21 pages • 42 minutes read
George HerbertEaster Wings
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1633A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Pattern Poetry
Pattern poetry, also called “shaped poetry” and more recently “concrete poetry,” refers to a type of poem whose appearance on the printed page resembles the subject of the poem. Thus, “Easter Wings” is presented in the shape of wings. In the early editions of the poem, the lines were printed vertically rather than horizontally to make the poem look even more like wings. The reader had to turn the book sideways in order to read the poem. Pattern poems go back to ancient Greece, and they were popular during the Renaissance and the 17th century.
Form and Meter
The poem is in two rhymed stanzas of 10 lines each. The rhyme scheme for each stanza is a b a b a c d c d c. This means that Line 1 rhymes with Lines 3 and 5, and Line 2 rhymes with Line 4. The pattern recurs in the second half of the stanza, with Line 6 rhyming with Lines 8 and 10, and Line 7 rhyming with Line 9.
The lines are of uneven length because the poet shapes them on the page to represent the shape of wings. The form of the poem as the reader sees it therefore conveys the central image of flying or ascending like a lark. At its longest (or widest), the meter is iambic pentameter. An iamb is a poetic foot in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable. A pentameter consists of five poetic feet. It is the most common meter in English poetry. In the poem, Lines 1, 10, 11, and 20 are iambic pentameters. Line 11 is probably the best example: “My tender age in sorrow did beginne.” In Line 1, the poet begins with two inversions of the iambic rhythm: “Lord, who createdst man” consists of two trochaic feet. A trochee is the opposite of an iamb: The first syllable is stressed, and the second syllable is unstressed. The effect of the inversion of the expected iambic rhythm emphasizes the power and majesty of God, to whom the poem is addressed.
To convey the shape of a wing, the lines gradually decrease in length. After the opening pentameter, the second line in each stanza is a tetrameter (four poetic feet); Line 3 is a trimeter (three poetic feet); Line 4 is a dimeter (two poetic feet), Lines 5 and 6 are monometer (one poetic foot).
Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of nearby consonant sounds. Alliteration occurs strikingly in the last line of the first stanza: “Then shall the fall further the flight in me.” The repetition of the “f” sounds emphasizes the meaning of the line, that the fall of man (the effects of which the poet, along with all other people, suffered) was actually the means by which he could, by the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross and his subsequent resurrection, ascend to a more exalted state. The close linking of the words “fall,” “further,” and “flight” conveys this idea, especially “fall” and “flight,” which are opposite in meaning. The same effect is conveyed in the last line of the poem (“Affliction shall advance the flight in me”) with the alliteration of the two consonants “fl” representing the sorrow that resulted from the fall (“affliction”) and the “flight” that is possible due to the resurrection, which the fall made possible.
Alliteration occurs again in the first three lines of the second stanza, in the frequent repetition of the “s” sounds, which are known in phonetics as sibilants (characterized by a hissing sound). The sibilants here emphasize the poet’s sense of his own sinfulness. In Line 11 he writes of his “sorrow,” and in the following line the “s” sounds come thick and fast: “And still with sicknesses and shame” (Line 12). These sibilants—five in all—create a strong hissing effect. The poet’s purpose here is to create a poetic soundscape that resembles the hissing of a snake. It was, of course, the serpent in the Garden of Eden that tempted Eve, and thus precipitated the fall of man presented in the book of Genesis. Sound and meaning thus coincide here: the hissing serpent, the sin, the fall, the sorrow.
Figurative Language
The central image, drawn from the natural world, is that of a lark. The lark sings at dawn and is thus an apt image to convey the notion of new life emerging as a result of the resurrection of Christ. It is a new dawn for humankind, if believers can accept the notion that Christ’s resurrection offers them relief from sorrow and care, as well as the future promise of heaven, as they share in the divine victory over death.
The image of the lark is presented as a simile. In a simile, which can usually be recognized by introductory words such as “like” or “as,” one thing is compared to a different thing in a way that brings out a similarity between them. Thus, in the poem, the poet makes a humble request of the Lord: “O let me rise / As larks, harmoniously” (Lines 7-8). In other words, just as the lark rises and sings in the morning, the poet pleads that his own soul may be allowed to do the same—to sing the song of Christ’s victory over death in the resurrection and celebrate the hope that victory brings for all humankind.
In this image, Herbert might have been inspired by a passage from the book of Malachi in the Old Testament: “for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings” (Chapter 4, Verse 2, Revised Standard Version). Also, Herbert is not the only English poet to employ the image of the lark in this way. William Shakespeare in Sonnet 29 writes of “the lark at break of day arising / […] sings hymns at heaven’s gate” (Lines 11-12), although Shakespeare’s orientation in this sonnet is secular rather than religious.
