1.

George Herbert

1593–1633
Introduction

George Herbert was born on April 3, 1593, the fifth son of an eminent
Welsh family. His mother, Magdalen Newport, held great patronage to
distinguished literary figures such as John Donne, who dedicated his Holy
Sonnets to her. Herbert's father died when he was three, leaving his mother
with ten children, all of whom she was determined to educate and raise as
loyal Anglicans. Herbert left for Westminster School at age ten, and went
on to become one of three to win scholarships to Trinity College,
Cambridge.

Education

Herbert received two degrees (a BA in 1613 and an MA in 1616) and was

elected a major fellow of Trinity. Two years after his college graduation, he
was appointed reader in Rhetoric at Cambridge, and in 1620 he was elected
public orator—a post wherein Herbert was called upon to represent
Cambridge at public occasions and that he described as "the finest place in
the university." In 1624 and 1625 Herbert was elected as a representative to
Parliament. He resigned as orator in 1627, married Jane Danvers in 1629,
and took holy orders in the Church of England in 1630. Herbert spent the
rest of his life as rector in Bemerton near Salisbury. While there, he
preached, wrote poetry, and helped rebuild the church out of his own funds.

Literary works

Herbert's practical manual to country parsons, A Priest to the

Temple (1652), exhibits the intelligent devotion he showed to his
parishoners. On his deathbed, he sent the manuscript of The Temple to his
close friend, Nicholas Ferrar, asking him to publish the poems only if he
thought they might do good to "any dejected poor soul." He died of
consumption in 1633 at the age of forty and the book was published in the
same year. The Temple met with enormous popular acclaim—; it was
reprinted twenty times by 1680.

Herbert's poems have been characterized by a deep religious devotion,

linguistic precision, metrical agility, and ingenious use of conceit. Samuel
Taylor Coleridge wrote of Herbert's diction that "Nothing can be more pure,
manly, or unaffected," and he is ranked with Donne as one of the great
metaphysical poets.

2. Henry Vaughan

early poetry

 In 1646, Vaughan had a Latin translation published

 In 1650, his first major volume of poetry, Silex Scintillans (The Fiery
Flint or the Flashing Flint), was published
 In 1651, Olor Iscanus (The Swan of Usk) followed. There were some
prose translations mixed with the verse in this volume. Neither made
a huge impact.

Henry Vaughan - A spiritual crisis

Shortly after this, Vaughan entered a spiritual crisis. He may been ill, the
Royalist cause had been defeated, and his brother had been thrown out of
his church. Vaughan began reading Herbert's poetry, and this seems to
have had a great impact on him, leading to what we would call
a conversion experience, a radical spiritual change. From then on, his
poetry became markedly influenced by Herbert's and was almost entirely
religious. He copied many of Herbert's poetic devices, often freely
borrowing words and phrases.

Henry Vaughan and imagery from nature

It would, however, be a mistake to see Vaughan as merely imitating
Herbert. He became a much more mystical poet than Herbert. This may
have been connected with his Welsh background which led him to write
about nature a great deal, and to draw his imagery from nature rather than
from the intellectual concerns of the English poets. There are fewer conceits
and much more nature symbolism or emblems. His method is more like
that of the emblematic poets such as Francis Quarles or another mystic poet
of the period, Thomas Traherne. Vaughan’s nature poetry is a far cry from
the conventional pastoral poetry of the Elizabethans. He writes of the real
countryside he would have seen every day.

Further publications by Henry Vaughan

 In 1652 Vaughan published The Mount of Olives, or Solitary

Devotions, his first volume of solely religious poems
  In 1655 he published an enlarged edition of Silex Scintillans. The
change was immediately obvious.

Both volumes became popular. Later volumes of poetry followed, but none
managed to achieve the same recognition.

Henry Vaughan's death

Vaughan lived the rest of his life quietly at Newton. He died in 1695.

