Sunday, June 3, 2007
Henry Vaughan
Much like George Herbert, it seems that Vaughan had a privileged childhood in regards to his education. He and his twin brother wer taught privatley then attended the college of Jesus at Oxford. Vaughan left college to study law in London but then joined the Royalists in the Civil War and Fought in South Wales. This experience could have influeneced him in his writing by making him more of a secular/physical thinking person rather than being more like Herbert who believed strongly in writing about God and religion in general. It seems to me that Vaughan was more interested in writing about women and people rather than God. This is appartent in his Poems with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished in where he writes about Mrs. Katherine Phillips. Vaughan's first few sets of poetry are very much about the secular world, Women, and a metaphysical state of mind. He only starts to write about religion when he is inspired by Herbert's work. Vaughan's poetry greatly reflects Herbert's The Temple. Vaughan is still interested though in natural abjects and mystical communion with nature where Herbert seemed to wrire strictly about religion. Overall I think that Vaughan is a very interesting man who gives us a good mixture of religion and secular thoughts. I think that we can learn a good deal from Vaughan about how to connect these two topics in our own life. It's also interesting to see this metaphysical poetry evolve over the years from Donne to Herbert to Vaughan. This evolution can partly be attributed to the fact that Donne influenced Vaughan but only through what showed through Herbert.
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2 comments:
Andrew, you are right in the sense that both Herbert and Vaughan had priviledged college educations. While both poets are of the metaphysical school of thought, Herbert's poetry has an ecclesiastical feel to it. This is partially because he spent so much of his life devoted to God and the study of the Bible. I feel that the only reason Vaughan's poetry is more secular is because Vaughan chose medicine as his profession. However, I do not understand why Vaughan's poetry has a mystical feel for nature. If one's profession is geared towards the study of the human body, shouldn't his or her poetry reflect that?
See the way I view Vaughan I believe he liked to write about religion and God much more then the writing of women. But the number #1 thing Vaughan likes to write about is natural objects and how those objects are in a mystical companionship with nature. I would also like to point out that Vaughan did encourage writers of the future just like Donne did to Herbert and Vaughan. Not becuase of metaphysical poetry, but because of his imaginative outlook toward nature, he inspired many poets most notably that of William Wordsworth. Vaughan probably isn't as well known as Donne and even Herbert just because of the fact that he followed them, but he should be given credit for inspiring other poets as time went on. One thing I believe really helped was that he lived for such a long time, 1621-1695(74 years), while Herbert lived only 40 years. Imagined what different things we'd be reading now if he had only lived longer, but it would have definitely taken Vaughan out of the spotlight.
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