In 1633, George Herbert published what has become the best-known religious poem in the English language, The Temple. Actually a sequence of poems, The Temple is shaped by the order of church ritual and liturgy. At the heart of The Temple stands "The Church," poems that are patterned on the Church's liturgical calendar and that discuss theological ideas such as death, judgment, and heaven. Herbert's poetry is at once personal and confessional. His poems about the Eucharist and holy baptism are not only general theological explorations of the sacraments but also the poet's expression of the struggles of his own flesh to be reconciled to God. This mildly modernized edition makes the spiritual insight and quiet passion of this great poet available to today's reader.
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't Bother,
This review is from: The Temple: The Poetry of George Herbert (Christian Classic) (Paperback)
As the editor/redactor Henry Carrigan admits in the introduction, he has freely "modernized" Herbert's poems. Further, the edition lacks notes, so unless you already know Herbert well, there is no way to know which poems he has modified and to what extent. Many of the changes Carrigan makes seem arbitrary. So, for example, in line 11 of "The Pulley," Carrigan changes Herbert's original phrase "said he" to "he said." Why? The phrase "said he" is admittedly archaic, but any reader possessing anything beyond a third-grade reading level will know what Herbert means. And the phrase comes at the end of the line, so the change ruins the rhyme scheme without adding anything to the poem. One line earlier, the word "The" is added to the line "Rest in the bottom lay." Adding the word changes the meaning of the line completely, and it also lengthens the line by one syllable, breaking the meter. Carrigan's changes betray a total disregard for poetic form. Apparently he sees form as mere ornament, which can be modified or discarded at will. To do this to any work of literature is inexcusable, but such "editing" is especially destructive to poetry. Herbert's poems are painstakingly crafted at the technical level. Change a few words in a poem, and the result is not an "edition" or a "modernization" but an entirely new poem. In poetry, form and content are inextricable from each other--that is part of what makes it poetry in the first place. And in this case, usually a worse one. So what you get in this edition is a rewriting of Herbert's poems, not Herbert's poems themselves. There are plenty of other good, cheap editions of Herbert's poems available. Skip this one.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
