Customer Reviews

George Herbert the Temple: A Diplomatic Edition of the Bodleian Manuscript (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies)

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Mario A. Di Cesare writes: The Bodleian manuscript of George Herbert's wonderful set of poems called The Temple is a beautiful work made with loving care at Little Gidding in the months after Herbert's death in 1633. It is also the most important manuscript of Herbert's poetry.

This volume presents an exact transcription of the manuscript, page by page, rendering precisely or recording not just the spelling and punctuation (including the placement of punctuation), but also the visual layout, the special characters (size, position, emphasis), the corrections and insertions, and the graphic characteristics of the page: Computer typography allowed me to imitate the original pages closely. (Lots of facsimile pages are also included.) My three-part introduction shows why contact with original manuscripts is important, argue the primacy of this manuscript for Herbert's text, and give critical readings of the poems themselves.

I am happy to report that my book has been widely praised by reviewers and called indispensable for anyone seriously interested in Herbert's poetry.

I totally agree with tifepiphany! The work is a gift to all who love 17th Century poetry / George Herbert / and poetry of the highest level. The Critical Introduction alone makes this a necessary book - the re-creation of the text and a generous selection of facsimile prints on corresponding pages make this a delight! Do yourself and favor and buy this book... I bought 2 copies. Books like this usual cost 50 to 60 dollars. Thank you Mario Di Cesare for this amazing work that should set a new standard for scholarly re-creations of texts - especially for those of us who can not afford $150.00 facsimiles. This is now one of my most beloved books.

The amount of detail in this reproduced/recreated edition of the Bolleian Tanner 307 edition of Herbert is a GREAT service to all interested in Herbert and 17th Century English Literature. This text, convincingly, elucidates many elements of the strong editing by Buck (1633) and makes available the source text for Buck and what is arguably the central text for understanding George Herbert. Thank you Mario Di Cesare!!!

--- by way of correction, Amazon lists this work as only a little over a hundred pages, it is in fact closer to 400 - and each page a treasure.

Di Cesare makes a relatively persuasive argument that this Bodleian manuscript is more authoritative than a widely accepted first printed edition of 1635. The manuscript is not Herbert's, so it is a live argument as to which represents his most specific intentions. I don't know which is closer to what Herbert had in mind, but the extraordinarily painstaking reproduction of such elements as the relative size of letters is appreciated.