Metaphysical Poetry and Functional Typography
George Herbert 1593-1633
By Sune R. Andersen
COO at 2K/DENMARK
In our typographic work, we at 2K/DENMARK continuously try to learn and seek new ground. It often happens that we discover new ground when we look to the past, just as frequently as when we look to the future. We did this when Klaus visited the Vatican’s Library, searching for inspiration for a new typeface. This turned out to hold the inspiration for Catho typeface of the Comfort Print series of typefaces. We also did it when creating the NET Full notes study edition taking inspiration from both Jewish Talmud design and medieval heavily annotated Bibles.
Another source we have been looking at and experimenting with is the poet George Herbert. He will be the subject for the third instalment in our Morgenstjerne booklet series. This is a series where we play with content and typography and experiment with letting the words directly inform the design and vice versa. The series has previously featured Our Duty to Love by Søren Kirkegaard and Love Poems for Terrorist by American poet Andrea Romeo-Hall.
In the upcoming booklet, we will focus primarily on Herbert’s triptych of poems, Love I, II, and III. However, we have to share a few thoughts on his two iconic poems, The Altar and Easter Wings and how they connect to that which is most dear to a typesetter’s heart.
Above: The poem Easter Wings
Below: The Alter
Poems by George Herbert, published after his death in 1633 in the book The Temple.
George Herbert lived from 1593 to 1633. He came from a noble Welsh family and graduated from Cambridge. However, it was as a rector of a country parish in the Anglican Church and a poet that he inscribed himself into literary history as one of the most important metaphysical poets. The metaphysical poets were a loosely connected group of poets employing a writing style that makes intellectual demands on a reader, often using cryptic expressions, play of paradoxes, juxtapositions of metaphors and complicated thought. The style is intertwined with profound subject matter, most frequently Love and Religion.
George Herbert’s subject matter was religion. It was an expression of Christian life and experience. His poetry reflects how he lived his life by all accounts: He preached, prayed, contemplated, visited the poor and sick, and rebuilt the church with his own money. In his own words, his poems were ”a picture of the many conflicts that have past betwixt God and my Soul”.
Shortly before dying, Herbert entrusted the manuscript of his poetry – The Temple – to his friend Nicholas Ferrar, who could chose to burn or publish it. Ferrar was probably already aware of the quality of the poems, both the technical brilliance of Herbert but also the atmosphere of a contemplative rapture. Thankfully, he chose the latter.
In The Temple, embodiment and shape is clearly present. It is initiated with the book title but continues throughout. The volume as a whole is structured like an English parish church and the festivals and fasts celebrated within its walls. This is quickly confirmed by looking at the titles of the poems, for instance The Altar, Church Floors, The Windows, Church Lock, and commemorations such as Good Friday, Easter, The H. Communion, Whit Sunday, etc.
In particular, his emblematic poems The Altar and Easter Wings have been an inspiration to us for some time. In these poems, Herbert takes the book’s structure one step further and makes it part of the message. The Altar and Easter Wings are “shaped verses” which represent, by the typographical shape of the poem on the page, some part of the subject. This means that the layout supports the meaning of the text.
I wonder if Herbert knew he was to some extend reviving the ancient Greek poet from 300 BC, Simmias of Rhodes, and his poem Wings. Certainly, Herbert gave cause to the ongoing use of calligrams, which is very much alive in the work of Guillaume Apollinaire and later has grown into the branches of visual poetry, shaped poetry, and concrete poetry.
In George Herbert’s Easter Wings, the sin of humankind and God’s redemption is presented. Mankind’s journey is depicted not only by the language used in the poem, but also by the shape of the poem. This shape illustrates mankind’s struggle but also makes an allusion to Christ and the resurrection by utilising the shape of wings. The first wing is the human fall and the second wing is redemption through the risen Christ.
How can we, as a company that spends most of our time working with the typographical presentation of God’s word, not be enticed by such a poem? There is no other book than the Bible where the typography carries more meaning. Think of the use of indentation, capitals, blank lines, italic, bold, Sans, Serif, etc.: each element conveys an important meaning.
Our ambition is the same as that of George Herbert: to use all tools at our disposal to eliminate any obstacles and create the perfect interface between the reader and the text. An interface that the reader engages with unconsciously and, at the same time, carries all meaning and significance of the word of God.
The manifestation of this ambition is what we call Functional typography. We draw upon the entire palette of typographical tools from the tiniest pixel of the typeface to shaping the form of the text to be a whole.
It is why we have strong opinions on typefaces; what they communicate aesthetically, for example, authority, clarity, and/or heritage; and how they function in terms of readability, printability, and page economics.
It is why we care deeply about the design of a Bible page and, in our innovative concept work, explore the biblical genres, while ensuring that devices, such as poetry, narrative, letters, and proclamation have an interface that helps the reader.
Herbert’s The Altar describes the metaphorical process of building an altar out of one’s heart. We feel the same way when making a Bible: It comes from the heart.
Left: The poem Wings, ca. 325 bc by Simmias of Rhodes. Here in a reprint from 1640.
Above: Another example of functional typography in the poem Axe also by Simmias of Rhodes.
© Jesus College, Oxford.