Explication of George Herbert’s “Redemption”

        George Herbert, an important English poet of the seventeenth century. He is one of the most skillful and important lyricists of that time. All Herbert’s surviving poem are religious. “Redemption”, one of his best known poems, works as an allegory of human kind’s relationship with God. Like his other poems in “The Temple”, “Redemption” has an ironic factor in it. Just as Helen Wilcox notes in her book George Herbert: Sacred And Profane “An ironic passage of writing, shining like silk which is shot through with a second colour, fit Herbert’s description of ‘jest’ perfectly: it appears ‘plain’ but there is a ‘vein’ of wit to be discovered withinit when the whole is viewed in a different light or seen from another perspective.”(Wilcox 128) In “Redemption,” there is the irony that the poet who is seeking God in order to propose a new contract for salvation does not know that God has already granted him a new ‘lease’. Also, the poem is a metaphor represents the new testament that God give to human through the descendent and death of Jesus Christ.

        To begin with, “Redemption” is an Italian sonnet, and unlike most other poem of Herbert, “Redemption” actually follows the structure of the sonnet; First, it is a fourteenth line poem that is divided into two parts. The first eight lines of the poem, the two quatrains, is the octave. It is the part that gives the background or problem that the poet is facing. In “Redemption” the octave gave us the scene of a man finding God self assuredly in order to offer a new relationship to God and he find out that God is not in Heaven. While the latter six line, or the two tercets act as an sestet which provide the solution and the climax, tell us that God had gone down to earth and God ironically granted him salvation without asking the poet anything in return. Also, the poem also follow the Italian sonnet’s rhyme scheme: abbaabba cdecde.

        Starting with the title, “Redemption,” readers of the poem get the hint for the poem. According to the dictionary, redemption means “repurchase; ransom; release; rescue”. It is something that one does to the other. Because the poem was written in 1633’s England, which consisted mainly of Christians, the word redemption here means the salvation God gave to humans through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. As we read in Ephesians 1:7 “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace”.

        In the first line of the poem “Having been tenant long to a rich Lord,” the poet is using a metaphor. Tenant is used to represent human beings in the tradition of Christianity, for example, the Parable about the tenants of the vineyard from Luke 20:9-20:17. . And a capital letter “Lord” is only reserves for God. Here, Herbert is using the relation between a resident of a land and the peer of the realm to represent the relationship between humans and God: that human is in debt to God, and the debt is sin.  

        At this moment, the poet is efficient and businesslike, he is “not thriving,”(line 2), he is not falling, he choose to be brave. He says “I resolved to be bold.”(line 2) and he offers the “Lord” something, “And make a suit unto him to afford” (line 3). At this time the poet is calm and that he is at the level of the “Lord” so that they can trade.

        Line four is the end of the first quatrain. Here, the poet tells us what he want to trade with the Lord. “A new small-rented lease and cancel th’ old” In canceling th’ old the poet wants to replace the Covenant of Work. Ironically, compared to his calm and self-confident feeling, what the poet offers is only a “small-rented lease”, maybe deep in the poet’s heart, he feels minor to the “Lord” . We will see more of this irony later in the poem. The small-rent here is again a metaphor. It represents the sacrificing of lambs and the little good work that they do which Pharisees and many people believed is enough to grant themselves salvation. Overall, the first quatrain provides us a scene of a self-believing person who thinks that salvation and God can be reached through one self doing.

        Line five to line eight is the second quatrain. The poet is still confident in himself in line five he seeks God directly in God’s manor. “In Heaven at his manor I him sought.” (line 5). However, God went somewhere else and was not there. “They told me there that he was lately gone.” (line 6)Despite all his confidence, the poet did not know that God is not there! How sarcastic! Here the ironic side of the poem begin to grow, and it will reach the peak in at the latter part of the poem.

        Where has God gone? He went “About some land which he dearly bought”(line7) He went to earth for the same reason the poet came to Heaven: to renew the contract with the people he loved. “Long since on earth, to take possession.” So while the poet went to Heaven confidently to offer a “small-rented lease” in order to cancel the old, God went down to earth for the same matter. The second quatrain provides us with a transition and a growing irony.

        Despite the difficulty he comes across, the poet is still confident in himself. After knowing that the Lord is not in the Heaven, he leaves Heaven without a second thought. “I straight returned, and knowing his great birth.” And the poet learned that the “Lord” has come to earth. And of course, here the “Lord’s great birth” represents the birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. After knowing the birth of the Lord, the poet searches for him without hesitate. He says, I “Sought him accordingly in great resorts, In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts.”(line 11and 12). “Cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts” are all places that mortals think successful and wealthy people visit. The poet, like the Jews at the time of Jesus, think the “Lord’s” greatness is about material wealth and glory on earth and thus he searches for him in all those places that is suitable for people with prestigeous status. However, the Lord is not there. Jesus said “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”(Luke 9:54). Regardless of his confidence in himself, the poet does not know where to find the “Lord” and has mistaken what the “great birth” means, the ironic factor of the poem is more clear to us now. “We may, however, already have picked up some textual hints of the ironic ignorance of a believer who wants singlehandedly to arrange a new ‘small-rented’ covenant and seek the Lord in all the wrong places through a misguided sense of what it means to be ‘great’” (Wilcox 130). Here, the poet represents the Pharisees living in the time of Jesus; although the Pharisees claim themselves to be following the law of God, however, ironically, like the poet, they did not recognize that Jesus Christ is the Messiah that they longed for when they saw him. Also, they mistaken the reason for the Messiah’s coming on earth as to free Israel from the ruling of Rome when, in fact, Jesus Christ came to die for humankind  in order to grant human beings redemption. The first tercets give us the actions and prepare us for the coming of the climax.

        The remaining lines of the poem present us a “radical and (for the speaker, at least)disturbing shift of perspective”(Wilcox 130) . “At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth/Of thieves and murderers; there I him espied, /who straight, Your suit is granted, said and died.” (line 12-14). Herbert is a master of simple everyday words, within four simple word, “ragged noise and mirth” he shows us a clear picture of the scene. Following the harsh noise and laughter, the poet finally finds the Lord. Shockingly, the Lord is with sinners. Obviously, this is the picture where Jesus died on the cross in the place called the Skull where he was nailed with two criminals and surrounded by unbelievers. Here is where the climax beginning; with 13 lines of searching, the poet has finally found the Lord, dying on the cross. But the biggest irony has yet to come. Before he can propose the “suit,” the Lord notice him first, and talks to him immediately and dies. The death of the Lord brings about the new covenant: the New Testament. Here, the single sentence that spoken by the Lord refer back to all the 13 sentence of the poet. Indeed, now the poet gets a new “lease”, but it is not due to any of his effort or “rent”, It is all because of the action of the “Lord”. Here the irony comes to an end and reveal us the main theme of the poem: Redemption and the relationship between God and humans has nothing to do with human’s hard work. It is because of God’s grace and the death of Jesus Christ that redemption came to human beings.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of god-not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

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