Under New Management: Another Note on Purchasing Good-will in Herbert’s “Unkindnesse” (GH #37)

Under New Management: Herbert’s “Unkindnesse”

When I discussed George Herbert’s poem “Unkindnesse” in my last blog, I ran out of room to continue exploring multiplicities of meaning with the phrase “to purchase my good-will” in the last stanza (line 24). (For my overview of the poem and initial discussion of these concluding lines, please see my previous post.)

The words “purchase” and perhaps even “brasse” in the final stanza remind us of the financial imagery used in stanza 3 (and perhaps, with some play on words, in stanza 4) of “Unkindnesse.” So that we can look at the last stanza’s imagery in context, I quote stanzas 3-5 of the poem here:

My friend may spit upon my curious floor:

Would he have gold? I lend it instantly;

                                       But let the poore,

                        And thou within them, starve at doore.

I cannot use a friend, as I use Thee.

When that my friend pretendeth to a place,

I quit my interest, and leave it free:

                                       But when thy grace

                        Sues for my heart, I thee displace,

Nor would I use a friend, as I use Thee.

Yet can a friend what thou hast done fulfill?

O write in brasse, My God upon a tree

                                       His bloud did spill

                        Onely to purchase my good-will.

Yet use I not my foes, as I use Thee. (lines 11-25)

This poem is contrasting the speaker’s treatment of his earthly friends with his treatment of the Lord. In stanza 3, if his friend needs money, he’ll freely lend it. The idea of “us[ing]” (and perhaps usury?) continues in stanza 4 with the word “interest.” Here it means career ambitions: the speaker will freely give up his career position, as with his gold in stanza 3, to lend it to a friend.

A hanging coin indicates what used to be a bank in Renaissance Germany

Yet, Herbert’s speaker has been loath to exercise tangible kindness to God (and to those who represent the Lord, like the ones in need in lines 13-14). In contrast, the last stanza reveals that God the Son has spilled his own blood on the cross to purchase, as I discussed in my previous blog, the good-will of the speaker (his willing consent) or good-will for the speaker (redeemed virtue).  

But wait, there’s more. Back to the financial imagery. A final definition of “goodwill” in the Oxford English Dictionary concerns property and business. Def. 4a. is “Permission to enjoy the use of a property,” while def. 4b. is the purchaser of a business being granted by the seller the privilege of trading as the seller’s successor (to take over the business, if I understand it correctly). In the historical examples given in the OED, the word “goodwill” in both definitions is often preceded by a possessive, as it is in Herbert here (“my good-will”), which is another reason I think Herbert may be playing with the word’s financial connections.

Now, let’s plug these business-related definitions into Herbert’s theological reflection at the end of “Unkindnesse”: If Christ has purchased the speaker’s “good-will,” he now has the privilege of using the speaker’s property, which includes the gold mentioned in stanza 3. Herbert’s speaker no longer has a right to withhold his finances from the Lord.

Furthermore, the speaker’s property includes his body and spirit, as the Apostle Paul states in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “Know ye not that . . . ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (KJV). The speaker has no right to withhold his heart from the Lord either (lines 18-19). His attitude and feelings (“good-will”) now belong to God.

Herbert’s narrator has been in breach of contract, as it were. Not only has Christ purchased the privilege of using the speaker’s property, but he has also bought out the speaker’s business to take it over, with the deed of sale to be written on a brass plaque.

The Geneva Bible marginalia cross-references 1 Cor 6:20 with 1 Cor 7:23 (“Ye are bought with a price”) and that verse with 1 Peter 1, where verses 18-19 remind the faithful “that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, [such] as silver and gold,” . . . “but with the precious blood of Christ” (KJV). Perhaps Herbert, who believed that “This verse marks that, and both do make a motion / Unto a third,”* exactly describing this kind of chain-referencing, had these Scriptures in mind as he subtly contrasts through his financial imagery the corruptible gold he has refused to offer God and the precious blood of Christ, which was spilled for his redemption.

In another poem from The Temple, Herbert considers “at what rate and price” he has Christ’s “love.”** Here in “Unkindnesse,” Herbert’s narrator might have to relinquish control of his body and spirit, his gold and his goodwill, but the unique “rate and price” Christ paid for these is much, much higher.

