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casparb's review against another edition
the natural pair with morvern. The Temple is effectively What GH here contributed to english poetry (posthumously) and it has stuck ever since. Also neat that Herbert sent the manuscript to Nicholas Ferrar on his deathbed asking whether it should be published. That is, Nicholas Ferrar, Ted Hughes' ancestor, of Little Gidding. What a boys' club it is.
Herbert is fantastic, transcendental - indeed a Metaphysical - and you don't need me to say it. I think this is one of the earliest cases of A Collection existing as something like what we think of it today in English and he's formally so dextrous, convulsive even. Easter Wings and The Altar are iconic for obvious enough reasons but in here we also have anagrams, dialogues, autoechoic poems (Heaven is an excellent example of what I mean by that. It's not rhyme but again, internal. Wheels within them). So much experimentation is happening ! So many lines are iconic and seeped into the language and it's so sweet to stumble on poems that people like Denise Riley have pinched from
what a funny chap
Herbert is fantastic, transcendental - indeed a Metaphysical - and you don't need me to say it. I think this is one of the earliest cases of A Collection existing as something like what we think of it today in English and he's formally so dextrous, convulsive even. Easter Wings and The Altar are iconic for obvious enough reasons but in here we also have anagrams, dialogues, autoechoic poems (Heaven is an excellent example of what I mean by that. It's not rhyme but again, internal. Wheels within them). So much experimentation is happening ! So many lines are iconic and seeped into the language and it's so sweet to stumble on poems that people like Denise Riley have pinched from
what a funny chap
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