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Poet and hymns
Jane Falloon first came across the poems of George Herbert as a schoolgirl in the 1940s, when she sang them as hymns at Tudor Hall School in Banbury. "We used to sing a hymn every morning at prayer," she said. "My aunt was my headmistress and she loved these hymns and we got to know so many of them by heart." The hymn singing began a life-long love of his words and last year, at the age of 78, Jane published a biography of the 17th-century poet.
After school, Jane went on to read English at Girton College, Cambridge. So why, out of all the poets she has studied, was it Herbert that she wanted to write about? "Because he has a way of expressing himself which makes my hair stand on end - these extraordinary phrases and words that he uses. They suddenly hit you absolutely. Bang. They're so immediate and so astonishing. He appealed absolutely directly to something very deep and personal in me."
She feels he has been unjustly neglected. "It's amazing how even the most intelligent, educated people look slightly blank when you say George Herbert to them," she said. She believes he is less famous than his contemporary, John Donne, because he only wrote religious poems. She has reproduced 24 of them in her book, with commentary.
"I think, unfortunately, so many people are put off by religion," she said. "They don't necessarily want to be preached to and they might feel that poems about God are going to preach to them." She doesn't think that Herbert preaches, however. Rather, he wrote highly introspective poems. "They're about his emotional struggles," she explained. "Sometimes you feel he's utterly downcast, that he's had no sort of feeling that God is there for him and is suddenly outcast and then, thank God, something has gone right and he feels that he's back in favour again."
Jane writes in a lively, engaging style and beautifully evokes Herbert's world, minimising the political and expanding on those who influenced Herbert. One of the most interesting characters is his mother Magdalene. A devout, formidable woman, she brought up ten children alone after she was widowed and eventually married a man who was the same age as her third son. She was a friend of the poet John Donne, who also influenced Herbert, according to Jane. But while Donne wrote love poetry, Herbert stuck to religious themes, because of a promise to his mother. Herbert's work was first published after his death in1633 at 39.
This biography is Jane's second. A former professional singer and teacher, she came to writing late in life. Her first book was on Lady Bailey, an aviator who pioneered African air-routes. "I so enjoy doing biography," Jane said. "It's such great fun because you've got a beginning, a middle and an end and the whole plot is there. All you've got to do is fill in all the details with research." She has also written a children's book, retelling the story of Thumbelina, with illustrations by her daughter, Emma Chichester Clark.
After spending most of her life in Ireland, Jane returned to England in 2001 and now lives in a former pub in Great Milton. "I think it's the most marvellous bit of Oxfordshire. It's very rural and this village is still an absolute epitome of an English village," she said. "It has everything. It has bell ringers, it has people who play cricket on the green; and we have so many communal things." These include a history society, a cycling society and two choirs, including the Bell Cantos, a 12-strong group who sing unaccompanied early music. It is clear that she is very happy here.
It is also clear that she has a strong faith in God, which is another reason why she liked George Herbert so much. "If we think at all about our relationship to a supreme being, we are always puzzling and wondering: Are we idiots to think that there's something else there?' I think that he eventually gives you this feeling of total strength of belief that there is something there for us."
This is particularly true of his last poem, Love Bade Me Welcome. "You get the feeling from that poem that there is a supreme being which is the source of love and that you feel that you are loved. This is what people are always hoping for and looking for, and Herbert gives you that certainty.
"You can brush it aside and say it's ridiculous and doesn't really come to anything, but a faith like that is really quite a strong foundation for living your life."
George Herbert: Heart in Pilgrimage: A Study of George Herbert is published by Author House at £10.99.
12:24pm Thursday 8th May 2008
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