* “The H. Scriptures II” lines 5-6

** “The Pearl” line 35

Goodwill Hunting in Herbert’s “Unkindnesse” (GH #36)

[Yes, I'm back! My blog has been in sleep mode for quite a while, and in the meantime I've gotten married, traveled to at least 5 countries, and had some health problems, so it's been an eventful 3 years....]

Goodwill Hunting in Herbert’s “Unkindnesse”

As I was looking over George Herbert’s poem “Unkindnesse” the other day, a phrase in the last stanza struck me as paradoxical. Here’s a summary of the poem (the entire poem appears at the end of this blog post):

After opening by asking the Lord to help him be a better friend, the poet spends the first 4 stanzas comparing the kindnesses he has shown his friends or family to his lack of kindness towards his Lord. He wants to have good intentions toward his friends (st. 1), to protect their reputations (st. 2), to provide financial help for them when needed (st. 3), and to further them in their careers (st. 4). Each stanza concludes with a variation on the admission, “I would not use a friend, as I use Thee.”

This pattern is followed in the last stanza by an acknowledgement that God has done more for him than any of his friends and is, in fact, not only his Friend, but his Savior. Yet the poet continues to treat his Lord worse than any friend and even, he confesses, worse than any foe:

Yet can a friend what thou hast done fulfill?

O write in brasse, My God upon a tree

                                       His bloud did spill

                        Onely to purchase my good-will.

Yet use I not my foes, as I use Thee. (lines 21-25)

In the italicized section, Herbert wants the reminder of God’s sacrifice to be recorded permanently for his own reflection, written in brass: “My God upon a tree / His blood did spill / only to purchase my good-will” (ll. 22-24). But, wait, isn’t goodwill by definition freely given, not bought?

Crucifix in Bayeux Cathedral, Normandy, France

This question led to a bit of digging, first through the Oxford English Dictionary, which confirmed my understanding of “goodwill” as a friendly, supportive, benevolent, or cooperative attitude towards someone, also eagerness, readiness, or “willing consent” (def. 2a-b, 3a-b).¹

William Gouge’s 1622 treatise Of Domestical Duties addresses how servants are directed by Scripture to serve with “Good will. Under which are comprised 1. cheerfulness, 2. readiness, 3. diligence, 4. faithfulness” (The Seventh Treatise: “Duties of Servants” sect. 1, expositing Ephesians 5:5-8).²

If my ready, eager, cooperative, and even cheerful attitude is purchased, is it not then false or forced or tainted? How, then, can it still be called good will? Is there perhaps another way of understanding this, if not paradoxical, at least enigmatic, phrase in Herbert’s poem?

For instance, what if “good-will” is not something the speaker gives, but something that is given to him in this transaction? According to the Herbert concordance, Herbert’s only use of the compound word “good-will” (or “goodwill”) in his writings occurs here, in “Unkindnesse,” so Herbert’s corpus doesn’t help with understanding this particular word choice.³

I propose two options in thinking of “good-will” as something that is purchased for and given to the speaker here. Option 1: Herbert leaves the compound word separated by a hyphen, subtly keeping “good” and “will” separate. “Good” is but a modifier of “will.” Christ’s blood purchased the speaker’s good will, as opposed to his bad will.

John Calvin is helpful for the theology here. J. Todd Billings explains this doctrine from Calvin’s perspective: “Human nature [before Adam’s Fall] was originally good, and the created nature is restored and fulfilled through redemption in Christ,” which “heals and restores the original ‘good will’ and ‘good nature’ of Adam” (Billings 47).⁴ In other words, Christ provided for Herbert’s speaker a redeemed will, replacing his fallen bad-will with a redeemed “good-will.”

Option 2: Christ’s sacrifice purchased the goodwill of God towards the redeemed speaker.  A well-known Scripture verse illustrating this concept of God’s goodwill is Luke 2:14, which I reproduce from the 1560 Geneva Bible, a version Herbert was familiar with: “Glory be to God in the high heavens, and peace in earth, & towards men good will” (my underline). The note on this passage in the Geneva explains better the theology Herbert’s poem may be presenting: “The free mercy & goodwill of God, which is the fountain of our peace and felicity, & is chiefly declared to the elect.”⁵

Because the spilling of Christ’s blood on the cross purchased the speaker, he is one of the elect, and therefore a recipient of God’s goodwill in the sense of favor or  “benevolence” (OED def. 2a.), but also of piety or virtue (OED def. 1). Herbert’s speaker now has the goodness or virtue of Christ, his sin having been traded for Christ’s righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).

