George Herbert and Coterie Verse

Cristina Malcolmson George Herbert and Coterie Verse When George Herbert announced his relationship to the English literary tradition, it was largely a family affair. His imitations of Sir Philip Sidney's poems and of the sonnet sequence itself were responses not only to a legendary literary figure but to a relative, the most famous member of the Sidney-Herbert clan. This family was known for its writers and patrons of the arts, but also recognized as a significant political and Protestant faction. Lawrence Stone characterizes a landed family as "a dense network of lineage and kin relationships," whose members were involved in "a reciprocal exchange of patronage, support and hospitality in return for attendance, deference, respect, advice and loyalty." George Herbert's decision to make good on Sidney's claim that one's lyric powers could best be dedicated to God, a credo that Sidney did not follow himself, was impelled by sincere devotional commitment as well as the knowledge that, in order for Herbert to maintain himself as a gentleman, he needed the support of Sidney's nephew, William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke.1 In this essay, I will argue that what we call Herbert's sacred parody originated in a specific context of poetic debate popular among the Herbert clan, as well as other literary coteries.2 This contest in verse was an upper-class fashion as well as a convention which writers could learn and appropriate for their own purposes. To answer a poem was to request entrance into the upper-class circle that had produced it, and to take on its air of gentility. The point of the debate was to demonstrate one's verbal skills, not to express a personal opinion, and writers often displayed their training in the universities and the Inns of Court by arguing on both sides of the question. The debate was competitive not only because it took its cue from disputations in logic, but because writers matched wits with 160Cristina Malcolmson friendly rivals, or vied for the attention of prospective patrons. George Herbert's criticism of erotic love poetry was a more sustained version of the position taken by several poets. Sidney, Donne, Edward Herbert, Benjamin Rudyerd, and Shakespeare argued for and against secular love, at times by renouncing it for sacred devotion. George Herbert entered the debate through his sacred parody, and "Jordan" was his emblem both before and after he gave up his plans for a secular career. In this essay, I will consider the devotional lyrics in The Temple not as a set of private meditations, but as part of Herbert's lifelong performance within the Herbert circle.3 The Publication ofHerbert's English Verse Because of Herbert's upper-class status, he withheld most of his poetry from commercial publication during his lifetime.4 I believe that he regularly presented his devotional lyrics to a select, elite group. Some critics have argued that Herbert's English lyrics were not known to others in any significant way until the publication of The Temple after his death in 1633. Underlying these arguments is the assumption that social performance within a patronage network and the expression of religious conviction are mutually exclusive. I plan to show that The Temple was conceived within the context of the Herbert family coterie and alluded continually to it; that George Herbert almost certainly sang or recited his religious lyrics in the family homes at Chelsea and in Wiltshire; and that it is possible that some of his manuscripts circulated. Critical opinion has been divided on the question of the privacy of Herbert's English verse. F.E. Hutchinson claims that Herbert's English poems must "have been circulated in manuscript, as he enjoyed some reputation as a poet many years before his death." Rosemund Tuve argues that George Herbert's poem "A Parodie" was a musical imitation of William Herbert's "Soûles Joy," and that both songs were meant to be performed during the musical entertainments at Wilton House, "A network of ties we are largely unaware of made poets answer each other's poems, try out each other's modes." She assumes that Herbert visited Pembroke's Wilton House regularly...