By Bailey Meyerhoff
In exploring the work of Gertrude More, one is struck by the magnitude of her love of God and her mastery of the secular art – poetry – that she uses to explore it. More’s poetry has not regularly been studied alongside the works of better-known early modern religious poets, such as Richard Crashaw, George Herbert, and John Donne, which seems to be a true loss for the canon of early modern religious verse. When More’s work is examined in comparison with representative poems by Crashaw, Herbert, and Donne, the similarities between them serve to amplify their shared meanings and the differences serve to add more depth and nuance to the canon. More’s poetry should be added to the canon of early modern religious verse; this addition will provide the canon with more complexity, and, with this complexity, More’s work will offer modern readers with the opportunity to explore the variety of ways that early modern writers explored their religion with poetry.
One of the most significant themes in More’s poetry is love—the love of God, of course. It seems obvious that a nunwould be emphatic about her love of God, but it is important for readers to note that loving God as one’s chosen way of practicing devotion could have been seen at the time as a relatively “simple” devotional method – that is, a devotion based on emotion rather than intellect, and, thus, inferior. According to Anthony Low, Crashaw was also in favor of the devotional method that Low calls “sensible affection,” which “emphasizes feeling rather than intellect and passivity rather than activity” and is opposed to “active or ‘masculine’ forms of devotion. … [R]igorous intellectual analysis and active, even aggressive, searching for God” (245). More, of course, also appears to be inclined to sensible affection – in “Amor Ordinem Nescit,” she writes of God’s love,
And never can I it too much
Speak of, or it desire,
Since that my God, who’s love itself
Doth only love require.
(ll. 165-68)
Here, as well as throughout More’s poetry generally, More praises loving God as the only means to receiving his love; that is, More – like Crashaw – rejects “masculine,” intellectual forms of devotion in favor of a “feminine” devotion based on feeling. Furthermore, More’s praise of the contemplative nature of Mary as opposed to the more active nature of her sister, Martha, supports the idea of her preference to sensible affection. In “On Suffering and Bearing the Cross,” for example, More writes,
We must submit ourselves to him,
And be of cheerful heart;
For he expecteth much of her
That he gives Mary’s part.
(ll. 33-36)
Significantly, More emphasizes the importance to God of the one given “Mary’s part,” or the one following a contemplative lifestyle as opposed to an active one. Similarly, Low writes, “Crashaw preferred to wish that others should, like himself and the female saints he admired, cheerfully offer themselves up, in sacrifice, love, and suffering” (252). And, thus, Crashaw – like More – seems to believe in the “simple” power of love as the supreme devotional method, and these united beliefs and expressions in the respective poets’ works seem to amplify the message.
Another theme present throughout More’s work – albeit less common than the one of love – is her writing about her own writing, or metapoetry, and, furthermore, commentary on the unsatisfactory nature of words. More seems to justify her writing as a devotional practice, as can be seen in “Amor Ordinem Nescit,” when she writes,
O I desire no tongue nor pen,
But to extol his praise,
In which excess I’ll melt away
Ten thousand, thousand ways.
(ll. 73-76)
Here, More is referring to what is her only motive in her writing: praise of God. In this way, More believes her poetry to be a kind of vehicle for her faith – another devotional method, that is. Contrarily, as Helen Wilcox writes of George Herbert, “‘versing’ epitomized the clash between vocation and fallenness; the need to love God, but the impossibility of fully doing so, was vividly expressed in the devotional poet’s urge to write, and simultaneous knowledge that his poems could never adequately celebrate their divine subject” (192). According to Wilcox, then, Herbert was suspicious of his writing – even as he primarily used it to explore his faith – even going so far as to suggest that he felt that his writing implied that he loved God imperfectly. In this way, Herbert’s perspective on his own writing is quite different from More’s, whose viewpoint is more optimistic. Wilcox also argues that Herbert was suspicious of words in general, which, in trying to get at meaning, sometimes obscure it: “The process of poetic praise obscures the very object of that praise” (193). On this point, More and Herbert seem to be united – in More’s “To our most Holy Father Saint Benedict,” she writes,
The more I look upon thy Rule,
The more in it I find,
Oh do to me the sense unfold,
For letter makes us blind!
(ll. 29-32)
Here, More refers to the power of words to “blind” us, or to obscure meaning from us. Thus, while Herbert and More differ on their perspectives on their own writing, they agree on the insufficiency – maybe even the danger – of words to express divinity, and these similarities and differences offer readers a complex way to read their respective works.
One of the main ways that More’s work can provide the canon of early modern religious verse with more complexity is the way that her experience as a nun is reflected in it – specifically, her “marriage” to God. In “Amor Ordinem Nescit,” More writes,
For nothing else in heaven or earth
Do I desire, but thee;
And let me rather death embrace,
Than thee, my God, offend;
Or in my heart to leave a place
For any other friend.
(ll. 107-12)
Here, More is referring to her transcendent love of God and rejection of earthly and heavenly things for Him – she would “rather death embrace” than displease him by desiring (or loving) earthly things (i.e., the physical world). This rejection of the physical world stands in stark contrast to the work of John Donne specifically. As Achsah Guibbory writes,
[Donne] wants both human love and God’s love, and though a number of the religious poems suggest a pressure to choose between them, they also suggest an unwillingness to give up those earthly ties, even a hope that those precious human loves will not be destroyed but actually included or contained in God, who is the ‘root’ or source of love. (143)
In Guibbory’s analysis of Donne’s incapability of parting with earthly things, readers are reminded of what More, in her decision to become a nun, has sacrificed for God. It does seem, in her work, however, that More does not view her earthly rejections as a loss – on the contrary, More seems to be completely fulfilled in her “marriage” with God, as can be seen in her “Deus meus impleat omne desiderium meum“:
For none but he
can satiate me.
In heart where love is seated,
nothing but love is treated.
(ll. 1-5)
Here, More contemplates her fulfillment, which can come from God alone, which starkly contrasts with some examples of Donne’s poetry: “Donne comes dangerously close to blasphemy in that holy sonnet on his wife by almost suggesting that God’s love is, of itself, not sufficient to satisfy him (Guibbory 143). These striking differences between Donne and More, studied together, can help expand and complicate the canon’s scope. That is, it is important that readers, in order to thoroughly explore early modern religious verse, be provided with Donne’s incessant longing for more than God and More’s satisfaction with nothing but God.
More’s poetry, with all of its complex similarities and differences with the work of other well-known early modern religious poets – similarities and differences mentioned in this essay, but also the many more similarities and differences left to explore – deserves to be a part of the canon of early modern religious verse. Her work will provide the canon with a more complex blend of religious works and a more diverse, thorough presentation of religious verse in the seventeenth century.
Further Reading: More’s Genres in this Edition
Works Cited
Guibbory, Achsah. “John Donne.” The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell, ed. Thomas N. Corns, pp. 123-147. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Low, Anthony. “Richard Crashaw.” The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell, ed. Thomas N. Corns, pp. 242-255. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Wilcox, Helen. “George Herbert.” The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell, ed. Thomas N. Corns, pp. 183-199. Cambridge University Press, 1993.