Skip to main content

How is "The Pulley" by George Herbert a metaphysical poem?

Metaphysical poetry is often characterized by an extended metaphor called a conceit. In this poem, Herbert uses the metaphor of the pulley to illustrate balance in man's relationship with God. Discussing the Creation of Man (humans), God gives man strength, beauty, wisdom, honor, and pleasure, but withholds rest. God reasons that if He gave man everything, man would only worship his gifts and Nature (the world). By withholding rest, man can become tired, restless, or weary. This is when man will turn to God. Therefore, God's gifts make man comfortable in nature, but man's restlessness makes him reach for something spiritual. Thus, there is a balance (pulley) between the world (nature) and God. This is a balance between the physical world and the metaphysical realm. 


Many metaphysical poems deal with abstract notions, philosophical ideas, or religious matters. This poem is about the Creation and the relationship between man and God. That relationship is spiritual and therefore "above" (meta) the physical. God creates humans in such a way that they will be pulled by the world and pulled toward Himself:  



Let him be rich and weary, that at least, 


If goodness lead him not, yet weariness 


May toss him to my breast.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more