The Two George Herberts

...Love must be freely given, not a reward of merit—hence its mystery But in an ominous closing that echoes Herbert's unease, Fish warns "Insofar as we know that, and know too that this tasting of the 'churches mysticall repast' is only preliminary to another serge of doubts and questions, we will have been driven to another deep and dark point of religion ' Q How much faith does Fish place m the theory he propounds/ A "A Conclusion In Which It May Appear That Everything Is Taken Back" suddenly confesses that, after all, it is impossible to prove The Temple to be "a strategy rather than an object " Having devoted almost 200 pages to amassing evidence that Herbert's special interest m catechistical method, when applied to his poetry, resolves certain apparent inconsistencies, Fish must admit that his own explanation, far from being conclusive, is no more than an extension of his original hypothesis For all criticism ends (if it does not begin) as a con-game designed to charm us into belief, its questions are posed to elicit answers from us that the examiner wished to bring out in the first place...

...But we are all in the same boat One can only demonstrate what one already believes, after one is convinced, who needs the demonstration...

...Catechists made much of the idea that the faithful were "living stones" in God's construction—continually being built, yet at the same time finished if man would simply recognize his place in it "Blest be the Architect, whose art/Could build so strong in a weak heart," cries Herbert, whose poems have been " finished," although the process of rediscovery belongs to the reader Q How does Fish relate these minor poems to the major work of Herbert that does not resort to architectural typology...

...A Fish's analysis of the beautiful and mysterious "Love III" is a masterful extension of his ideas Cast as a dialogue, the poem depicts a guest invited to dine with Love, excusing himself as unworthy, while the polite Host firmly dismisses all objections "Let my shame go where it doth deserve," pleads the reluctant poet And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame...

...Q What does that have to do with poetry'' A. "It is no accident, I believe," writes Fish, "that we need only alter this formula slightly and it will serve very nicely as a way of accounting for the simultaneous presence in Herbert's poetry of order and surprise To the poet "belongs the stability of a prior and controlling intention," while the reader is in the position of uncovering "a realization, which, because it is in the nature of a self-discovery, will be preceeded by uncertainty and restlessness, and crowned by surprise real, even though it will have been staged " Q. Is Fish able to demonstrate this...

...demands St Paul, "know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own...

...A To prove his point, Fish examines several "emblematic' verses, often dismissed as quaint bits of allegorical writing He effectively shows them to turn on a paradox designed to shake the reader out o f a conventional response into one that, in Herbert's phrase, "pierces the sense " Furthermore, these poems fall into a pattern recognizable from Herbert's better-known work a seeker finds what was lost, only to discover that he had it all along, but didn't know it...

...My dear, then I will serve You must su down, says Love, and taste my meat Sol did sit and eat This concludes The Temple Fish notes that readers will expect something ?climactic and retrospective, recalling and resolving conflicts that have previously been introduced and explored ' Yet "rather than resolving conflicts, ["Love 111"] re-enacts them and confirms their durability " Self-examination in preparation for the Euchanst demands that the communicant acknowledge his supreme unfitness as a precondition of his partaking of a sacrament ordained for sinners "The exercise of preparing to become worthy does not end in becoming worthy, but in the realization (stumbled on again and again) that you never can be...

...In this we are akin to Herbert, whose alternation between "the injunction to do work—and the realization, everywhere insisted on, that the work has already been done" prompted Stanley Fish's delightful and enlightening study Such a basic contradiction is especially tantalizing because it transcends Renaissance theology to reveal itself as the fundamental quandary of man Do we (must we) act as free agents, or do we merely fulfill predetermined destiny...

...Q. What significance do "temples" play in the role of catechizing, and how does Fish's thesis account for the "unfinished" nature of The Temple'' A "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," the Evangelist records Christ as telling the Jews, adding, "But he spoke of the temple of his body " This image extends to all Christians "What...

...This ongoing debate has perplexed society from the beginning Until it is resolved, George Herbert's voice will always speak to our deepest questions...

...THE TWO GEORGE HERBERTS by phoebe pettingell Q ? What is the critical view of George Herbert' A. As recently as a decade ago, most critics felt compelled to apologize for admiring his devotional poetry Excuses had to be made for its lack of prurient sexuality and cosmic despair, which the poems of John Donne (not to mention T S Eliot) had conditioned readers to expect from metaphysical writers This sense that the 17th-century Divine's poetry constituted a record of faith not really accessible to the modern mind was compounded by the Anglican Club People like W H Auden, F E Hutchinson and Helen Gardner, in their zeal to return us all to an age of belief, stressed Herbert's "quiet faith" and "primitive piety,' quoting less often from his verse in 77ie Templethan from Izaak Walton's delightful hagiography of the courtier-turned-country-par-son William Empson, however, sounded a new—and for a long time, lone—note by declaring, "it is true that George Herbert is a cricket in the sunshine, but one is accustomed to be shocked on discovering the habits of such creatures, thev are more savage than they seem " Today, after a lag of almost 50 years, fashion has caught up with Empson There are now many who read Herbert's devotional stance as "provisional," reflecting "an agony of spirit, emphasizing "restlessness " Q Can the "two Herberts' that emerge from the two critical positions be reconciled'' \. In a revolutionary study, The Living Temple Georige Herbert and Caterhizmz (California, 201 pp , $11 50), Stanley Fish lists three hypotheses that have tried to explain whva man so evidently scuiic in his taith could wnte so har-lowinglv ol spuitual conflict The first plesumes that the poems expressing anguish were written at a time when Herbal was still weighing the woild against the chinch, while the affirmations of joy were written after he took to his country parish The second assumption is that The Temple was written as autobiography, recalling struggles from a peaceful vantage point Lastly there is the "persona" theory, in which Herbert (who must have known Shakespeare) becomes merely a dramatist of imaginary conflicts Fish finds each of these unsatisfactory Some of the most restless poems appear to be late, both the "memoirist" and the "playwright" contradict Herbert's known antipathy to artificiality and dishonesty in art If he "staged" his effects, he belied his own principles The conflict between the two Herberts, Fish suggests, sheds light on another problem long troublesome to scholars—the organizing principle of The Temple The first few poems ("The Church-Porch," "The Altar") lead appropriately into meditations on "The Sacrifice" and "Thanksgiving," giving way in turn to "Good Friday" and "Easter This sets up a logical progression from architecture to liturgy enhanced by the Church calendar, rather as if one were touring the building with an informed commentator Herbert drops the idea as soon as it has been established in the reader's mind, then picks it up and drops it once more Again, critics have diverged One group assumes that no particular order was actually intended (The Temple may have been an editor s choice of title, anyway), the other postulates that Herbert's premature death presented completion ot some thematic scheme (and much ingenuisy has been wasted in three centuries on what it might ha\e been) Q What is the line solution to all these problems' \ Fish thinks he has discovered the missing link that vv ill gi\e us a whole and undivided Herbert, together with The Seuet ol the Temple Rev ealed Not to prolong the suspense, it is that Herbert was an adept of the methods of Socratic Catechizing—whereby principles are made manifest by a form of questioning which allows the subject to rediscover an idea already known to the examiner As a clergyman and classics scholar, Herbert derived great intellectual pleasure from teaching his congregation in this manner, observing (in Fish's paraphrase) that "the goal of self-discovery will be achieved only if the questions are propounded 'loosely and wildly,' for only then will the respondent experience the 'delight' of working things out for himself, but what is loose and wild from his perspective will have been carefully planned from the perspective of the chatechist, who will experience the delight of having produced, that is designed, spontaneity, not, however, in himself, but in another...