Overview
"This is a new study of George Herbert's The Country Parson. While most of the scholarship on The Country Parson has been historical or sociological in method or focus, this work looks at it as a literary work and in its literary context - i.e., as an anomaly within the clerical manual genre and as Herbert's contribution to the burgeoning genre of courtesy literature in his time. This study offers a new appreciation of the intentional art Herbert employed in The Country Parson, the only work he prepared for publication." The Country Parson is examined in the light of the important courtesy theme of Seeming and Being. While the traditional courtesy authors are shown to prefer "seeming" to "being," both Herbert and Guazzo show that "seeming" has a profound mimetic effect on "being" and urge their readers to improve outward "seeming" for the sake of spiritual "being."Synopsis
"This is a new study of George Herbert's The Country Parson. While most of the scholarship on The Country Parson has been historical or sociological in method or focus, this work looks at it as a literary work and in its literary context - i.e., as an anomaly within the clerical manual genre and as Herbert's contribution to the burgeoning genre of courtesy literature in his time. This study offers a new appreciation of the intentional art Herbert employed in The Country Parson, the only work he prepared for publication." The Country Parson is examined in the light of the important courtesy theme of Seeming and Being. While the traditional courtesy authors are shown to prefer "seeming" to "being," both Herbert and Guazzo show that "seeming" has a profound mimetic effect on "being" and urge their readers to improve outward "seeming" for the sake of spiritual "being."