Hymns and poetry-the disparity?

[wilbur lim]

I doubt the disparity between hymns and poems.
What I know in mind is that they have ryhming words.Why not have hymns to be moved under the category of poetry? We would be perplexed to identify whether a work is a poem or a hymn.A hymn is a song of praise(to God or to a saint or to a nation)inevitably,but I had read all the hymns and realise that they are akin to poetry.

Another perspective is to have the word 'hymn' to be amended to 'hymn poetry',or 'poem of hymn'.It might be categorically awkward,but I conceive it befits. This is my perspective solely,and I am not endeavouring to compel it to be amended,what I yearn is to have it amended.

Why would hymns be unique?What is the bona fide intention of having poems? The disparity is eclectic.Why won't we amend the word 'poem' into 'hymn' or the other way round? As you might have perceive that I had used a raft of question marks,these questions marks need a legitimate answer.

Being amended is best recommended.

[JBI]

I think the best answer comes from Dr. Johnson;


Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul, cannot be poetical. Man admitted to implore mercy of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher state than poetry can confer.

The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights. the topicks of devotion are few, and being few are universally known; but few as they are, they can be made no more; they can recieve no grace from novelty of sentiment, and very little from novelty of expression...

Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its power, because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent than itself. All that verse can do is to help the memory, and delight the ear, and for these purposes it may be very useful; but it supplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian Theology are too simple for fiction, and too majestick for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures is to magnify by a concave mirror the sidereal hemisphere.

note, I tried to copy this out perfectly, but if there are mistakes, please forgive me.


In truth, the hymn as a genre is meant for a different purpose than poetry, and as a result, fails to have any of the conventions, besides form, of poetry.

[mortalterror]

It's been a long time since I've been in a church proper, but whenever I bury people I'm reminded of just how rich and wonderful Christian culture can be. The childhood words trip lightly on my tongue in that old familiar rhythm and I feel something like I did when I was still a boy and believed with all my heart in things I could neither see nor touch.

There is no reason why hymns should not be considered poetry. Ezra Pound thought that all poetry aspired to be music, and recommended young poets rewrite their favorite songs for practice. The reverse has happened more than once. For instance, the preface to William Blake's epic poem Milton has been turned into the masterful Jerusalem Hymn which has practically become the anthem of Great Britain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73eB-aAo8Eg

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.

One thing you have to remember is the ecstatic nature of prayer, and how during the middle ages Gregorian chant was a form of worship deemed most pleasing to God. The cathedrals were designed as much for harmonics, conducting thanks to the Lord as they were designed to let in light which was thought to be the direct manifestation and symbol of the Almighty's presence. I don't find that pithy or inappropriate or overadorned at all, despite whatever Dr. Johnson might have said. It is possible that he only made those remarks because he didn't have the knack for religious verse the way that George Herbert or John Donne had and lived well before the day of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

[JBI]

Herbert, even more so than Donne, seems to be the English (as in England) devotional poet. But he is not a hymn writer, he is a poet:

Jordan (II).

WHen first my lines of heav’nly joyes made mention,
Such was their lustre, they did so excell,
That I sought out quaint words and trim invention;
My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell,
Curling with metaphors a plain intention,
Decking the sense, as if it were to sell.

Thousands of notions in my brain did runne,
Off’ring their service, if I were not sped:
I often blotted what I had begunne;
This was not quick enough, and that was dead.
Nothing could seem too rich to clothe the sunne,
Much lesse those joyes which trample on his head.

As flames do work and winde, when they ascend,
So did I weave my self into the sense.
But while I bustled, I might heare a friend
Whisper, How wide is all this long pretence!
There is in love a sweetnesse readie penn’d;
Copie out onely that, and save expense.


The poem doesn't deal with the nature, and praise of god, which hymns tend to do, but with the poet himself, and his relationship to the divine. Donne to does this, as his famous religious works, such as Death be Not Proud are about the human experience, and instead of focusing on the theme of God, they focus on other themes, such as Death, Love, and being a good person.

The religiosity is not usually fit for the subject of the poem, but only as a backdrop as an aspect of the poets' experience.

Even Hopkins doesn't deal exactly with god, but only treats god as backdrop. Take for instance this famous poem;

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend’


Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum: verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.


THOU art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?

Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, 5
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again 10
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

The poem may be about Hopkins begging god to "send my roots rain." yet the central question of the poem is whether or not god is just, or rather, if life is just. He is begging god to be just, yet the darkness that flows over the poem notes that he is not. The question becomes metaphysical in the sense that it asks what exactly is divine justice, if "sinners' ways prosper... [and] disappointment all I endeavor end?" The question then fades from god, and towards fairness, which is the real theme of the poem. The poem itself does more to prove the unjustness of god than the justness, as it gives no support for god's justice, other than stating about god that the poet "contend[s] with thee", that he already agrees as an assumption.

