17th Century Poetry Easter Wings PDF

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These notes are an analysis of the poem Easter Wings and will also provide notes about the context to help build arguments for writing an essay about the poem....

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‘Easter Wings’ Presentation Pictogram  A poem whose shape mimics an aspect of its subject matter.  In the 1633 edition of The Temple the poem ‘Easter Wings’ was printed on its side on the page, with the lines running vertically. This typographic layout suggests the shape of the ‘wings’ alluded to in the poem’s title.  The other shape suggested by the poem is that of two hourglasses, one on top of the other. Easter  Easter – the Christian festival of the resurrection of Christ. At Easter, Christians remember his death, rising from the grave, and ascent into heaven.  Flight – images of flight are associated with Easter. The resurrection of Christ also mirrors the inward flight experience by the faithful, who feels pervaded by the Holy Spirit. Bible  ‘Now after the sabbath … Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it … the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said.’ Matthew 28: 1-6.

Extended Metaphor – First Stanza  The spiritual history of mankind began with earthly paradise, but mankind brought about its own decay through evil doing.

 However, as a result of Christ’s sacrifice, mankind experienced atonement and regained the prospect of everlasting life. Visual Effect  The extension and diminution of the lines mimics the spiritual death and rebirth of the believer.  The first long life conveys a mood of optimism, then the lines progressively shrink to mirror the waning of this sentiment.  The moment of greatest gloom and spiritual misery corresponds to the shortest line.  After this, the lines start to expand again in correspondence with a renewed hope in the rebirth of the spirit portrayed through the singing and flight of larks. The ‘flight’ of lark / soul  ‘According to ornithologists, as the lark flies sunward, out of the range of the human eye, it sings “elaborate and beautiful songs.” That characteristic supplies a vivid image for the poet, who desires to “sing” the son’s Easter “victories” … so that his redeemed soul may fly to heaven – Sonward, so to speak’.  Just as the lark flies from its low nest to great heights, so too the speaker, despite and even because of his fallen state – his low nest – will be enabled to fly heavenward with Christ’. Kingel Ray, J. (1991) ‘Herbert’s EASTER-WINGS’, The Explicator 49 (3) p. 141. Rhyming and Meaning  Abba – wealth and ‘store’ rhymes with a ‘more’ that is really less, since it measures advancing decay, and then culminates in the diminished ‘poor’. This is the poem’s motion of descent, also realised metrically in its progressively constricted lines.  Cdcd – the turn from descent to ascent is marked by the rhyming of ‘with thee’, ‘harmoniously’ and ‘in me’, and by the

rhyming of ‘rise’ and ‘victories’, which encapsulates the movement of faith and how man becomes one in Christ. Figurative Language – Second Stanza  ‘Thin’ – the speaker refers to his own ‘thinness’ as the moment of spiritual poverty as a result of his spiritual poverty as a result of his separation from Christ. At the same time, Christ’s own suffering on Earth, taking upon himself the sins of man, and therefore sharing man’s ‘thinness’, secures human redemption. Salvation emerges from this sharing of ‘thinness’, a union between humanity and Christ.  ‘imp’ – the verb ‘imp’ in falconry means ‘to engraft feathers in a damaged wing, so as to restore powers of flight’ and suggests that each stanza imps its wing on Christ by adding extra syllables onto each line and expanding into a spiritual flight. Paradox or mystery?  Paradox – from a logical perspective the idea that a ‘fall’ or ‘affliction’ can promote a ‘flight’ is paradoxical.  Mystery – from a Christian perspective the moment of greatest suffering is also the moment of the greatest redemption. This is a mystery in which every Christian participates, namely personal redemption in Christ. Secret of Resurrection  ‘The poem’s form offers a dynamic reading experience which acts out the whole secret of Christian resurrection, the meaning of the Easter festival…  Christ became man and suffered on Earth in the flesh in order to secure our redemption from sin. It was by sharing human deprivation, taking our sins upon himself, that he earned our atonement.’

Furniss, T. and Bath, M. (2007) Reading Poetry; and introduction, London and New York: Longman, p. 89. Stroke of Genius  ‘That paradoxical and awful expedient, through which a tortured humanity has found a temporary alleviation, that stoke of genius called Christianity: God personally immolating himself for the debt of man, God paying himself personally of a pound of his own flesh, God as the one being who can deliver man from what creditor playing scapregoat for his debtor, from love (can you believe it?) from love of his debtor!’ Nietzsche, F. (1974) ‘The genealogy of morals’ in The Complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche: New York; Gorgon Press. Credit or Credence?  ‘If there is such a thing as this “stroke of genius,” it only comes about at the instant of the infinite sharing of the secret … that which remains more secret than ever, the incredible experience of belief, between credit and faith, the believing suspended between the credit of the creditor and the credence of the believer. How can one believe this history of credence or credit? […] Nietzsche must indeed believe he knows what believing means, unless he means it is all make-believe’. Derrida, J. (1995) The gift of death. Trans. D. Willis. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, p. 115.

The ‘heart’ of the poem Most poor: / With Thee (11.5 – 6) Most thin: / With Thee (11.15 – 16)  The punctuation both unites and separates the calculable economy of the human and incalculable gift of God. The

spiritual deficiency of man does not completely coincide with divine suffering.  The moment of infinite reward is expressed in the form of a prayed (‘let’, l. 7) and only envisaged as future (‘shall’, l. 20). Binary Oppositions  Metaphoricity and simplicity.  Self-display and Self-effacement.  Paradox and Mystery.  Economy and Gift.  Spatial and Temporal.  Incarnational and Self-emptying. Conceptualisation and Belief....