The Collar - George Herbert Flashcards
Structure
- One stanza, 36 lines long, no set form or metre and the poem’s rhyme scheme is irregular
- Lack of structure in the poem could mimic
his chaotic, haphazard thoughts, but also could convey his confusion and seemingly lack of control over his belief and situation. - However, the last four lines of ‘The Collar’ follow the rhyme scheme ABAB, when figure of God intervenes and more consistent rhyme scheme suggests that a sense of structure may gradually return to the narrator’s existence.
Introduction
‘I struck the board and cried ‘No More!’
I will abroad.
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?’
‘I struck the board’ - archaic word for table, could represent alter or the last supper, the dynamic verb ‘Struck’ connotes frustration and anger, reflects his frustration with religion and could be considered as an act of blasphemy
‘I will abroad’ - modal verb, leave, move far away from religion and all the questions and queries he’s faced with.
‘What?…pine?’ - repetition of rhetorical questioning suggests despondancy/ unsurity
‘My lines and life are free; free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.’
‘lines’ - wants no restriction
‘Loose as the wind, as large as store’ - all similes for freedom, lines 4 and 5 syntactic parallelism of similes placed there
- his poetry is free and is perhaps wondering why he can’t be as well.
‘Shall I be still in suit?’
‘suit’ - archaic word for justice
- perhaps is asking will he ever have justice for his lost days in his youth
- ‘suit’ could also be seen as subservient, could be also asking whether he’ll ever have freedom or if he’ll always have to wait on religion and its word.
‘Have I no harvest but a thorn’
‘harvest’- work, labour, suggests it idn’t easy and is fatiguing
‘thorn’ - noun, harsh, hurtful, could be a reference to the crown of thorns which Jesus was crucified in, again blasphamous use
- also lack of fruit, useless? he’s stuck and can’t blossom, all religion hasgiven him is inflincting him with pain
‘Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did dry it: there was corn
Before my tears did drown it’
‘wine’- there was celebration, joy/ happiness, again could be a reference to the last supper and simpler times
‘sighs did dry it’ - ‘sigh’ verb
- wanted too much/yearns far too much than religion can grant him, his negativity has dried his happiness
‘Before’ repetition yearns to go back to a time before religion
‘Have I no bays to crown it?
No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?
Bay leaf / bay leaves → Ancient Greek wreath associated with honour, victory, achievement.
Does he have no ‘victory crown’?
‘Blasted’ ‘wasted’ g/g sounds. Aggressive plosive sounds. Expressing anger.
‘No so, my heart; but there is fruit
And thou hast hands.’
“Not so” - him calming down.
There is “fruit”. There is something to be harvested, something to ‘gain’, something to have from his life/work. Here, he’s referring to God’s love.
He has hands to gather - God’s love is there and available, he just needs to accept and embrace it.
‘Forsake thy cage,’
Metaphor for his imprisonment - that he has created in his mind.
Feels imprisoned by his faith.
‘cage’ connotations of darkness and fear so perhaps knows that giving up the contraints of religion would only let more darkness into his soul
‘Thy rope of sands’
“Rope of sands” - oxymoron.
Rope holds things together; sand is impossible to capture.
Rope binds - sand is impossible to bind.
It’s a metaphor for his emotional frailty.
‘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.’
‘thee’ and ‘see’ he begins to think straight, rhyme to reflect the structure and logic of thought, the balance of how it is written mirrors the balance in his mind.
‘good cable’ - beginning to realise that christianity and strong belief in something is important, more important than the freedom to sin
‘Call in thy death’s head there: tie up thy fears;’
Positive counsel returns.
Death’s head is a skull that would have been kept in priest’s office to remind him to nourish soul.
Skull is all that will remain of physical being. Acts as reminder of the importance of the soul
‘Deserves his load’
Basically, those who don’t nourish their soul/take care of it, ‘deserve their load’.
Deserve pain/burden.
‘But as I raved, and grew more fierce and wild
At every word,
Methoughts I heard one calling, “child!”
And I replied, “My Lord.”
‘raved’ - verb, havoc, anger
‘more fierce and wild’ - thoughts withoyt christianity are dangerous and make him fierce
‘Methoughts…’ - volta, he’s accepting God as his, giving himself to christianuty.
As he got more and more wound up/aggressive, God came calling.
He replied - meaning he accepted.