In whichever of the above senses, Jesus Christ purchased the goodwill of his foes (cf. Romans 5:10), among whom the speaker had formerly been included. How, then, the poem asks, could one who is the recipient of God’s goodwill use his Lord with unkindness?

¹ The Oxford English Dictionary is the most helpful resource for word studies in historical works because it provides dated quotations for minutely categorized uses of a word. This allows scholars of a historical work to check what a word could have meant at a particular time.

² William Gouge was a pastor whose lengthy Of Domestical Duties (in large part a practical exposition of the book of Ephesians) was published in 1622, during the years of Herbert’s career at Cambridge.

³ Di Cesare, Mario A., and Rigo Mignani. A Concordance to the Complete Writings of George Herbert (Cornell UP, 1977).

⁴ Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ, Oxford UP, 2007. Many scholars have demonstrated that Herbert was quite familiar with and influenced by Calvin’s works. Daniel Doerksen’s Picturing Religious Experience: George Herbert, Calvin, & the Scriptures (U of Delaware P, 2011) is particularly helpful. 

⁵ I have modernized the spelling of the Geneva Bible quotes.

A reminder to students (and others) that all written work contained in my blog, unless otherwise indicated, is my intellectual property and to be cited accordingly. Thank you. --JN

“Unkindnesse”

LOrd, make me coy and tender to offend:

In friendship, first I think, if that agree,

                                       Which I intend,

                        Unto my friends intent and end.

I would not use a friend, as I use Thee.

If any touch my friend, or his good name,

It is my honour and my love to free

                                       His blasted fame

                        From the least spot or thought of blame.

I could not use a friend, as I use Thee.

My friend may spit upon my curious¹ floor:

Would he have gold? I lend it instantly;

                                       But let the poore,

                        And thou within them, starve at doore.

I cannot use a friend, as I use Thee.

When that my friend pretendeth to a place,²

I quit my interest, and leave it free:

                                       But when they grace

                        Sues for my heart, I thee displace,

Nor would I use a friend, as I use Thee.

Yet can a friend what thou hast done fulfill?

O write in brasse, My God upon a tree

                                       His bloud did spill

                        Onely to purchase my good-will.

Yet use I not my foes, as I use Thee.

Herbert’s “Justice” (Part One) (GH #35)

As I was looking for a sample George Herbert poem to practice analyzing with my class this semester, I came across a little-known, short poem called “Justice (1).”* Contrary to what one might expect of a poem by that name, Herbert’s “Justice” opens with the speaker’s complaints about God’s seeming injustice to him. The poem then takes a confessional turn as the speaker realizes that he has been the one acting unjustly toward God:

I cannot skill of these thy wayes.

Lord, thou didst make me, yet thou woundest me;

Lord, thou dost wound me, yet thou dost relieve me:

Lord, thou relievest, yet I die by thee:

Lord, thou dost kill me, yet thou dost reprieve me.        

                           But when I mark my life and praise,        

                           Thy justice me most fitly payes:

For, I do praise thee, yet I praise thee not:

My prayers mean thee, yet my prayers stray:

I would do well, yet sinne the hand hath got:

My soul doth love thee, yet it loves delay.        

                           I cannot skill of these my wayes.

Pre-Raphaelite window, Huntington Library, CA

  

In “Justice (1),” Herbert demonstrates his skill in creating a deceptively simple, yet densely rich, poem about his lack of “skill” in understanding the justice of God’s “wayes” with him.

To begin, the poem is deceptively simple. It’s quite short (12 lines), a majority of the words are monosyllabic, and the frequent repetition of words or phrases adds to this simplicity.

The first stanza, where the focus is on the Lord’s actions (“Lord, thou dost”), contains smooth, winding parallelism in lines 2-5. For instance, the end of line 2 about wounding is picked up at the beginning of line 3, and then the end of line 3 is revisited at the beginning of line 4.** In the italicized portions of both stanzas, each line is divided into half lines via a compound sentence and a comma. (This strong break in the middle of the line is called a “caesura.”)

