This post is to combine two things that I adore: George Herbert and Norton Critical Editions.George Herbert was a rather dour-looking Welsh clergyman of the early 17th Century. I’ve had a fondness for his poetry for as long as I can remember, but his appeal is difficult to quantify. Religion was his consuming muse, but, as with Gerard Manley Hopkins, the undercurrents of doubt are what creates the frisson that renders his poems much more than mere homilies. One has the sense that he’s trying to persuade himself rather than potential readers, constructing ornate castles of belief in the hope that one of them will contain the impregnable argument that will finally cement his faith. Plus, he really has a way with metaphor.
As a thoroughgoing liberal arts nerd, I have an inordinate fondness for Norton Critical Editions. For the uninitiated, these combine selected works of great writers with key criticism and commentary. It’s not that I’ve read any of them cover to cover, but there’s something appealing in the idea that should I ever get a hankering to revisit the Stanley Fish argument that Herbert’s poems were modeled on prayer book acrostics (or something like that –- it’s been a long time since grad school), a wealth of critical resources is at my fingertips in one slim volume. I think I’m like a Norton Critical Edition groupie. Or something.
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