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أكـاديـمـي فـعّـال
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رد: •• {{ 2nd year English students cafe ««
بناااااات هذا جاااء عاااجل
توني فتحت القروب لقيت فيه عن جوووردن 1 و 2
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George Herbert: Poem analysis » Jordan I
On writing poetry
Telling the truth
What kind of poetry?
Plain poetry
On writing poetry
Herbert wrote two poems entitled Jordan. Both are about the writing of poetry, and we can see Herbert reflecting on what he is doing in his own poetry. The meaning of the title may not seem immediately obvious. The River Jordan was the barrier which had to be crossed by the people of Israel as they entered the land of Canaan (the ‘Promised Land’) after journeying from Egypt through the desert. It was also the place where Jesus (and others) were baptised by John the Baptist (Mark 1:5 and Mark 1:9). The title therefore brings into play ideas of being led forward into a new environment, experiencing transformation and renewal.
More on baptism: Baptism is a central Christian ceremony or sacrament, together with communion (or the Mass). It involves pouring water over the baptismal candidates or immersing them in water. The symbolism of transformation works at several different levels. Firstly, it denotes repentance and a cleansing from past sins (Acts 19:4). Secondly, it denotes ‘dying’ to the old life and resurrection to a new transformed life.
Herbert is interested in ‘baptising’ the poetic imagination, and making sure Christian poetry is seen as real poetry. He asks: does all poetry have to be love poetry or pastoral poetry, and fictional at that?
Telling the truth
Herbert constructs the first two stanzas as a series of questions which challenge the orthodoxies of poetry-writing. Can poetry not just celebrate truth? The reference to a ‘painted chair’ is to poetry's artificiality as much as to its fictional nature. ‘A winding stair’ suggests a roundabout, indirect, elaborate mode of construction. Herbert is advocating a straightforward, plain statement of truth-telling. This is clearly how he wants his poetry to be written and judged.
What kind of poetry?
The second stanza raises questions about genre. Does poetry have to be pastoral poetry or love poetry, and expressed in a way that we can only catch ‘the sense at two removes’. The details mentioned are typical of such poetry.
Plain poetry
The third stanza advocates an alternative. Herbert plays with the word ‘shepherd’. In one sense, pastoral poetry is full of shepherds and shepherdesses. But are they real (‘honest’), or are they merely devices and conventional fictions? The second meaning of shepherd is ‘pastor’, the one who cares for the sheep. This evokes the words of Psalm 23, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ and the New Testament image of Christ as the ‘Good Shepherd’ Hebrews 13:20). As a poet who is also a priest, caring for his own flock, Herbert too is a shepherd. He describes his own poetry as plain, his cry of ‘My God, My King is ’. He refuses to be envious of other poet's nightingales (sweet verse) or their love poetry (‘spring’ being symbolically the season of lovers). Yet, though his choice of language may be plain, his thinking remains quite complex, challenging the reader to interpret both the title and the images.
Investigating Jordan I
Do you think Herbert is being a little disingenuous in Jordan I?
Is his verse is always straightforward?
Is pastoral poetry always complex?
Is Herbert condemning all love poetry?
Is he saying Christian poetry is better than love poetry?
Simple poetry
This poem needs to be read in conjunction with Jordan I, where the significance of the title is explained. In both poems, Herbert is writing about writing poetry, but Jordan II is more autobiographical here, tracing the development of his own style. You may think that all ****************physical poetry is difficult. Here is a poem which suggests a reaction to this. Herbert had started his poetic career with his head full of one conceit after another, but now he realises, as a Christian poet, that this was merely self-regarding and contrived, and what he really needs is simplicity and self-effacement.
It might seem that writing simple poetry is a good deal easier than writing complex poetry but this is not by any means the case. Robert Lowell and W.B.Yeats are two famous poets who began writing highly complex and symbolic poetry, only to produce much simpler poetry well into their careers. Simple poetry does not mean simple-minded poetry. Emily Dickenson's poetry has simple form and diction, but the meaning can be quite abstruse, even hermetic.
Gilding the lily
In Herbert's poem, the first stanza describes his early verse. He had only very straightforward things to say but managed to say them in complicated ways, using conceits: ‘curling with ****************phors’ is his ****************phor for this. There was an element of salesmanship: ‘as if it were to sell’. The second stanza continues this – he had so many clever ways of saying things, he couldn't get them down in time. And he thought this was all to glorify Christ: ‘to clothe the Sun’. The absurdity of this is obvious: the sun is self-sufficient in its own glory. He plays on the sun/Son (of God) word play – a conventional word play which Donne, for example, uses in Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward.
Who gets the glory?
The line ‘Much less those joys which trample on his head’ hits a jarring note. Andrew Marvell uses a similar image in his poem The Coronet, with which this poem should be compared, since both are about the difficulties of writing genuinely sincere religious poetry. The shocking thought is that what seems to be done in praise of Christ turns out a trampling of his head, because the motivation is really to glorify the poet. Christ is thus betrayed.
The coronet idea is re-enforced in stanza 3 with the ‘weave’ image. This is followed by ‘bustle’, a state of undirected activity. Probably there is an echo of the story of Mary and Martha from the gospels here. Martha was ‘bustling’ round Jesus and was told to sit and be quiet (Luke 10:40-42).
Copy out love
Herbert's resolution is a moment of revelation, when he hears the voice of God. This is a similar device to one used in The Collar. God tells him it's all a pretence, which is ‘wide’ of the mark, and which takes a ‘long’ time to achieve anything. Instead he is told to write about love. Just ‘copy out only that’ and there will be much less effort and a great deal more acceptable in God's eyes.
Investigating Jordan II
Read through Jordan II
The poem has a neat ending but what do you think it takes to ‘copy out love’?
What is the force of ‘copy out only’?
Would you say the poem exemplifies what God tells Herbert to do?
Compare the poem with Jordan I
What do they have in common?
What are their different emphases?
Compare this poem to Marvell's The Coronet
What similarities can you find?
From :
http://www.crossref-it.info/********...l-Poetry/4/250
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