Writer’s Block (GH Day 7)

Who hasn’t experienced writer’s block? I struggle with it all the time. That’s partly why I’ve begun this blog: to get myself into more of a habit of writing about literature, so that it will hopefully start to come more easily when I work on academic essays.

George Herbert has several poems that address his anxieties or insecurities related to something resembling writer’s block. One of these poems is “Dulness” (courtesy of www.ccel.org):

Dulnesse.

VVhy do I languish thus, drooping and dull,                         As if I were all earth? O give me quicknesse, that I may with mirth                                           Praise thee brim-full! The wanton lover in a curious strain                         Can praise his fairest fair; And with quaint metaphors her curled hair                                           Curl o’re again. Thou art my lovelinesse, my life, my light,                         Beautie alone to me: Thy bloudy death and undeserv’d, makes thee                                           Pure red and white. When all perfections as but one appeare,                         That those thy form doth show, The very dust, where thou dost tread and go,                                           Makes beauties here; Where are my lines then? my approaches? views?                         Where are my window-songs? Lovers are still pretending, & ev’n wrongs                                           Sharpen their Muse: But I am lost in flesh, whose sugred lyes                         Still mock me, and grow bold: Sure thou didst put a minde there, if I could                                           Finde there it lies. Lord, cleare thy gift, that with a constant wit                         I may but look towards thee: Look onely; for to love thee, who can be,                                          What angel fit?

Herbert’s goal is to write clever and fitting poems praising his Lord. He feels that it comes easily to the secular poet to praise his beloved, so why can’t Herbert experience that “constant wit” (last stanza) as well?

I’m not a poet, just a prose writer, but I’ve often wondered the same. Why is it that I, who am trying to write as if unto the Lord, not unto men, struggle so much to write with cleverness? I’ve sometimes asked for the kind of inspiration, or “quickness” (first stanza), that Herbert asks for here.

Let’s unpack his images. In the first stanza, the poet imagines himself as like Adam before God breathed into him the breath of life (Gen 2:7). He is “all earth” (just clay, with no life yet) and therefore asks for “quickness,” life, inspiration in the more complete meaning of the word (to have a spirit put into him).

Stanzas 2 & 5 complain about the secular poets, who can easily find ways to praise their “fairest fair,” their lady loves. But “[w]here are my lines, then?” asks Herbert? After all, as he explains in stanzas 3-4, he has a Lord who is “loveliness” and “beautie” and “perfection,” especially because of his sacrificial death on the cross (stanza 3).

Stanza 6 seems to reveal the reason: the poet is “lost in flesh.” His inherent sin nature opposes his attempts to praise his Lord. Significantly, this reference to our sinful flesh comes in stanza 6, six being the number of man (imperfect, while seven = completeness and perfection). “Sure Thou didst put a mind there,” muses the poet. It’s just matter of finding it, right?

But only God can “clear [His] gift”: the poet’s mind and poetic talent. Herbert ends with his noble goal here: “that with a constant wit / I may but look towards Thee.” He desires clarity of thought and clever wording so that he may write of God to the glory of God, concluding with humility that he is not even “fit” enough to love God, just to look upon Him.

Perhaps God blocks us up sometimes in order to redirect our intentions, our goals, and draw our focus back upon Him, keeping us dependent on Him for our talent and wit?