Poems about god automatically fail, as they, as Johnson noted, and I quoted, deal with a limited, familiar subject. All good devotional poetry, as it is misnamed, deals with a humanistic, rather than religious theme.

Gregorian Chant is famed, not for its literary qualities, but for its musical, and traditional qualities. Likewise, hymns are a cultural aspect of church life, and become culturally significant, but not poetry. Poetry is something outside of religion, where religion can only exist as a backdrop, an aspect of humanity, but not as the core, which always is humanity, no matter which movement or period one is writing in.

That being said, I did not say that all hymns are bad, which is absurd, I just said they do not fall under the same category as poetry.

I do not pretend that Jewish Tfilah is poetry, yet I still find the artistic quality in its delivery, and I still enjoy (though very seldom) hearing a great cantor sing it in synagogue. The art there is in the music though, not in the words, as the words are rather boring.

And on the Blake hymn, that is not really a hymn, it is an introduction to Milton. The poet would have objected with the use of it as a hymn, the same way he objected to many aspects of religion.

[mortalterror]

All good devotional poetry, as it is misnamed, deals with a humanistic, rather than religious theme.

Humanism is well and good, but it ignores the sublime and supernatural which is so much a part of human life and any philosophy that ends at the human is only half done. I think you've quoted only the weaker poems by Herbert, and Hopkins. Try these. I doubt you will miss the religious sentiment in Easter Wings, Batter My Heart Three Person'd God, or The Wreck of the Deutschland.

Easter Wings
by George Herbert

Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:

With Thee
O let me rise,
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne;
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.

With Thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day Thy victorie;
For, if I imp my wing on Thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you"

BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due, 5
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you,'and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie: 10
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

The Wreck of the Deutschland
1
Thou mastering me
God! Giver of breath and bread;
World’s strand, sway of the sea;
Lord of living and dead;
Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,
And after it almost unmade, what with dread,
Thy doing : and dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.

2
I did say yes
O at lightning and lashed rod;
Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess
Thy terror, O Christ, O God;
Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour and night:
The swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee trod
Hard down with a horror of height:
And the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.

3
The frown of his face
Before me, the hurtle of hell
Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?
I whirled out wings that spell
And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.
My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,
Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast,
To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace.

4
I am soft sift
In an hourglass―at the wall
Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift,
And it crowds and it combs to the fall;
I steady as a water in a well, to a poise, to a pane,
But roped with, always, all the way down from the tall
Fells or flanks of the voel, a vein
Of the gospel proffer, a pressure, a principle, Christ’s gift.

5
I kiss my hand
To the stars, lovely-asunder
Starlight, wafting him out of it; and
Glow, glory in thunder;
Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west:
Since, tho’ he is under the world’s splendour and wonder,
His mystery must be instressed, stressed;
For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.

Of particular note would be the line where Donne asks God to ravish him. In the two thousand year history of Christianity God has gone through a number of transformations. He's a creator, a father figure, a landlord, a feudal master, and then around 1200 in France with the rise of chivalric romance poetry he becomes something else, a lover. This poem bears a great resemblance to the seduction poems of the Renaissance and even the secular poetry of Donne Himself, not because the allegory or the trope belongs to humanism or poetry proper, but because Religion can contain and reshape so many concepts within itself. It's strength is its adaptability, the way it does not fight strength but co-opts it. Whatever the age calls for, Christianity becomes.

[Jozanny]

I side with JBI here. Emily Dickinson based her work on the church hymns she knew, and every American university student is exposed to the miracle of her poetry.

XXXII


HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; 5
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I ’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea; 10
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.


This is nearly universally known; few hymns achieve such stature.

[kasie]

The thing about hymns is that the words are inseparable from the music - you can indeed read the words alone but in your head you will be hearing the music as well. If you don't know the tune to which the hymn is sung, you are only experiencing half of the power of the hymn. And as for new tunes to hymns - many congregations recoil in horror at the vicar/minister who has the temerity to tinker with the hymn experience!

The Wesleys were the writers par excellence who understood the power of this combination - they took the basic tenets of the Christian faith and rendered them into memorable and moving hymns which linger in the memory far longer than any sermon: 'When I survey the wondrous Cross' and 'And can it be?' have as much power today as in the eighteenth century. Poor Dr Johnson was attending services in a particularly dreary period of Anglican hymn writing so no wonder he held a jaundiced view of hymns. And was he perhaps reacting to the Enthusiasm of the Methodist movement with its mass open-air meetings and fervent hymn singing? He was an almost exact contemporary of the Wesleys.

Similarly the Revival movement produced some rousing hymns that combine simplified theological ideas with ear-catching melodies. On their own the words are thin - put them with the tune and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. 'Why should the Devil have all the good tunes? asked William Booth - and took more than a few for his own ends! These combinations were intended for mass consumption by a congregation not private perusal by individuals - if you wanted to contemplate God, you read the Bible, the Word of God, not 'Literature', the words of men.