3. Thomas Traherne

Unlike the major figures of the "Metaphysical Revival," John

Donne and George Herbert, whose works were widely known and discussed
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Thomas Traherne is almost
wholly a discovery of twentieth-century scholarship. In his own lifetime he
published only one book, Roman Forgeries (1673), and, as a clergyman
he did not rise to prominence. So obscure is his background, in fact, that
scholars once argued about what family and even what part of the country
he came from. Biographers have not gone far beyond Anthony Wood, who
in Athenæ Oxonienses (1691, 1692) claimed that Traherne was of
modest parentage from the Welsh border area, that he attended Brasenose
College, Oxford, took an M. A. in 1661, and was soon assigned a living in a
parish near Hereford. Later, he was made chaplain to Sir Orlando
Bridgeman, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, a connection which was to prove
extremely important in identifying him as the author of some anonymous
works thought of as indicative of the author of the Centuries and Poems
of Felicity . Not long after Wood's account John Aubrey published in
his Miscellanies (1696) a brief description of some visions related by
Traherne, a basket floating in the air and an oddly attired apprentice, which
presumably show his particular piety. If the few biographical remnants can
be believed, he was a devoutly religious man, known for his charity to the
poor and his rigorous devotional practices. As the anonymous author of the
preface to A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation (1699) writes,
"He never failed any one day either publickly or in his private closet, to
make use of her [the church's] publick offices."

Even though much of the Traherne canon remains unpublished, the

discovery of his work is one of the great stories of modern literary
scholarship. In the winter of 1896-1897 William T. Brooke came across two
manuscripts at a London bookstall. Thinking that they might be the work
of Henry Vaughan, he showed them to Alexander Grosart. Convinced that
they were Vaughan's, Grosart prepared to bring out a new edition of
Vaughan, and, had he lived, it appears that he would have done so. After his
death in 1899 the manuscripts found their way to Bertram Dobell, who
decided they were the work of someone other than Vaughan. Brooke's
acquaintance with an anonymous work, A Serious and Pathetical
Contemplation, part of which he had anthologized in The Churchman's
Manual of Private and Family Devotion (1883), proved helpful to Dobell.
After study he recognized that the author of the manuscripts and the author
of A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation were one and the same; but
who was that author? The preface to the latter work, hereafter referred to as
the Thanksgivings, identified him as chaplain to "the late Lord
Keeper Bridgman." Once Dobell consulted Wood, the connection between
Bridgeman and Traherne was established. Traherne was known to have
written Christian Ethicks (1675), and Dobell discovered that some verse in
this work was almost identical with a passage in one of the manuscripts,
thus confirming Traherne's authorship. This manuscript, called the
"Centuries," was made up of short prose passages interspersed with a few
poems. Half of the other manuscript comprised poetry; the rest was
devoted to prose extracts and notes. Dobell brought out an edition of the
poetry in 1903, and in 1908 he published the "Centuries" as Centuries of
Meditations.

Yet there was little that could be added to Wood's biographical sketch. It is
known that during Traherne's residence as a student at Brasenose, Oxford
was an outpost of Royalist sentiment, and, in fact, the last military outpost
of Charles I's forces. Even after the Royalist cause was lost, Oxford
remained the center of Royalist publications. Traherne was there for the
last eight years of the Protectorate; and, although the Puritans had power,
student and faculty sentiment was never with them. The central issue for
Traherne (and for many others at Oxford, no doubt) was ecclesiastical
thought and practice. It was on the great issue of church government that
Traherne wrote the only one of his works that would appear in his
lifetime, Roman Forgeries, published anonymously in 1673. Traherne died
the following year and was buried on 10 October in Teddington (near
Hampton Court) under the reading desk of the church where he had
preached. A disputatious essay, Roman Forgeries betrays its academic
origins. Speaking in propia persona, Traherne claims that the work grew
out of an argument that he had with a Roman Catholic. Having just
emerged from the Bodleian Library, Traherne encountered a friend, who
introduced him to his cousin, with whom Traherne was soon at loggerheads
over the correct definition of a martyr to the Catholic church. Discussion
turned, first, on what is unique to the Roman cause (as that would
determine the numbers of martyrs Rome could legitimately claim), but it
soon devolved into contention over the issue of the ancient documents on
which church authority purportedly rested. According to Traherne's
account, the other young man, apparently in frustration, denied that it
made any difference whether or not contested documents were forgeries.
Leaping on this statement as his point of departure, Traherne advanced his
own thesis that the early church was uncorrupted by arbitrary power.

