrates the rhythm and creates the harsh irregularities. While the poem has little ceesurel control of movement, whet Alicia Ostriker calls full syntoctic enjombment is frequent and notable.4 Except for the final stanze, every stenze hes et least one full enjambment, and stanzas one and four have two each; the total of seven is unusuelly high. Furthermore, in this poem the pettern of enjembment end its reletionship to ceesure violetes the practices cited by Ostriker: Overflow end coreful verying of ceesure, in Herbert's work es in blenk verse, go together. Throughout Herbert's verse one finds lines breaking more than once, breaking in the middle of the foot, or breaking near the beginning or end of a line rather thon et the center. (p. 308) In feet, in this poem, most of the overflow lines leek ceesure; enjembment creetes markedly long units (II. 1-2, 9-10, 16-17). All the enjambments work in the ordinary way. When a...