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Herbert's Household Imagery, Christina Hillquist Halsted

Master's Theses

The apparent simplicity of George Herbert's poetry has caused much comment and much misunderstanding of both the man and his poetry. The popular nineteenth-century picture of Herbert as the simple, tranquil country priest is being discarded, however, as twentieth-century scholars of metaphysical poetry re-exa mine both the works and life of George Herbert and find little simple about his life and a magnificent craftsmanship in his poetry.

Both the simplicity and the depth of Herbert's poetry lie in his imagery, in which concrete everyday objects and actions become high abstractions usually difficult to express. Of course, the presentation of abstractions …