More than any of his other writings (except perhaps for certain entries in
his unpublished "Commonplace Book"), Roman Forgeries exhibits
Traherne's training as a scholar. It has been suggested that the work might
have been Traherne's M. A. thesis. The work proceeds from the narrative of
this heated exchange on various doctrinal issues (transubstantiation, papal
authority, purgatory, the doctrine of merits, and so on) to the textual thesis
of the volume, which Traherne presents dramatically. He braces his friend's
cousin: "You met me this Evening at the Library door; if you please to meet
me there to morrow morning at eight of the Clock, I will take you in; and we
will go from Class to Class, from Book to Book, and there I will first shew
you in your own Authors, that you publish such Instruments for
good Records; and then prove, that those Instruments are downright
frauds and forgeries, though cited by you upon all occasions." Traherne's
interlocutor gives a flippant response, but agrees to continue the debate,
and the thesis unfolds.

The tone of Roman Forgeries is at times so intemperate that some

Traherne critics have felt obliged to apologize for it. This is a little bit like
apologizing for an epic because there is violence in it; the flaw of
intemperate diction in Roman Forgeries, if it is a flaw, is a shared feature of
polemical treatises of the time. As modern readers look back at the issues
involved in Roman Forgeries, they might be tempted to think of the
participants as excessive or naive. But this may reflect a twentieth-century
preference for such words as "xenophobia" to describe phenomena once
delineated as "nationalism." One need only look at areas of controversy—
economic, social, and military policies, for instance—to recognize how a
tone of intemperance persists as part of polemical rhetoric, even though the
subjects of controversy have changed considerably. Certainly Roman
Forgeries exhibits erudition far in excess of most current doctoral
dissertations in the humanities. Yet it must be admitted that Traherne
stacks the deck by eliminating questions of doctrine. Furthermore, he
insists that the only legitimate claims for Catholic authority date from
before the year 420. Making the pronouncements of the Nicene Council the
virtual equivalent of Scripture, Traherne builds his case for the earliest
practices as the only ground of ecclesiastical order. The fact that the Vatican
housed most of the relevant manuscripts, then, "proves" Traherne's major
thesis that the documents had been corrupted, misused, or
suppressed. Roman Forgeries builds on a conspiratorial theory of history,
which goes hand in hand with the abusive tone of the work—in this respect
atypical of Traherne's poems and Centuries.

Christian Ethicks: Or, Divine Morality. Opening the Way to Blessedness,

By the Rules of Vertue and Reason concerns many of the same issues, but
the latter work is more concerned with the theological implications of
Calvinist thought on freedom and necessity. Besides, this posthumous work
is not at all polemical. On the contrary, parts of it are imbued with the
themes and style of the Centuries and poems. With Christian Ethicks,
Traherne comes as close as he gets to sustained theological discourse, and
yet this work (as the subtitle suggests) is more ethical than religious in
nature. Indeed, many features of the work can be construed as part of a
reaction against the overheated, legalistic aspects of the controversy
surrounding Calvinist thought on predestination. In this way, Traherne's
work can be seen as a reaction against such thinkers as Thomas Hobbes;
Traherne resists the tendency toward a conventional ethics. (History gave
the victory to his adversaries in at least this matter.)

