Materiality and Devotion in the Poetry of George Herbert

Abstract

Abstract For George Herbert, his contemporaries, and readers, material things were spiritually animated but deeply troubling. Habitual providential and typological interpretation made matter meaningful, and all of Creation interconnected; using material things was an act of interpretation, devotion an act of reading. At the same time Protestant doctrine and Church of England policy regulated the ways and conditions in which material things, bodies, and spaces might be properly used in devotion. By close reading of The Temple, other contemporary devotional and doctrinal texts, this book explores how Herbert and his readers understood, experienced, and used material objects in devotion. The Temple is built of paper and ink, of Biblical allusion, and of analogy to both physical churches and communities of believers: a material and spiritual, literal and figurative construction. Herbert’s verse carries meaning materially and spiritually, literally and figuratively; in its devotional poetics material and spiritual meanings inform one another and the readers’ devotional lives. This book focuses on three significant facets of the materiality of seventeenth-century English devotion: bodies, church buildings, and books. Part I analyses whether and how embodied performance of prayer was spiritually meaningful in the voice, in the heart, and in the postures of prayer. Part II turns to the church building, as the contested space in which public worship was practised, and the model for The Temple’s structuring metaphor. Finally, the Coda examines the book itself as a material object used in devotion, and the surface by which The Temple is read and used.