Works
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Although he wrote some prose work, we know Herbert mainly because of his poetry. Already during his first years at university he wrote in a letter to his mother that “his poetic abilities will always be consecrated to Gods glory.”2 Because none of his secular English poems survives, his reputation is that of a religious poet. His main work is his collection of poems that was published after his death: The Temple. Herbert himself describes these poems as “a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul.”3 Herbert is often mentioned as one of the metaphysical poets. This is because Herbert, just like Donne, uses a lot of intellectual imagery. In Herbert’s poetry this is mostly biblical imagery.
In his poems Herbert is trying to find out what his relationship is to God. He explores a lot of different forms of this relationship: “king and subject, lord and courtier, master and servant, father and child, bridegroom and bride, friend to friend of inferior status.”4 But every time it seems as if Herbert comes to the conclusion that his relationship with God will always be uneven and that his poems can never praise God the way God should be praised. To deal with this fact, Herbert rejects the normal poetic style. Instead he develops a poetry written in a biblical style, with images, metaphors and symbols from the Bible.