Critical Exploration of the Various Forms in George Herbert’s The Altar

Abstract

This research paper aims to analyse George Herbert’s “The Alter”, and its form and they would be discussed concerning its content. Then the article asserts that, while being a visual poem, it is one of the crucial poems composed by the poet in which tropes are exploited with the rest of the forms such as the employment of Metre, Capitalisation and rhymes, strengthening the overall message that poem conveys. George Herbert’s The Altar can be seen as just an altar - a quirky form. Nonetheless, that Reading fails to consider how the structure of the poem elevates the meaning of sacrifice. The sacrifice upon the Altar is a sacrifice of the poem (and, in extension, the poet himself). This is a poem that, above all, advocates the total surrender of oneself to a higher deity, no matter how broken that person is.