15 - The Collar

Question 1

intro

Answer 1

Poem is from his collection ‘The Temple’ published in 1633 by Ferrar after Herbert died. Voice is given full expression of his freedom and his complaints against God as a cathartic process. The poem deals with the basic religious paradox that submission to divine will is key for freedom, which the speaker only comes to realise in the last couplet. Indeed, the poetic voice’s temporary outburst of anger and irrationality is quelled by an omnibenevolent God, whose unconditional care for man was in fact apparent all along. Herbert sees his poems as offerings to God, he leaves his poems for his friend when he dies.

Question 2

I struck the board, and cried, "No more;
 I will abroad!
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free, free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
 Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
 Sure there was wine

Answer 2

I struck = violent, dramatic. Exploring psychological states e.g. Hamlet. Personal pronoun suggests self-absorption

• Abroad = desires freedom
• Sigh and pine = internal assonance
• My lines and life are free = poetry as a construct, metaphysical e.g. Modernism. Short lines with no meter are a form of poetic rebellion
• Free as the road = sense of space and plenty
• Shall I be still in suit = suivre, to follow.
• Blood/thorn = allusion to resurrection
• Cordial fruit = pre-lapsarian fruit vs. fruit of Mary’s womb
• Wine/corn = allusion to Eucharist/transubstantiation. Reflecting on previous life of abundance

Question 3

Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it,
No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?
All wasted?
Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit and not.

Answer 3

• Before = temporal markers
• Before my tears did drown in = melodramatic, tear poem
• No bays … no flowers, no garlands gay? = triplet of apophatic signifiers, represents worldly success which he cannot access
• Fruit = imagery of fruit, corn etc. are imagers of fulfillment. Combined with images of freedom (line 4)
• And thou hast hands = shift in pronouns, turning point in focus. Talking to God? Part of ‘The Temple’, published posthumously in 1633. Saw poems as offerings to God.

Question 4

Forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

Answer 4

• Forsake thy cage = image of captivity. Animalistic behavior, forgetting God-given reason. Set in opposition with images of freedom.
• Sands = ephemeral
• Law = submission to divine will
• While thou didst wink and wouldst not see = complaining about God’s lack of interactions, wants direct and purpose. Desire for reciprocal love amidst his submission. Eyes as essential to birth and continuance of love

Question 5

Away! take heed;
 I will abroad.
Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;
 He that forbears
To suit and serve his need
 Deserves his load."

Answer 5

• I will abroad = repetition of line 2 suggests he is static in anger
• Death’s head = momento mori e.g. Holbein and Hamlet. Herb is meditating on the brevity of life, guilty of the sin of despair.
• He that forbears to suit and serve his need deserves his load = hints at self-absorption

Question 6

But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild
At every word,
Methought I heard one calling,Child!
And I repliedMy Lord.

Answer 6

• But = turning point, pivotal word
• Child = paternalistic God, encodes nurturing. Conforms with omnibenevolence, beneficent NT God. Sense of closure and resolution of impatient human struggle to come to God, process of correction
• My Lord = reciprocal love is achieved. Strong ending, last word Lord contrasts with the first word I.
• Wild/word/child/lord = alternating rhyming couplets suggests resolution. Submission of voice to God is instant. Last 4 lines become dialogic, rant is dispelled by God’s one word.

Question 7

themes

Answer 7

Suffering
Man's relationship with God
Submission
Freedom
Rebellion
Moments of personal significance
Intense emotion
Space

Question 8

language general

Answer 8

• conceit
  • Paradox (separate yet together)
  • Elongated vowels
  • Pun title as ‘choler’, also ‘suit’ deriving from French Verb ‘suivre’ meaning to follow. Idea that he Is waiting around
  • Imperatives ‘Recover…leave…forsake…take heed…call In…tie up…’ convey speaker’s Intense emotion, poetic voice Is angry, sulking. Poem of complaint
  • ‘Zooming lens’ from personal to more universal at the end
  • All/nothing imagery
  • Symbolism used throughout reflecting his occupation as a priest
  • Internal assonance = frustration
  • Temporal markers track progression
  • Triplet of apophatic signifiers
  Imagery of captivity

Question 9

language pronouns

Answer 9

• Pronouns - highlighting moving in and out of unity with God
o Creates epistemic distance between man on earth and God above
o First half = dominated by 1st pp
o 2nd half = introduction of 2nd pp. sense of catharsis as the speaker resolves his own angst. Comes to God with impatient struggle

Question 10

language Biblical allusion

Answer 10

• Biblical allusion ‘harvest…thorn…blood…fruit…wine…corn…crown’ bread and wine become body of Christ, Prelapsarian world (Genesis 3), fruitful and purposeful life devoted to God. Religious language used to portray speaker’s disappointment with God, when actually they are signs of God’s presence (he is omnipresent)

Question 11

language - fierce and wild

Answer 11

•	How is this poem fierce and wild?
o	Animal imagery e.g. collar 
o	One stanza – stream of consciousness
o	Lack of meter
o	Littered rhetorical questions

Question 12

title

Answer 12

‘Choler’ meaning anger/Irascibility In medieval times (medieval concept of the 4 humours), thus, title Is a pun. Image of control and restraint. Dog collar-clerical uniform which modern readers would have easily recognized.

