Herbert’s ‘Redemption’

Abstract

Though this sonnet is quasi-Shakespearean in form,* it would be hard to imagine a greater contrast between Shakespeare’s ornate images, exotic and hot-house themes, and Herbert’s seeming homeliness. The simplicity is, of course, deceptive. In fourteen lines, Herbert traces a soul’s journey from ignorance to knowledge, from sin to ‘redemption’, from death to life. The theme is a quest, and the treatment of time is highly sophisticated. The ‘I’ of the poem gathers his courage, sets out, seeks ‘long’, journeys to heaven, returns to earth, comes ‘at length’ to the place and person sought. All of this suggests an extended period, yet the theme of journeying is linked with something resembling a continuous present. This is hinted at by the opening phrase, ‘Having been’, with its postulate of a past that was, a future that will be, and an action suspended between the two. The double perspective is reinforced linguistically in the tension between words and phrases such as ‘long’, ‘the old’, ‘lately been’, ‘Long since’, ‘At length’, with their suggestion of months or years of seeking, and the opposed hint of sudden action, total change in ‘I resolved’, ‘bold’, ‘I him sought’, ‘I straight return’d’, ‘Who straight… said’. But in the deepest sense the action of the poem is perpetual and there is no contradiction; the place arrived at is always sought for and always available. It recedes in history, the deed once accomplished, ‘Consummatum est’, and it is always present ‘This is my body, which is given for you’ — the moment in and out of time; T. S. Eliot’s ‘still point of the turning world’. The title word, ‘redemption’, touches past, present and future in ‘dearly bought’ — the soul discovering its need of grace, and the grace freely given, in one insight.

Having been tenant long to a rich Lord, Not thriving, I resolved to be bold, And made a suit unto him, to afford A new small-rented lease, and cancell th’old. In heaven at his manour I him sought : They told me there, that he was lately gone About some land, which he had dearly bought Long since on earth, to take possession. I straight return’d, and knowing his great birth, Sought him accordingly in great resorts; In cities, theatres, gardens, parks, and courts : At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth Of theeves and murderers : there I him espied, Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.