Stewart 1986

Stewart, Stanley. George Herbert. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1986.

on the Harmonies -- "These works are valuable aids to our understanding of Herbert's intended audience, which was -- I should think incontrovertibly -- Nicholas Ferrar and his community f worshipers at Little Gidding."

George Herbert: Life and 'Lives'

"It is important to recognize how early and how completely Oley attributes to Herbert's poetry the values of Scripture and of biblical commentary, for Oley's opinion became part of an accepted -- if not the accepted -- way of construing Herbert's poetry." (6)

"While Oley's main interest is Thomas Jackson and the theological disputes that bedeviled the times, Walton's Live of Mr. George Herber (1670) did most to shape the image of George Herbert, priesta nd poet, as a saint." (6)

Select Hymns, Taken out of Mr. Herbert's Temple, And Turn'd into the Common Metre (1697) -- common hymnal in England (12)

"during the eighteenth century Herbert became a favorite of the Moravian brotherhood and that, in fact, a volume of hymns based largely on The Temple was one of the first books they brought to the New World" (12)

"For it is the Selet Hymns and its lineal discendant, the first edition of the Wesleys' Hymns and Sacred POems (1739), that the simple, pietistic, quintessentially Protestant and -- yes -- Puritan Herbert is established. It is established through a radical process of revision." (12)

changes in transforming Herbert's poems into hymns -- imply "that Herbert's text is already a hymn" (14)

"The Dissenter's Herbert is more Protestant, more Puritan, more clear, more rational, more modern, and certainly more relevant to the Dissenter's needs than is the text of Herbert's poem. By no means unique, this Dissenter's Herbert, then, is part of an emerging image of Herbert as the sweet and saintly singer of simple hymns." (16)

George Herbert and the Church

unlike Donne or Crashaw, "Herbert underwent nothing like a serious change in his religious convictions or practices. And yet his spiritual pathway intersected Crashaw's at LIttle Gidding, where both men found themselves among kindred souls." (26)

James I, distrust of Puritans repudiating prayer, leaving only spontaneity in prayer (35) -- prayer becomes preaching

"For Herbert, public prayer is an intrinsic part of the Eucharist. In his emphasis on expressiveness, Herbert incorporates interests of importance to those urging continued church reform; but as he sees in that expressiveness a preparation for, and enactment of, the Eucharist, he exhibits values important to those content with Anglican rites and ceremonies." (37)

Herbert painted Pauline text at his wife's seat in Bemerton Church (46)

Herbert and the 'Harmonies' of Little Gidding

"Herbert had reason to suppose that Ferrar and his 'Little Academy' would prepare his manuscript for print -- or at least copy it: 'They were,' writes J. Max Patrick in his spirited 'Critical Problems in Editing George Herbert's The Temple,' 'experienced in such work, and the Bodleian Manuscript resembles similar volumes turned out by the Little Gidding community.' In fact, copying, gilding, book binding, and other quasi-literary interests were energetically pursued at Little Gidding, where they were looked upon as acts of devotion." (59)

"In the following pages, I hope to show that work done at Little Giding provides valuable evidence about the audience for which Herbert wrote and that this context was not medieval, but rather topical and lively. I shall argue, too, that these typical expressions of biblical tradition there were not uniquely Protestant, surely not Puritan, and might even be described as Catholic." (59)

criticism has neglected the Harmonies; however "this anomaly is new. In the nineteenth century, the importance of the connection between Herbert's poetry and the 'Harmonies' of Little Gidding was taken for granted." (60) -- cites. T. T. Carter

"The young ladies cut, trimmed, copied, pasted, wrote and ciphered; and they learned how to bind the volumes as well as how to construct their pages in what they believed was 'a new king od Printing.' Each line -- sometimes single words or syllables of a line -- was scissored and arranged to give the impression that the text was intended to appear in just that way. Knowing the thought process behind this careful practice, and knowing also that George Herbert had one such volume in his possession, gives vivid meaning to the lines from 'Th eH. Scriptures II,' which arter closey associated with the 'Harmonies': 'This verse marks that, and both do make a motion / Unto a third'." (62)

"The 'Knives and Cizers' were tools only to put together what belonged that way in the first place. In the seventeenth century, harmonized 'the foure Evangelists' was akin to unveiling 'the Sanctuary,' which, like the Gospels, was upheld by four pillars. The narrative linking of the Tabernacle with 'the living temple' was embodied in the Gospels, although as Augustine, an early harmonizer of the Evangelists, pointed out, understanding that narrative required great effort." (63)

Thomas Middleton, Mariage of the Old and New Testament (1620)

other Harmonizers: Thomas Middleton, James Bentley, Hugh Broughton, John Huid, Henry Garthwait, John Lightfoot, and William Gould (64)