Question 13

structure - punctuation

Answer 13

• Punctuation
o Enjambment: evident in last 4 lines as speaker finally reaches a smooth relationship with God
o Caesara: fragmentation, Interruption, fragmented thought reflects rant style

Question 14

structure general

Answer 14

• Irregular Meter: life lacks direction vs. historionic soliloquy
• Stanzas: one long stanza reflects turmoil of his thoughts vs. one stream of consciousness (suggests a histrionic soliloquy)

• Sound
o Staccato and fragmented until smooth last 4 lines

• Repetition of second line = static in frustration. No progress until penultimate line.

Question 15

structure line length

Answer 15

o Lack of direction
o Organic thought
o Form of poetic rebellion

Question 16

structure rhetorical qs

Answer 16

• Rhetorical questions used at start of poem to create a sense of Irony, contrasts to that of Donne who uses them for persuasion/seduction
o Crescendo of Rhet Qs = irony in anger, form of poetic rebellion
o Questions resolved by 2nd half

Question 17

structure last 4 lines

Answer 17

o Poem becomes dialogic in last 4 lines
o Regular alternating rhyming couplets in last 4 lines, God dispels rant with one word
o First word = I, last word = Lord. Moved away from self-consumed nature
Pivotal word but. Tone change anticipating resolution with God. Also reflected In ‘fierce and wild’ as reflected In structure

Question 18

quotes - ‘Me thoughts I heard one calling ‘Child’; And I replied, ‘My Lord’

Answer 18

• Poem becomes a dialogue, God speaks one word and dispels speaker’s ranting.
• ‘Child’- New Testament God, paternalistic, nurturing, caring, omnibenevolent (reflecting Christian depiction of God).
• Process of correction- impatient struggle of mankind to come to God.
  Strong ending contrasts to ‘I’ that starts the poem = sense of peace and resolution

Question 19

context

Answer 19

• Simple, direct voice reflects the translation of the Bible from King James version to the vernacular: simplicity and clarity in his writing
• Herbert was a simple country priest working in the agricultural community, thus, he was used to explaining difficult theological concepts using symbolism and Imagery. Complex theological Ideas explained in symbolic and allegorical terms so that concepts become accessible to his parish
• Basic religious paradox- you find freedom in submission to God-achieves happiness and sense of acceptance
• Momento Mori - fascination with death. Many had a skull in their study. Speaker Is meditating on the brevity of life. He is guilty in the sin of despair, emblem of conscience (exploring psychological states)
• Contrast to Donne (see Donne’s poems) Herbert=’introvert’, Donne seen as ‘extrovert’, whereas Herbert is no less dramatic than Donne
• 4 humours, title is a pun. Recalls choler (anger).
• Psychological states, Hamlet
• Poetry as construct, modernism
• Tear poem
• RE imagery = God’s omnipresence
• Aquinas and god-given reason
Ocular imagery

Question 20

evaluative sentences - voice

Answer 20

Herbert’s imagery draws on the features of the church and the sacred imagery of the Bible, characterising the voice’s histrionic outburst as an existential and religious crisis.

The psychological depth achieved in both poems results from the vivid characterisation of the poetic voices; Herbert’s as the frustrated, fallible mortal who is subsequently redeemed by yielding to a loving God. Significantly, Herbert does not dismiss intense emotion as contemptible, but deems the poet persona’s outburst as worthy of voicing prior to his torment being quelled by God; indeed, the articulation of the speaker’s complaint draws on the Books of Job and Psalms in the Bible.

Question 21

evaluative sentences - religious imagery

Answer 21

Although the speaker originally references imagery of abundance apophatically, in order to emphasise what he is lacking, the images also carry religious significance, as they come to signal God’s omniscience. ‘Have I no harvest but a thorn to let me blood…?’ Whilst the imagery of ‘thorn’ and ‘blood’ allude to the resurrection of Jesus, the poet’s reference to ‘cordial fruit’, could either be implying the pre-lapsarian fruit of the Garden of Eden or rather the ‘fruit’ of Mary’s womb, Jesus. The use of simple language is indeed reflective of the King James Bible, which sought to provide individuals with a straightforward version of ‘the Word’ in the vernacular. However, it similarly reflects Herbert’s role as country priest in Little Gidding, where he taught complex theological concepts to lowly agriculturers.

