Analysis Of George Herbert's The Temple

George Herbert’s The Temple is generally acknowledged and praised for its religious admiration of God and the spiritual journey the poet undertakes to reach closer to his Creator. The countless studies dedicated to Herbert’s opus magnum have aimed at unraveling the various religious aspects while discarding or undermining the political influence behind his work. The accumulated scholarship has depicted a dedicated man of God who had turned his back on any political involvement in life. This paper peruses a different path projecting The Temple’s political participation in aiding the Anglican court and church by attempting to bring about docile bodies susceptible to control and domination. Within a Foucauldian perspective, the researcher exposes

The church does not tolerate sin, smothering it on site. The church becomes this space that deals with disciplining sinners and keeping the disciplined in order: “He that by being at Church escapes the ditch/ Which he might fall in by companions, gains” (16; “The Church Porch” 442-43). For the speaker, the church is the instrument toward the right path: “I go to Church: help me to wings, and/ I Will thither fly” (55; “Praise” 5-6). Here he explains that by attending church, he expects to have an opportunity of being granted “wings” to “fly” toward divine dwellings. The church is “either our heaven or hell” (15; “The Church Porch” 426), depending on which side one takes, the delinquent against the religious order or the faithful follower striving to become a salvaged

Within these enclosures, individuals become subjects to ranks, classes or other forms of categorization (Smart 103). As a result, it becomes easier to assign roles to these specific groups and classes, while at the same time making its supervision much more efficient (Discipline 147). In a church, the priest or pastor possesses the highest position of authority and is responsible for the disciplining of his subjects. As he monitors his audience and preaches, he is assisted by altar boys and nuns that carry out other duties, giving him more time to focus on the task at hand. Nevertheless, there exists a hierarchical structure with every individual assigned to a specific task. Furthermore, within such enclosures, church goers are taught about this hierarchical structure. Herbert’s era, which was also a part of the Elizabethan epoch, relied on the great chain of being, a hierarchical organization of all matter and life placed in specific categories. According to Tillyard, the medieval philosophy of The Great Chain of Being survived even up until the Elizabethan age (6). In his The Elizabethan World Picture, Tillyard outlines this structure, placing God at the top and working its way down to inanimate objects (23). As God takes the throne, angels (fallen or renegade) and celestial objects (such as stars and the moon) follow respectively in the hierarchical