The repeated beginnings of lines 2-5 (“Lord, thou”) and their interwoven parallel lines create a smooth flow, marred only by the meter of lines 3 and 5. The smoothness of the first stanza suggests that the Lord’s actions have been constant, or at least consistent, toward the speaker. Lines 3 and 5 have in common that they are the “positive” actions of God toward the speaker: relieving and reprieving (as opposed to wounding and killing/causing the speaker to die). Unlike the smooth pentameter of lines 2 and 4, these two lines have an extra syllable. I suggest that Herbert prolongs the lines here to emphasize how God prolongs the speaker’s suffering by offering him times of relief, only to wound him again later.

While the two stanzas may at first glance look similar, there is a significant alteration in form between the two. For instance, while the parallelism and half-lines remain (lines 8-11), the interweaving ceases in stanza 2, where the poet’s focus is no longer on the Lord’s actions, but on his (the speaker’s) own failures. At last, he evaluates himself, his “life and praise” (6). The “straightforward” lines (e.g., “My prayers mean thee, yet my prayers stray” [9]) seem to indicate Herbert’s speaker is finally being “straight,” or honest, with himself: he has not been living up to expectations, and indeed his sense of “justice” has “strayed” (9), or been off the “mark” (6).

I’m only halfway done with my analysis of “Justice (1),” having looked at form, but hardly at content. Like the Psalmist, Herbert’s speaker cries out to the Lord with his grief and his grievances. Living in our finite moment in time, how can we understand the Lord’s greater purposes, His infinite “wayes”? Herbert’s little poem reminds us in those times of trial to “mark” ourselves before we question the appropriateness of God’s justice. ***

To be continued. . . .

  

* Because Herbert gave the same titles to several poems in The Temple, editors have added numerals after the titles (based on the order in which the poems appear) to create a clear differentiation between the poem titles. For instance, Herbert has two poems called “Justice,” five called “Affliction,” and so forth. Sometimes the poems are clearly related, as when “H. Scriptures (2)” immediately follows “H. Scriptures (1),” but sometimes the only relationship might be a loose thematic connection. 

** See Herbert’s “The Wreath” for another example of interwoven lines.

*** Just another reminder to students (and others) that all written work contained in my blog, unless otherwise indicated, is my intellectual property and to be cited accordingly. Thank you.

Defining Moments on My Academic Path (GH #34)

What follows is a brief talk I shared yesterday with the College of Arts & Sciences faculty at my university, and, of course, it involves literature. :-)

Path through gardens, Scone Palace, Scotland

I grew up loving books.

My mom often read to me when I was little. And by the end of elementary school I was making weekly runs to the library, filling my arms with a stack of books that reached up to my chin. It was a pattern that, more or less, continued up through high school.

When it came time to decide on a major for college, and I visited the school that would become my undergraduate university, I met with a professor to whom the “undecided” students were often directed. I can see now why. Her advice to me was “major in what you love.” So I did: I majored in English, and I’ve never regretted it.

The summer after my sophomore year, I went on a six-week trip with Greater Europe Mission to teach English as a Foreign Language in Latvia. At age 20, I barely knew what I was doing in the classroom, but it was an excellent experience overall.

After that, I knew I wanted to become a professor.

These were the defining moments that led to my choice of discipline.

In grad school at Baylor University I immediately discovered the richness and depth of medieval & Renaissance literature, of poetry, and especially of the devotional poet George Herbert.

It may come as a surprise to some of my colleagues that my doctoral dissertation was a gender studies approach to George Herbert’s poems. It was a lengthy academic exercise, with a critical approach that did not focus much on what I had fallen in love with about Herbert’s poetry—the faith-filled richness of it and the resonance with human experience and the Christian life.

At my dissertation defense, my 3^rd reader—from Baylor’s religion department—was very perceptive. She asked about my topic, “Did it feed your soul?”

The answer was “no.” This defining moment, at the very end of my schooling, was an influence on my choice of approach to my academic discipline.