Question 22

evaluative sentences - shift in imagery

Answer 22

A shift in the use of imagery is observable in the second half of the poem, which focuses on imagery of captivity and death, signalling the poet persona’s increasing frustration at God’s lack of interaction. ‘Call in thy death’s head there; tie up thy fears’. The reference to ‘death’ mirrors contemporary practice of memento mori. Indeed, meditation on the brevity of life was a common concern, as evidenced in Holbein’s The Ambassadors, which uses the image of the skull as a symbol of the inevitability of death.

Question 23

evaluative sentences - psychological progression

Answer 23

TC is clearly a poem of complaint; the voice is given full expression of his anger towards God, which ultimately functions as a cathartic process. The speaker begins the poem as self-concerned, signalled by the sensationalist personal pronoun ‘I’ as the first word of the poem. ‘I struck the board, and cried, No more’. The use of the violent verb ‘struck’ evokes the intense anger of the poet persona, whilst presenting an exploration of the speaker’s inner psychology. This was indeed a contemporary concern – the dramatic exploration of psychology in Shakespeare’s Hamlet would certainly be familiar to Herbert. The speaker’s inner frustration is further conveyed through the use of internal assonance, ‘Shall I ever sigh and pine?’ as well as negative language, which he employs to express the prosperity he lacks. ‘Have I no bays to crown? No flowers, no garlands gay?’. The triplet of apophatic signifiers reinforces the speaker’s anger, as he lists the worldly success he no longer has access to.

Question 24

evaluative sentences - turning point

Answer 24

Whilst TC’s intense frustration appears to continue until line 28, where the speaker repeats line 2, ‘I will abroad’, an overall sense of progression in the second half of the poem remains evident. Certainly, it appears that by the second half of the poem, the speaker has resolved the crescendo of rhetorical questions, which functioned as a form of poetical rebellion in the first half of the poem. This is further suggested in the progression of pronouns, as the move away from first person pronouns signals a sense of catharsis and resolution of the speaker’s own intense angst. Indeed, a turning point is suggested in the final four lines of the poem, evoked by the pivotal word ‘but’ in line 33. The poem becomes dialogic as implied by the alternate rhyming couplet, going against the speaker’s previous insistence that ‘thou didst wink and wouldst not see’.

Question 25

evaluative sentences - god

Answer 25

One of the ironies of the speaker’s protests throughout “The Collar” is that everything valuable that he seeks by rebellion is available through religious obedience. God surfaces dramatically at the end of the poem, and this is a surprising, wondrous moment. Yet there are signs of God subtly in evidence long before the last two lines: in the “board” of line 1 that the speaker strikes, which calls to mind the Communion table, and in the thorn, tears, blood, wine, and corn (by which Herbert meant grain or wheat) which the speaker mistakenly thinks are absent from the holy, moral life or are signs only of his pain and disappointment.

Herbert’s God as benevolent and paternalistic is indeed suggested in the final two lines of TC, ‘I heard one calling ‘Child’; And I replied, ‘My Lord’’. The noun ‘Child’ encodes nurturing, presenting God as dispelling the speaker’s rant with one word. The speaker’s monosyllabic response ‘My Lord’ emphasises the speaker’s instant submission of the voice to God, whilst presenting the speaker and God’s love as finally reciprocal. It is interesting to see how although the first word of the poem is ‘I’ – framing the speaker’s previously intense egoism – the poem finishes with the word ‘Lord’. This marks a spiritual progression not present in TA, which remains fixated on the speaker’s intense desire for revenge throughout the poem.

Question 26

evaluative sentences - carnival

Answer 26

Alongside the Bible, perhaps there is also something of a different kind of social and religious ritualism here—the carnivalesque spirit. Carnival is a festival time of at least temporary release from the obligations and restraints of daily life, and one is not only freed but even encouraged to abuse, parody, or otherwise flout the figures of authority. In works by William Shakespeare, according to C. L. Barber inShakespeare’s Festive Comedy(1959), carnivalesque release leads to clarification, and this is precisely the pattern of “The Collar,” where Herbert allows the speaker full expression of his freedom as part of a rhythm of spiritual life that returns him to a deepened understanding of his obligations and his relationship to God.

Question 27

compare to

Answer 27

Redemption (relationship with God, resolution)
The Pulley (relationship with God, resolution)
A Hymn to God the Father (relationship with God, resolution)
The Apparition (intense emotion)
Batter My Heart (relationship with God. Beneficent God vs. lack of resolution)