On George Herbert’s Ideal Temple In The Perspective Of The Image Of Tree

George Herbert was one of the metaphysical poets in the seventeenth century. Most ofhis poems are religious poems. He was good at adopting traditional images to express hisaffections towards the Lord. For George Herbert, the religious principles, forms and customsrecorded in the Bible are the inexhaustible source of his inspiration. His collection, TheTemple, published in1633, received praise from the public and gained the favor of the readersfor its religious thought and special form of expression. Coleridge, Emerson and T.S. Eliotwere once his faithful readers. There are few readers of his poems at home for its religiouscolor, which is hard to understand for Chinese non-Christians. At present, the collection hasnot been translated as a whole in China, only several famous pieces have their translationversion.An image is a symbol in the author’s mind, evolving from his subjective emotions. Aliterary image is a symbol reflecting both the author’s subjective emotions and objectivesocial life. In his collection, The Temple, George Herbert applied plenty of images to deliverhis emotions towards the Lord. The tree is an important image in Herbert’s lyric verse,delivering his ideal idea on life. In Christianity, the temple is a place for Christians to showtheir love and worship to the Lord. In Herbert’s collection, the temple has a different meaning.It can refer to an ideal place for living in Herbert’s imagination. Therefore, it may be a societyor a community. However, Herbert didn’t show us what the temple really is. The thesisfocuses on exploring the characteristic of the temple from the perspective of the image of treein reference to Herbert’s subjective affection and objective social life, which will help us fullyunderstand Herbert’s poetry.This thesis tries to explore the temple from three aspects: harmony, virtues andself-verification, which are in line with the wish of people in the17thcentury. At that time ofturbulence, people were desperately in need for leaders to govern the society with peace andjustice; people needed to improve their own quality and morality; people tried to combine hisfulfillment and social service, making contributions to the development of the society.Through analysis on the image of tree, Herbert successfully expresses his wish towards manand his country. As a priest, Herbert can only shape the society with three characteristics: harmony, virtues and self-verification by application of the image of the tree. His thoughtdoes not touch the social class contradictions, which means it is just an ideal way to solve hismortal problems. As a matter of fact, the temple Herbert pictures for us is ideal, only existingin his imagination.