Clergyman and poet, born at Montgomery Castle, Powys, E Wales, UK. He studied at Cambridge, where he was public orator (1619), and became an MP before entering the Church (1630), serving as parish priest of Bemerton, Wiltshire. Nearly all his surviving poems in English (he also wrote in Greek and Latin) were collected in The Temple (1633), and his chief prose work, A Priest to the Temple, was published in Remains (1652). He is now accepted as one of the greatest English metaphysical poets.
George Herbert|
Portrait by Robert White in 1674 (National Portrait Gallery) |
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| Born: |
April 3, 1593 Montgomery, Wales |
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| Died: |
March 1, 1633 Bemerton, Wiltshire, England |
| Occupation(s): | Poet, orator, priest |
George Herbert (April 3, 1593 – March 1, 1633) was an English poet, orator and a priest.
Early life
Herbert was born in Montgomery in Wales. his older brother Edward, later Lord Herbert of Cherbury, was an important poet and philosopher, often referred to as "the father of English deism".
After graduating from Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge (where he achieved degrees with distinction), Herbert was elected a major fellow of his college.
In 1624 he became a Member of Parliament, representing Montgomeryshire. While these positions were suited to a career at court, and James I had shown him favor, circumstances worked against him: the King died in 1625, and two influential patrons of Herbert died later in the decade.
Priesthood
He took up his duties in Bemerton, a rural parish in Wiltshire, about 75 miles southwest of London in 1630.
In 1633 Herbert finished a collection of poems entitled The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, which imitates the architectural style of churches through both the meaning of the words and their visual layout.
Suffering from poor health, Herbert died of consumption only three years after taking holy orders.
Works
All of Herbert's surviving poems are religious, and some have been used as hymns.
Herbert also wrote A Priest to the Temple (or The Country Parson) offering practical advice to country parsons.
His Jacula Prudentium, (sometimes seen as Jacula Prudentum), a collection of pithy proverbs published in 1651, included many sayings still repeated today, for example "His bark is worse than his bite."
Richard Baxter said, "Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth a God, and whose business in the world is most with God.
Herbert influenced his fellow metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan who, in turn, influenced William Wordsworth.
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