That approach is to point toward what we can see in literature that “feeds the soul”:

·      truths of human experience and of the spiritual life that remind us that all truth is God’s truth;

·      the beauty of image, or phrasing, or sound that reflects God’s beauty; and

·      the goodness toward which imaginative literature has the power to move perceptive readers.

The opening stanza of George Herbert’s poem “The Elixir” encapsulates the way I hope to approach my life as both scholar and professor:

     Teach me, my God and King,

     In all things thee to see,

And what I do in any thing,

     To do it as for thee (1-4)

  

It took a while, but I have slowly been redeeming my dissertation, carving out portions, reworking them, and publishing them as pieces that will, I hope, gently guide readers to set their sights on things above.

Under Contract (GH #33)

"Light of the World" by William Holman Hunt, Keble College, Oxford

How often do we pay attention to what words could mean? Most of us go for the most obvious or first definition that comes to our minds. The English language has such linguistic richness to it, yet sometimes we miss that richness. I've been digging into George Herbert's poem "Christmas," and, in reading it for the hundredth time, I suddenly thought about one of the words: "contracted." I'll quote the stanza, the closing sestet (6 lines) of the sonnet that forms part one of "Christmas":

  O Thou, whose glorious, yet contracted light,

          Wrapt in night's mantle, stole into a manger ;

          Since my dark soul and brutish is thy right,

      To Man of all beasts be not thou a stranger :

          Furnish and deck my soul, that thou mayst have

          A better lodging, than a rack, or grave.*

I've always read the word “contracted” (first line above) in its meaning of "condensed": God's great glory shrunken to fit into human form in the Incarnation. His "glorious ... "light" drawn into the flesh, blood, & mind of a smaller, lesser being.

But in what other potential ways could the light of God be "contracted"? Why had I never seen the word "contract" contained within "contracted"? So obvious! Time to turn to the Oxford English Dictionary.

For those not familiar with it, the OED is extremely helpful in that it not only gives definitions the word has had over time, but it supplies examples of historical usage of the word. This way I can check to see what meanings the word would have had during Herbert's time of the late sixteenth & early seventeenth centuries, but also examples of how it was used.

So, the word "contracted" in Herbert's time indeed had the meaning of "agreed upon by contract." Now this opens up a new meaning to Herbert's sestet about the Incarnation. Contract: or how about a more familiar word for us: covenant. The New Covenant is an unconditional covenant between God and man that Christ came to fulfill and that he instituted at the Last Supper.

Let me go even further with the now-obsolete definition of "contracted": "agreed upon." What about the Triune God having agreed amongst the 3 persons to establish this new contract to replace the old? (See Herbert's poem "Redemption" for his metaphor of this replacement of old with new.) What about Jesus Christ having agreed to fulfill the New Covenant, not just before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20), but in the Garden of Gethsemene on the eve before: "not my will, but Thine be done" (Matt. 26:39)? I love how Milton's Paradise Lost pictures the Son's agreement in the salvation plan. In Book 3, the Son of God stands up before all Heaven and offers himself as the substitute for mankind: “Me for him, life for life / I offer. On Me let thine anger fall” (3.236-7).

So we have “contracted” as “condensed” (also “shrunken” or “narrowed”) and as “agreed upon by contract,” but we're not done with definitions. Another definition of the adjective "contracted" used in Herbert's time is "betrothed," a theologically rich idea. Christ the Bridegroom is betrothed to his Bride, the Church. The Incarnation of the Son of God anticipated, set into motion by instituting the Church, the ultimate happily-ever-after wedding between the Lamb and his righteous Bride (Revelation 19:7-8). Reflecting on the holiness of Christ and his great sacrifice in both putting aside his divine glory to take on human flesh and bearing the weight of our sins upon the cross, the speaker in “Christmas” feels keenly his own unworthiness: his “dark” and “brutish” soul (line 3 above). Therefore, he asks that his soul be redecorated by the Lord to be a fit place of habitation for God’s glorious light.  

* You can find Herbert’s poem “Christmas” on Luminarium’s Herbert page: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/christmas.htm

Dusty with a Chance of Dirt Balls (GH #32)

"Dust to Dust": ruins of church, Chester, UK

At a conference I attended last spring, a colleague introduced me to A. S. Byatt’s short story called “Raw Material,” published in The Atlantic Monthly in April 2002. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2002/04/byatt.htm Last week I finally read it.