Yet, like Hobbes and Francis Bacon before him (in the unpublished "Early
Notebook" Traherne includes a lengthy extract from Bacon's De Augmentis
Scentiarum , 1623), Traherne was fascinated by the "new science," in
particular, by its notion of infinite space, which he incorporates in some of
his best writings. The interest in science of religious poets of the time is not
sufficiently appreciated today; critics interested in "demystifying" the
beliefs of poets like Herbert and Traherne are particularly inclined to ignore
it in favor of an emphasis on their retrograde attachment to liturgical forms
and the like. In any case, Traherne implicitly denies in Christian
Ethicks the secular foundation of ethics by refusing to recognize any
difference between justice and the other virtues. He stresses the individual's
free and open access to the infinite enjoyment of "Felicity": "WHEN our
own Actions are Regular, there is nothing in the World but may be made
conducive to our highest Happiness." The only apparent obstacle to this
enjoyment is a failure on man's part to exercise the God-given capacity of
will: "This I would have you note well, for the intrinsick Goodness and
Glory of the Soul consists in the Perfection of an excellent Will."

It may sound as if, in the end, Traherne succumbs to a Calvinist view of

man's incapacity to preserve the innocent "seeing" of the infant, but
nothing could be more remote from his thought on the subject. He
recognizes human limitation, but he does not emphasize it, and he surely
does not build a system of belief on it:
IT is a great Error to mistake the Vizor for the Face, and no less to stick in
the outward Kind and Appearance of things; mistaking the Alterations and
Additions that are made upon the Fall of Man, for the whole Business of
Religion. And yet this new Constellation of Vertues, that appeareth
aboveboard, is almost the only thing talked of and understood in the World.
Whence it is that the other Duties, which are the Soul of Piety, being
unknown, and the Reason of these together with their Original and
Occasion, unseen; Religion appears like a sour and ungratefull Thing to the
World, impertinent to bliss, and void of Reason; Whereupon GOD is
suspected and hated, Enmity against GOD and Atheism, being brought
into, and entertained in the World.

4. Richard Crashaw

The English Civil War

The English Civil War began in 1642. Had it not been for this, Crashaw
might well have lived a long but obscure life as a scholar. However,
Cambridge was in an area held by Parliamentary forces which made the
teaching staff of the University sign a ‘covenant’, pledging their loyalty to
Parliament and a more Puritan church. Crashaw evaded this by moving to
Oxford, the headquarters of Charles I and the royalist forces, but lost his
fellowship as a result.

Poverty in Paris
 We next hear of Crashaw in 1646 in Paris, where his
friend Cowley discovered him in some poverty. He had by then become
a Roman Catholic. Cowley asked Queen Henrietta Maria, also in exile and
also Catholic, to help Crashaw. She sent him to Rome with a letter of
introduction.

To Rome
Once in Rome, Crashaw was placed in the household of Cardinal Palotta.
The Cardinal's household seems to have shown a good deal of immoral
behaviour, to which Crashaw objected strongly. His objections became so
public that the household turned against him. The Cardinal had him
appointed a canon, or cathedral official, at Loretto in 1649.

Death
Crashaw had only been at Loretto for three weeks, when he sickened and
died in somewhat mysterious circumstances.

Crashaw’s poetry

 Crashaw was influenced by his reading of Spanish mystical poetry

and by the Italian poet Marini
 In 1646, some of his religious verse was collected and published
under the title of Steps to the Temple (perhaps in conscious imitation
of George Herbert’s group of poems called The Temple), and The
Delights of the Muses
 In 1652, his later poetry was published under the title of Carmen Deo
Nostro (Hymn to our God). It was published in Paris and is dedicated
to the Countess of Denbigh, who was also living in exile there, and
whom he had hoped to convert to Catholicism
 His poetry was not collected together, however, until 1858.

Andrew Marvell:
0
Education

He earned his bachelor’s degree in 638, but it is believed that he stayed at

Cambridge until 1641 for a master’s degree. Not much is known about
Andrew Marvels life; though scholars do know in the sass he had a part in
the English Government. In 1657 He was appointed Assistant Latin
Secretary to the Council of the state; in 1659 he concentrated more on
political satire and stopped writing poetry. During Marvels life time
England’s government had some surprising changes.

