An Internal Struggle: Free Will versus Devotion

George Herbert's "The Collar"

To explicate is to analyse, interpret and understand. Poets write to express while readers read to understand. Authors write about what they know, they write to articulate their views. George Herbert was educated and religious, wealthy and successful. His poetry was widely read and often focused on his devotion to religion and the importance of believing in the higher being that is God. In his metaphysical and devotional poem “The Collar” George Herbert tests the faith of a man in understanding the reasons for his submission to the Lord. In explicating the words that appear on the page a deeper understanding of what it takes to be devout it is understood.

To understand the meaning and the intention of the poem it is important to understand who the speaker is and who is spoken to. In “The Collar” there are three speakers. In one sense there are two voices but only one character: the narrator and the speaker, who is simply the narrator speaking to himself, telling his own story. The third speaker we take to be the Lord speaking to the narrator. “The Collar” is a psychomachia or an internal dispute where the speaker is trying to find an answer to the struggle between two competing facets of the speaker’s self. “The Collar” is a struggle between a man’s devotion to his religion and the reality he has lived his life believing that someone or something will save him and this is simply not happening. However, in the end, when he hears the Lord’s voice he realized that he is not a slave to his religion but rather a special servant and child of the Lord, to do his service upon the earth. Through deeper explication more is learned about the intentions of Herbert and what motivates the speaker to make his claims against the one he has chosen to serve.

According to John R. Roberts in his essay on Herbert’s poem he states that Herbert was one of the first poets to use the titles of his poems as an integral part to the readers understanding of the poem. Roberts believes that through understanding the title of Herbert’s poems one can further understand the purpose of Herbert’s writings.1 In knowing that much of Herbert’s writing dealt with religion and the religious experience he believed it apparent that the title of “The Collar” has two meanings. First, it brings about the idea of a priest’s collar, the collar of a man who has devoted his life to the service of the Lord and whose life is devoted to the process of spreading his word. Secondly, one is also reminded of someone who is enslaved and the poem shows the desire to shed the collar that is holding him back. The collar is forcing one to act in such a way that is contrasted to the feelings and beliefs of the speaker, who feels that the collar is demeaning.

This understanding of the title comes from analysis of the poem and the simplest way to do so is featured in Barbara Leigh Harman’s article on “The Collar”. In this she divides the poem into two sections, with one section being further subdivided.2 The following will discuss what these sections are and what they mean to the understanding of the poem and the idea of the collar.

Harman divides the poem into the narrative and the internal story in which the narrative (l. 1, ll. 33-36)3 frames the internal story (ll. 1-32)4 at either end. By doing this Harman argues that Herbert makes sure that the interior story is not rendered obsolete by the conclusion that is drawn by the end of the poem.5 The first section of narrative, that Harman discusses framing the internal story, actually is only part of the opening line. This partial line of the poem suggests that something has happened before the commencement of the narration: “I STRUCK the board, and cry’d” (l.1). It gives the reader an indication that a speech is about to commence, that the voice and who is speaking is going to change and that the narrator, who becomes the speaker, is angered about something.6 The line announces that a story is about to take place and that a new situation is going to begin.

The end of line one commences the beginning of the internal story, which Harman spends most of her time discussing. She divides this internal section into two distinct parts. In the first half (ll. 1-14)7 the speaker asks questions of himself, while in the second section (ll. 15-32)8 the speaker answers the questions and starts to design a plan.9 The questions that the speaker is asking himself is about why he is so devotional, why he believes in the Lord and why this belief restricts his freedom to do what he wants.

Significant lines in this first section are as follows: “Have I no harvest but a thorn/To let me bloud, and not restore/What I have lost with cordiall fruit?” (ll. 7-9). In this section the speaker is complaining that he has never gotten what he has asked for, never had God answer his prayers. The harvest to which he is speaking is what he perceives God should be giving him for salvation, but all he is receiving are thorns. He has never had a loving response from God. These lines express that he feels apart from God, that God is just letting him bleed which makes him not able to renew his faith or take a new direction in life. The speaker has tried to take a new direction but is constantly plagued by the idea that God has never replied to him. In this first section the speaking is expressing himself through his heart, because God has not answered him he wants to end the life of service and start anew.

It is here in the internal dialogue that Harman discusses the direction that the speaker wants to take his life.10 He wants his life to take on a new meaning and a new significance (ll. 21-29)11 since God has not given him any indication that his current life is relevant. These lines show the other side of the speaker. While in the first half he gives up hope that God will answer, these lines provide some recognition that he is being unreasonable and out of control and that he cannot let his heart take over his life. He explains away his bitterness and rage by blaming it on his heart and that fact that he is hurt by God. “He that forbears/To suit and serve his need,/Deserves his load” (ll. 30-32) shows the way in which the speaker’s heart responds to this differing of mind versus heart. He becomes more bitter and angry towards God but at the same time realizes that he might be losing an argument. However upset he is that God has not responded he realizes that it was his choice, his choice to wear the collar, to be devotional and a servant to God. At the end of the internal dialogue he realizes that he can never have the power he so dreams of.

The final lines of the poem, where the voice changes back to a narrative, actually changes the meaning of the internal story for the reader. Throughout the internal story it appears that the speaker is taking back control of his life and is determined to change his direction. The end causes us to re-examine this perspective. “But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde” (l. 33) are not the words of a rational man. They are the lines of a man who has consented to the most extreme sort of constraint upon his freedom. He was not forced to wear the collar but chose to and the internal story shows the reader the difficulty he is now having with this decision. There are thoughts in reading this line that makes the reader consider the truth and honesty behind the questions and the new life plan that the speaker was discussing throughout the internal story.

It is in this apparent loss of faith that the speaker has in the ability of God to save him that he comes to a revelation in hearing God speak to him. What is important about these closing lines are when the speaker says “Methought I heard one calling” (l. 35) which suggests that he did not actually hear God, but instead an internal recognition that the path he started on is the path that he should be following, an internal recognition that God is with him even if he does not save him every time the speaker asks him to. 12 Furthering the discussion of being subordinate to God is the wording that Herbert uses in the conversation between the speaker and God. The use of the word child when describing the speaker implies that the speaker realizes that he is a child of God, a child (l. 35) who is called into a life of service and obedience as compared to the bitter, angry and rebellious man he was during the internal story.13 When the speaker then responds with “My Lord” (l. 36) he shows accepted submission and his willingness to accept all that is implied by this submission. Had Herbert used another term, such as God, the meaning would have been different. The relationship between God and the speaker would have been something other than what it was something other than father and son or priest and God. The implied submission would not be there and Herbert’s point about this submission being reasonable would be lost.

Harman states that “The Collar” is a story of “conflict between self-will and the will of God and that it provides, in one form or another, a lesson in submission and conformity”. 14 Through the rant of the speaker he finds himself remembering why he chose the life of conformity against life with a choice of free will. The speaker, through choosing a life as one of God’s teachers, has given up some basic rights, the right to be free. When he believes that he hears God speaking to him he remembers the reasons why he is devout and this returns him to God. George Herbert was a very religious man who believed in the Church and devotion. His poetry, specifically “The Collar”, shows that the choice between having free will and serving the Lord is simple.

References

Harman, Barbara Leigh. “The Fiction of Coherence: George Herbert’s The Collar.” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 93.5 (1978): 865- 877.

Herbert, George. “The Collar.” Found in Luminarium. http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/collar.htm.

Roberts, John R. “’Me Thoughts I Heard One Calling, Child!’: Herbert’s ‘The Collar’.” Renascence. 94.5 (1993): 196.