George Herbert and Post-Phenomenology: A Gift for Our Times by Malgorzata Grzegorzewska (review)

For us to consider a book that connects the poetry of George Herbert with the philosophical study of phenomenology and post-phenomenology requires some basic definition of terms. In the field of philosophy, phenomenology is an intellectual discipline that seeks to describe objects of experience, and how awareness of such objects of experience takes place, without making any claims concerning the existence of such objects. Post-phenomenology, particularly as related to religious experiences, is a revision of phenomenology that aims to get around the limitations of phenomenology's subjectivism, especially with experiences that are overwhelming and which lie beyond our ability to completely comprehend. This includes the consideration of the spiritual realm and the attributes of God, who is beyond all that our human senses can understand. Regarding the concept of "incarnation," this post-phenomenological movement also strives to reach beyond phenomenology's limited earthly objectivism. With this in mind, let us look at how Malgorzata Grzegorzewska considers George Herbert and Post-Phenomenology.

In describing her approach, she notes that she has "sought to appropriate concepts in contemporary philosophy, in particular in the works of the French post-phenomenologists Michel Henry, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Luc Chretien and Jean-Luc Marion" (p. 9). The concepts she finds directly relevant include: the God-givenness of being, language, and grace; the inherent doubt or puzzlement surrounding the giving of such gifts, and specifically the gift of divine love; the reality that these gifts must efface their own givenness in order to be genuinely gratuitous; the provision of a depth of hospitality which forces us to open the door to an unknown stranger (the gracious God who we have yet to fully experience) who may change our life; the saturated experience of this God; and, how a "subject" can receive and comprehend such a godly saturation. For Grzegorzewska these theological-philosophical concepts "provide a remarkable fertile context for interpreting Herbert's poetry" (p. 9) and applying them yields insights into this poetry that are intriguing and evocative.

As Grzegorzewska focuses on these theological-philosophers, she affirms that Herbert himself has a poet's "listening I," in contrast to the "speaking I" of other poets," and that his listening I "is shaped by the Word made flesh" (p. 8). Furthermore, she clarifies that Herbert's "rich, multilayered literary allusion serves only one purpose: to provide in his poetry space for the voice of another, and then let this voice call, entice, and seduce the speaker and the reader alike" (p. 23). This voice, heard throughout Herbert's poetry, is the voice of God, one that is heard within the bounds of the Word of Scripture and the Word made flesh in Christ and that is audible within the sacraments and other ministries of the Church.

As Grzegorzewska guides us through the thoughts of Jean-Luc Marion, Emmanuel Levinas, and Matthew Henry, she reveals that we may see in the poetry of Herbert a poetics of the "dative subject." What this suggests is that a poem's poetic character, Herbert himself as writer, and the reader of his poems are to receive something of significance from the poems – and even more so, from God. The writing or reading of a Herbertian poem is not about reaching for something and grasping something intentionally. It is more about being given something–being gifted something from and by God. For Grzegorzewska, what happens in the poetry of Herbert, and is clarified by French post-phenomenal writers, is summarized well in a quotation from Tamsin Jones's A Genealogy of Marion's Philosophy of Religion: "The self does not access or experience itself for an other (Levinas) or as an other (Ricoeur)–but becomes itself by an other. More explicitly as a gift . . . that comes ultimately from God" (p. 66, footnote 89).

Grzegorzewska emphasizes that in Herbert's poetry the writer and reader alike receive...