George Herbert

George Herbert

George was born in Montgomery in wales in 3 April 1593 . He was an English poet, orator and Anglican priest.

He received a good education wich led to his holding prominent positions at Cambridge University and Parliament. He went to college with the intention of becoming a priest, but his scholarship attracted the attention of King James I/VI. After the death of King James and at the urging of a friend, Herbert's interest in ordained ministry was renewed.

n 1630, in his late thirties he gave up his secular ambitions and took holy orders in the Church of England, spending the rest of his life as a rector of the little parish of Fugglestone St Peter with Bemerton St Andrew, near Salisbury.

Works

The Temple: Sacred poems and private ejaculations, edited by Nicholas Ferrar. The book went through eight editions by 1690.

Barnabas Oley edited in 1652 Herbert's Remains, or sundry pieces of that Sweet Singer, Mr. George Herbert, containing A Priest to the Temple, or the countrey parson, Jacula Prudentum, &c. Prefixed was an unsigned preface by Oley. The second edition appeared in 1671 as A Priest to the Temple or the Country Parson, with a new preface, signed Barnabas Oley. These pieces were reprinted in later editions of Herbert's Works. The manuscript of The Country Parson was the property of Herbert's friend, Arthur Wodenoth, who gave it to Oley; the prefaces were a source for Izaak Walton's memoir of Herbert.

All of Herbert's English surviving poems are religious, and some have been used as hymns, William Cowper said of them I found in them a strain of piety which I could not but admire.^[11] They are characterised by directness of expression and some conceits which can appear quaint. Many of the poems have intricate rhyme schemes, and variations of lines within stanzas described as 'a cascade of form floats through the temple. An example of Herbert’s religious poetry is “The Altar.

Herbert influenced his fellow metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan who, in turn, influenced William Wordsworth.

George Herbert's poetry has been set to music by several composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, Judith Weir, Randall Thompson, William Walton andPatrick Larley.




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