The Word Made Flesh Herbert's The Church Shaping Meaning in Two-foot Lines

Most of the poems in George Herbert's The Church (1633) are one-of-a-kind irregularly shaped anomalies. By employing the dimeter in fifty of the one hundred and sixty poems, Herbert was able to create a wide variety of outline patterns. The poems that contain lines of two-feet not only include silhouettes of objects (e.g., Easter Wings and The Altar), but also shapes that mirror physical movement and internal processes as well. After reviewing how the dimeter functions in non-dramatic English poetry published before 1633 and what is given shape in Greek, neo-Latin, and English figure poetry preceding The Church, I discuss in great detail how George Herbert walks outside any practice before him by means of his two-feet to radically fuse content and form. As the words become the flesh of forms, simultaneously each fresh incarnation looks, works and speaks the word that gives it life.