English Language and Literature ETDs

Publication Date

9-30-1968

Abstract

Musical metaphor so permeates the poems of George Herbert's The Temple that no critic can afford to ignore it; yet no one has thus far attempted a full-length study of the relationships between music in the late Renaissance and The Temple. This dissertation proposes to fill this gap in Herbert criticism by presenting three aspects of the musical milieu which shaped the poet's esthetic: first, the tools of the artist; second, the parallels between Herbert’s poetry and affective music; and, third, the use of dialogue in music and in The Temple. Chapter I, "The Heritage of the Artist," includes a list of musicians whom Herbert must have known and heard at Westminster School, Cambridge University, and Salisbury Cathedral. This aspect of the study is enlarged in the appendix. Also included in the first chapter are investigations of the musical vocabulary as Herbert knew and used it and of the ethical role of music, and discussions of the influences of bells and the Anglican liturgy on his poetry. Chapter II, "The Kernel and the Shell,” is a study of the parallels between affective music, particularly as it was practiced by the madrigalists, and Herbert's illustrative verse. Eye-music and the shaped poem are closely related because they both use physical form to illustrate a thought, but there are even stronger relationships between Herbert's formal illustration of the emotions and the word-painting techniques of the composers. When Herbert uses visual hockets, irregular rhythms, number illustrations, and unexpected rhyme schemes, he is responding to the same philosophical impetus which motivated the composers to paint the passions in their musical illustration of the text. Because art to seventeenth century poets and composers was a hieroglyph of human emotions, they often attempted to reproduce in the form of a poem or madrigal that passion which was expressed in the words. Chapter III, "The Responding Voice,” deals with dialogue, antiphony, and echo in music and in The Temple. Dialogue in music has been important since the time of Monteverdi. It is also important in nearly every literary genre except the lyric poem. A thorough study of Herbert's poems demonstrates, however, that dialogue is a distinctive feature of his artistic composition. Nearly all of his poems are conversational in tone. Robert Ramsey and John Hilton were the innovators of the biblical dialogue in music, which became the forerunner of English opera and English oratorio. Herbert having been Public Orator at Cambridge when these musicians were organists at Trinity College, he was in a position to know and use their dialogue techniques in his own creative work. Chapter III of this study offers a demonstration of the parallels between the responding voice in late Renaissance music and the dialogue poetry of George Herbert. The appendix presents evidence indicating that Izaak Walton gives the wrong impression about the quality of the music at Salisbury Cathedral in his Life of Mr. George Herbert. When Herbert went to nearby Bemerton as Rector in 1630, the Bishop and Chapter of Salisbury were embroiled in a verbal war over the selection of the Master of the Choristers. Consequently, their dissension necessarily caused a lowering of the standards of musical performance. The appendix also provides further information on musicians and music at Westminster School, Cambridge University, and Salisbury Cathedral during Herbert's respective residence in each place. This dissertation endeavors to explain many of the puzzling characteristics of Herbert's poetry in terms of the musical practices of his day.

Degree Name

English

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

English

First Committee Member (Chair)

Edith Buchanan

Second Committee Member

Franklin Miller Dickey

Third Committee Member

Walter Burrous Keller

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

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