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Q: Herbert's "The Altar" ( Answered,   0 Comments )
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Subject: Herbert's "The Altar"
Category: Arts and Entertainment > Books and Literature
Asked by: lostinspace-ga
List Price: $9.50
Posted: 28 Apr 2004 15:28 PDT
Expires: 28 May 2004 15:28 PDT
Question ID: 337891
Discuss how form reflects the meaning in Herbert's "The Altar."
Answer  
Subject: Re: Herbert's "The Altar"
Answered By: willie-ga on 29 Apr 2004 02:00 PDT
 
Hi, and thanks for the question

There is a perfect answer to your question at this site discussing the poem:
The Altar by George Herbert
http://www.thingsrevealed.net/altar1.htm

The author, Tim Nordgren's main thesis is that...."This poem falls in
the category called "shape poems" since it's shape echo's the meaning
of the verse."

It concludes that in The Altar there is, an addition to the total
shape of the poem,  an internal visible structure that complements the
externally implied meaning.

To quote again:
"When we isolate the capitalized words from the poem we see the poetic
theme in outline form.
 ALTAR
 HEART
SACRIFICE
 ALTAR

The article also goes on to show how the altar metaphor provides
insight to the authors personal relationship to God.

This site should answer your question, but there are other sites that
provide supporting conclusions.

________________________________________________________________

This site explains shape poems succinctly, and gives another view of "The Altar"

http://www.newpoetspress.com/carmen.html
On "The Altar"  it says:
  "The shape poem dates from classical antiquity, but its more recent
history begins with George Herbert's  poems The Altar  and Easter
Wings from The Temple (1633).  What  Herbert does with these poems is
effectively to take his own metaphors visually and literally. He was a
very  religious man, and his poems are all in one sense prayers,
offered up to God in The Temple, his book itself  becoming a material
metaphor for the building in which he prays; and within the temple/The
Temple the reader  will also find a poem shaped as an altar ...
The visual perception of drawing and painting is mixed  with the
visual perception of reading, and the poem  becomes a picture as well
as a text."

________________________________________________________________

Another author, Dr Lillian Myers, has suggested that the form of "The
Altar" also reflects its use as a "marker" poem in that book. She
says:

"A close scrutiny of ?The Church? shows that its poems are organised
into sequences that are marked off by distinctive marker poems, and
this is confirmed by the manuscript evidence.  Each sequence focuses
on a particular aspect of the Christian life.  For example, the first
sequence of ?The Church? is marked by the two pattern poems, ?The
Altar? and ?Easter-wings?.  .....
The thematic focus of the poems between ?The Altar? and ?Easter-wings?
is the central fact of Christianity, the death and resurrection of
Jesus.  The sequence also delineates the identification with Christ?s
death and resurrection necessary for a person to become part of the
Christian church.  So, the movement from ?The Church-porch? into ?The
Church? is through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The two
pattern poems are relatively obvious marker poems and they serve to
prepare the reader for the more subtle marker poems that follow. "

__________________________________________________________________________


You'll find a biography and bibliography of Herbert here:
The Life of George Herbert
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/herbbio.htm

willie-ga

Search terms used 
Herbert "The Altar"
shape poems
Herbert "The Altar" criticism
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