Blog Post #31

Lily Sale

The Collar By: George Herbert

The Collar by George Herbert is known as a metaphysical poem. The poem have incentive for concepts such as love or religion. In George Herbert's’ case, The Collar is a religious  poem, dramatic rebellion is portrayed as well.  The poem begins with a dramatic statement of refusal—“I struck the board, and cried, No more”—and the following lines give examples of the kind of life that the speaker wants to leave behind. He is a person of ambition and desire, yet everything in life seems to conspire to frustrate or torment him. His life is one of “sighs” and “tears,” a situation he finds particularly distressing because he can readily imagine the joys and glories, the wine, fruit, and flowers, that are withheld from him. “The Collar” gives full expression to the speaker’s resentment of the pain and rigor of leading a life that is moral and holy. Only after these complaints are freely, almost hysterically voiced is the speaker taught how quickly they can be banished by a patient God who ultimately gives more than he asks. One of the most interesting aspects of “The Collar” is the way the form of the poem helps to convey not only the dramatic rebelliousness of the speaker but also the concluding resolution. The speaker’s anger and nervousness are underscored in several ways. His speech pattern is halting and constantly interrupted. Many of the statements are short, and the frequent punctuation in the lines gives them a clipped, adding to the impression of uneasiness. Any sense that this is the speech of a confident and determined man is also undermined by the fact that much of it takes the form of questions. These are meant to be rhetorical questions, but still they suggest that the speaker is plagued with doubts.