USC Rediscovering George Herbert’s ‘Virtue Discussion

George Herbert re-reading assignment 2. Re-read your chosen George Herbert poem from last week and post a short (200ish words) reflection, considering how re-reading the poem this week compared to your initial experience of reading the poem last week, and explaining what new things you noticed about the poem this time.

This is what I said last time and what you should start from to do further considerations and complete the assignment:

VIRTUE

In George Herbert’s “Virtue,” the speaker wonders about beauty and how life is momentary. A tranquil description of a “sweet day, so cool, bright and calm” portrays the few times it is filled with joy and perfection. Almost all the words repeated in every line, like dawn, out rose, and spring, denote accepting death as a reality. The poem’s structure of short stanzas with brief lines demonstrates how transient life’s joys are. These visual and auditory elements are put together very well such that individual can visualize an intense hue on the rose’s face, “hue, angry and brave”; as for sounds, it is found in the last three lines (Herbert). At the end of this poem, Herbert assigns virtue as an ever-stable force in an unstable world, suggesting that only souls through a righteous character are like old wood used over time. This poem is similar to self-reflection concerning temporary life but still powerfully talking about virtue, which forever remains.