WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Poetry Fix: Love (l)

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Today, Erika Kyba reads George Herbert's Love (I). Join her to unpack his beautiful ode to a forgotten Creator.

Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're reading George Herbert's Love One. This poem in many ways acts as a criticism of the courtly love poetry that was so popular during the Renaissance when Herbert was writing. Herbert observes that courtly poets attach divine imagery due to God alone to their courtly loves or to Elizabeth I. who was often described by poets in an almost religious ecstasy. He juxtaposes God's love, which is immortal, with ephemeral mortal love. There is more than one way to read his poetic vision, though.

On the one hand, we could ask ourselves whether Herbert is condemning mortal love writ large, telling us to cast aside Eros in favor of agape. But it's also worth questioning whether the poem does leave space for properly ordered romantic love, which does not seek to improperly exalt the beloved above God. After all, it is not as if Herbert shuns the created world altogether. He will appeal to God as the author of this great frame, the earth. He acknowledges that beauty in creation then as a good, though it is not the highest good. What's important is that we acknowledge that this great frame is sprung from that beauty, which can never fade.

This is Herbert's way of reminding us that all the beautiful things in the world have a source, and that this source is eternal rather than temporal. He regrets that his fellow poets don't recognize this, but rather parcel out God's glorious name, and throw it on the dust which he hast made. This is where he begins to criticize the courtly love poets, who essentially chop up the divine name into manageable pieces and throw it onto human beings, the line about dust referring back to Genesis, where God tells man that he is dust, and to dust he shall return.

Herbert's use of the word throw suggests carelessness, as though the poets cast divine epithets onto their lovers left in right, and quite unceremoniously, at that. Herbert laments that mortal love doth all the title gain, wishing to reclaim the title for the immortal love that he begins the poem by addressing. Herbert then creates a picture of mortal love siding with invention, which refers to the imagination. He could be referring to the invention of the poets, who are using their imagination to create quasi-religious hymns for their lovers, or he could be using the term in a more general way. After all, anyone who falls in love is partly under the sway of the imagination.

Sometimes, when we see the good in others, and when that good attracts us, our imagination begins to fill in the gaps, adding more good qualities, finding convenient explanations for character flaws. We spend hours daydreaming of what could be, discontented with what is. This is common to the human experience, and it isn't necessarily a bad thing, unless fantasy becomes your master rather than the other way around. Then, as Herbert writes, mortal love and invention bear all the sway possessing heart and brain. Mortal love becomes a form of idolatry, where the figure of the beloved is aggrandized by the fancy and made into an idol that draws the lover's fixation.

With all that said, let's dive in. Love One by George Herbert. Immortal Love, author of this great frame, sprung from that beauty which can never fade. How hath man parceled out thy glorious name, and thrown it on that dust which thou hast made, while mortal love doth all the title gain, which, siding with invention, they together,

bear all the sway possessing heart and brain thy workmanship, and give thee share in neither. Witt fancies beauty, beauty raiseth wit. The world is theirs. They too play out the game. standing by. And though thy glorious name wrought our deliverance from the infernal pit, who sings thy praise? Only a scarf or glove doth warm our hands and make them right of love. You've been listening to The Poetry Fix with Erica Kaiba. If you enjoyed this episode,

consider following the Poetry Fix on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. And if you have any poems you want to see in a future episode, email your suggestions to The Poetry Fix at gmail.com. Join me next week and we'll be reading George Herbert's Love 2.