God-Human Relationships In George Herbert's Poetry

George Herbert, one of the representatives of the metaphysical poets in English Renaissance Period, is well-known for his religious poetry. His famous collection of devotional lyrics, The Temple, has been praised highly for his exemplary piety towards God since its publication in 1633.Herbert's success depends not only on his profound religious beliefs, but also on his artistic skill, including his brief and concise language, beautiful rhyme, rich and peculiar imagery and unique poetic form. The Bible is the inexhaustible source of inspiration for Herbert, and his poems are mostly the outcomes of his meditations on the Bible. Therefore, God-human relationship has become an everlasting subject in Herbert's poetry. This subject is richly and colorfully expressed by Herbert. In his religious poems Herbert demonstrates a great variety of God-human relationships. This thesis aims to open up a further way to explore the master-servant relationship, father-son relationship, and the relationship of lovers between God and human beings in The Temple. These three chief types of relationships between God and human beings are explored from three chapters, so as to have a better understanding of Herbert's concept of God and the different love forms of God for human beings.Chapter One analyzes the master-servant relationship between God and human beings. It illustrates both God's sovereignty and kindness for human beings and how Herbert shows these different traits of God as a master harmoniously together in his poems. Such kind of God-human relationship stems from Christianity. According to the Bible, God is Creator, who created the whole world and everything in it, including human beings. God is also the ruler of the entire universe, who rules all that he created. So man and other living things are all servants of God. Meanwhile, God is the Redeemer, who saves human beings out of the sins, sufferings and the abyss of evil. God is also a guide, who, like a shepherd, protects human beings and leads them out of darkness and towards lights and happinessChapter Two explores the father-son relationship between God and human beings. Through dialogue Herbert obtained a new understanding of the relationship between God and himself. He realized that the relationship between God and himself was not only that of master and servant, but also like that of father and son. He also realized that human beings were the sons and daughters of God and they were the successors of God in heaven. God, who inhabits in eternity, is holy and omniscient, meanwhile, God is so humane and loving that he cares for human beings like a father. In this way the harmonious and close relationship between God and human beings is reflected and God's special love for human beings is emphasized.Chapter Three focuses on the lovers'relationship between God and human beings. When Herbert was young he composed his first two sonnets to express his abstract concept of love, avowing that the love of God is a worthier subject for verse than the love for women. God is the object to whom Herbert pours out all his love. He abandoned secular love, challenged traditional love poets, and expressed his idealized, spiritual, and Christianized love for God. Through describing different God-human relationships, Herbert succeeded in explicitly exhibiting his spiritual experiences and making the readers clearly perceive the strong emotions of his entire inner world before he became resolute in his choice to serve and love God. George Herbert is no doubt recognized as a prominent figure in English poetry. His poems are always fresh and inviting, which are open for different types of readers to enter and give them spiritual purification.