Literature Herbert

Literature Herbert

Redemption in the Poetry of George Herbert Simeon GALLU Université de Paris 3 - Sorbonne Nouvelle

In the eleventh of the thirty-nine Articles of Religion of the Anglican Church, ratified in 1571 at the order of Elizabeth I, the bishops state the new church's position on the contentious issue of the justification of sinful man before God in language that locates the Church of England squarely in the camp of Reform. Humankind, unable to redeem itself by adherence to the Law given to Moses, has been redeemed by God Himself through the incarnation, passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Believers "are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings."1 Justification by faith, believers are assured, "is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort". Those desiring further elucidation are referred to the Church's officially sanctioned Book of Homilies, expanded from one to two volumes that very year. The "Homily on the Salvation of Mankind" to which the eleventh article refers was probably the work of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, author and compiler of the original Book of Common Prayer. While the content of the sermon differs in no significant way from doctrinal formulations on the subject made by continental Reformers at the time, it is an official statement of Church of England doctrine, composed and circulated in the vernacular, and as an integral element of the intellectual culture of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England bears consideration in a discussion of devotional literature, specifically the poetry of clergyman George Herbert. At the risk of burdening this introduction with redundant theological citations, it may prove fruitful to a discussion of the central Christian teaching of redemption as it appears in Herbert's collection, The Temple, to quote a passage from the "Homily" as a keynote for the themes that such a discussion hopes to touch on. Drawing...