Monarchy and parliament worked together, but King James I did not have
the skill to manage a country, but the government gained more issues when
his son, Charles I succeeded him. King Charles I was overthrown and
beheaded. England wanted to establish a new government, after doing so;
Charles II was made King of England. Marvel died on August 16, 1678 due
to a fever. “While he is not thought to be married, shortly after his death, a
woman claiming to be his widow published a volume of his poetry’ (Ruby
276). He was one of the chief wits and satirists, a Puritan, and a public
defender of individual liberty during his time.

Literary works

Today he is Just known for his poetry. (Marlborough, Saukville-West,

Hunt, Murray, Deliver, Elegies, Wallace, Frederic, Don. 1) In the sass
Marvels poem “To His Coy Mistress” was seen as “obscene and obscure”
because of his message in the poem, and the control the church had over
the people. Marvel is considered to have been a carper diem writer, and
sometimes described as a metaphysical poet. Carper diem means the
writing style encourages a reader to “seize the day’ because life is short;
Metaphysical poets use many unique metaphors and were very appreciated
for their originality.

Jeffrey Akron states “To His Coy Mistress” may be one of Marvels most
destructive poems. “Its strength is that having turned against itself in the
expected manner of ironic poems, it then turns against its wan internal
objections” (Akron par. 39). In the poem, the speaker describes how he
could worship his mistress forever; however part two the tone shifts to time
rushing past and the mistress’s physical beauty being wasted away with it.
The speaker wants to beat time and enjoy his mistress’s company. There are
many different themes in “To His Coy Mistress” such as time, love, passion,
seduction, beauty, and death.

This poem is of forty-six lines, and three paragraphs dividing up the

rhyming couplets. Marvel used personification, hyperbole, and very bizarre
metaphors. The speaker is speaking to his mistress in a rhetorical situation.
He passionately describes his love for her and there is not enough time to
live to show her how beautiful she is, and how great his love is for her. He
wants his love with his mistress to go further by getting intimate with each
other, although she wants to save her virginity due to her religious views
with the church.

Themes of his poetry

He informs her if their love is true and they are in love, they should further
their relationship. The woman is said to be coy because s is taking too much
time, and time doesn’t stop for anyone. His Coy Mistress’ is a sublime
example of a carper diem poem, a Latin phrase meaning ‘seize the day”
(Adams par. 8). The first two lines of the poem the main theme, time, is
introduced to the reader. It is basically saying life passes quickly an one
should not waste their youth, that they should “seize the day. ” The first
paragraph of the poem the speaker describes how life is too short for them
to waste time.

Style of his poetry

He uses exotic metaphors such as, love” to describe how long he could love
his mistress. Beginning at line seven until line eighteen he uses hyperbole
to describe the amount of years he could love her and devote to worship
her. He describes her physical attractiveness and how long he could love
every par of her body and of course her heart. In paragraph two the speaker
goes from speaking of his love for his mistress to imagining her grave. He
speaks of time as the driver in a chariot hurrying closer to them; he uses
“hurrying” to the show the distress of the little time they have.

A few lines down in this paragraph, he describe to his mistress her virginity
will eventually over time mean nothing, and when she dies it will be an
unusual and worthless treasure. In the first few lines of third and final
paragraph the speaker describes his mistress as “morning dew’ saying she is
young and her skin a healthy glow Just like the dew over the grass in the
early ironing. Another exotic metaphor he uses is “birds of prey. ” He and
his mistress a the birds, and they are preying on time. They want to eat and
not be eaten.

The speaker finally breaks through and wins his mistress over using the last
few lines o the poem. He is saying to her they should take every part of
themselves, the strong, the sweet, and the vulnerable, roll it up into a ball
and come together as one to BEA time. Since they cannot make the sun stay
still they will race with him, the speaker using personification and making
the sun seem like a person literally racing with him. Marvel was not
acknowledged for his unique, but brilliant poems until after his death, he
changed the meaning of Metaphysical Poet.