Lent With George Herbert

£6.00

George Herbert, Tony Dickinson

ISBN: 978-0-7283-0327-0

LENGTH: 84 pages

Fairacres Publications 194

2022

The poems of George Herbert (1593–1633) have nurtured the faith of countless Anglican Christians, and others, since their posthumous publication in 1633. Described by the poet as ‘a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master’, Herbert’s poetry weaves together recognition of the glory and diversity of God’s creation and of the ingenuity of human beings in their attempts to map and control that creation, awareness of human frailty and sinfulness, and awed realisation of the infinite love of God. The themes of frailty and forgiveness underlying Herbert’s poetry also mark the season of Lent. In recognition of this, Tony Dickinson takes eight of the poems that tackle these great themes (relevant as much to the twenty-first century as to the seventeenth) and week by week through Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Day, unpacks the language in which George Herbert explores them; language that often appears direct and simple, but whose simplicity frequently conceals a depth and density of meaning that few other writers can match.

The poems of George Herbert (1593–1633) have nurtured the faith of countless Anglican Christians, and others, since their posthumous publication in 1633. Described by the poet as ‘a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master’, Herbert’s poetry weaves together recognition of the glory and diversity of God’s creation and of the ingenuity of human beings in their attempts to map and control that creation, awareness of human frailty and sinfulness, and awed realisation of the infinite love of God. The themes of frailty and forgiveness underlying Herbert’s poetry also mark the season of Lent. In recognition of this, Tony Dickinson takes eight of the poems that tackle these great themes (relevant as much to the twenty-first century as to the seventeenth) and week by week through Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Day, unpacks the language in which George Herbert explores them; language that often appears direct and simple, but whose simplicity frequently conceals a depth and density of meaning that few other writers can match.

Additional information

ISBN

978-0-7283-0327-0

Length

84 pages

Book Size

140 x 210 mm

Author

Tony Dickinson, George Herbert

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Author Bio

George Herbert died at the age of 39, in March 1633. A month before, he had given the manuscript of his poems to an emissary of Nicholas Ferrar, who had it copied out and then printed as The Temple. In the preface to that popular book, Vaughan would have learned that Herbert was ‘nobly born’, but had given up on a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, ‘choosing rather to serve at God’s Altar’. In 1630, Herbert became rector of Bemerton, near Salisbury, where he remained for the rest of his short life.

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Tony Dickinson was born in Liverpool in 1948. After studying in Oxford and Lincoln and a career in university administration, he entered the ordained ministry of the Church of England in 1982, serving in the Dioceses of St Albans and Oxford and, from 2018 to 2024, in the Diocese in Europe. He has been actively involved in interfaith dialogue for nearly forty years, with a particular interest in Christian-Muslim dialogue at the parish level, as a school governor and through membership of the Council for Christian-Muslim Relations in High Wycombe and the Diocese of Oxford’s ‘Presence and Engagement’ network. He is an honorary canon emeritus of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and is now retired and living in Devon.

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