The main character, a creative writing teacher (Jack), asks the best writer in his class, a slightly deaf older woman (Cicely Fox), what she likes to read. She responds,

"Oh, the old things. They wouldn't interest you young people. Things I used to like as a girl. Poetry increasingly. I find I don't seem to want to read novels much anymore." . . .

He said, "Which poems, Miss Fox?"

"These days, mostly George Herbert."

"Are you religious?"

"No. He is the only writer who makes me regret that for a moment. He makes one understand grace. Also, he is good on dust."

"Dust?" Jack dredged his memory and came up with "Who sweeps a room as for thy laws / Makes that and the action fine."*

"I like 'Church Monuments.' With death sweeping dust with an incessant motion: 'Flesh is but the glass, which holds the dust / That measures all our time; which also shall / Be crumbled into dust.' And then I like the poem where he speaks of his God stretching 'a crumme of dust from Hell to Heaven.' Or 'O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue to cry to thee / And then not heare it crying.'"**

"He knew," Cicely Fox said, "the proper relation between words and things. 'Dust' is a good word."

Herbert does like to use the word “dust.” He often reminds us that we are made from dust (Gen 2:7), will return to dust, and are as dust in comparison with God’s glory and greatness. Herbert takes the idea of man as formed from dust, now acting as supplicant before his Creator (cf. “Denial”), a (literal) step further in “Longing”:

  Behold, thy dust doth stir;

It moves, it creeps, it aims at thee;

Wilt thou defer

To succour me,

Thy pile of dust, wherein each crumme

Says, Come? (stanza 7, lines 37-42)***

I love the image Herbert paints of the creeping dust: poor pathetic dust trying to reach the King with his petition for aid. (Herbert explores this image of God as ruler denying relief to the supplicant later in stanza 10: “Thou dost reign / And rule on high, / While I remain / In bitter grief” [lines 56-59].) Indeed, the speaker is hoping this picture will tug on the Lord’s heartstrings enough to move Him to respond in compassion. Yes, “dust” is a good word.

Not surprisingly, George Herbert’s poems inspired many other poets in the seventeenth century, not the least of which is the early American colonist Edward Taylor, a Reformed minister on the Connecticut frontier.

In the “Prologue” to Taylor’s Preparatory Meditations, the speaker refers to himself as “a Crumb of Dust,” asking the Lord to “Inspire this Crumb of Dust till it display / Thy Glory through’t: and then thy dust shall live” (lines 21-22). We may be dust, Taylor acknowledges, but if God “inspire” us (in the original meaning of the word, as in God breathing into man the breath of life in the creation), His glory can both shine through us and give us life. (I might also note that Taylor’s opening poem is about humbly taking up his pen in a poetic theodicy: to demonstrate God’s “Properties” [that is, attributes; line 28]. He’s playing on the idea of poets being “inspired.”)

 

Taylor’s poems (almost exclusively religious) are evocative in their own right. He knows how to use words as well, but, unlike Herbert, who uses them in subtle and clever ways, Taylor almost shocks with them. I’ll leave you with one of my favorites, from his “Meditation. Rev. 3.5. The same shall be cloathed in White Raiment.” In the first stanza, Taylor’s speaker considers himself too lowly to be arrayed in white robes with all the saints, calling himself “but a jumble of gross Elements” (line 5). As the second stanza begins, the poet has found his vivid image. What does it look like for a sinful human being to wear the white robes of the righteous? According to Taylor, it looks like “A Dirt ball dresst in milk white Lawn” (line 7).****

I’ve always thought of a big ball of brown dirt dressed in one of those white, ruffled christening gowns. It’s a metaphor that’s almost ludicrous, and yet does not a ball of dirt or a crumb of dust more adequately express how small sinful humanity is compared to God’s holiness than what we usually envision?

* From Herbert’s “The Elixir.”

** From Herbert’s “Church Monuments,” “The Temper 1,” and “Denial,” respectively.

*** Herbert’s spelling of crumb (crumme) enhances its sight rhyme with “Come.”

**** An excellent edition of Taylor’s poems is the one edited by Donald E. Stanford and published by UNC Chapel Hill (The Poems of Edward Taylor).