Metaphysical poets, selected poems Contents
- Social / political context
- Religious / philosophical context
- Literary context: ideas and innovations
- Aire and Angels
- A Hymn to God the Father
- A Hymn to God, my God, in my Sicknesse
- A Nocturnall upon St. Lucies day
- At the Round Earth's Imagin'd Corners
- A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Synopsis of Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Commentary on Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Language and tone in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Structure and versification in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Imagery and symbolism in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Themes in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- A Valediction: of Weeping
- Batter my heart
- Death be not Proud
- Elegie XIX: Going to Bed
- Elegie XVI: On his Mistris
- Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
- Lovers' Infiniteness
- Oh my blacke Soule!
- Satyre III: 'On Religion'
- Show me Deare Christ
- Since She Whom I Lov'd
- Song: Goe, and catche a falling starre
- The Anniversarie
- The Dreame
- The Extasie
- The Flea
- The Good-morrow
- The Sunne Rising
- This is my playes last scene
- Twicknam Garden
- What if this present
- Aaron
- Affliction I
- Death
- Discipline
- Easter Wings
- Jordan I
- Jordan II
- Life
- Love II
- Man
- Prayer I
- Redemption
- The Church-floore
- The Collar
- Vertue
- Hymn in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
- Hymn to St Teresa
- St Mary Magdalene, or the Weeper
- To the Countesse of Denbigh
- Ascension - Hymn
- Man
- Regeneration
- The Night
- The Retreate
- The Water-fall
- A Dialogue between Soul and Body
- On a Drop of Dew
- The Coronet
- The Definition of Love
- The Garden
- The Mower Against Gardens
- The Mower to the Glo-Worms
- The Mower's Song
- The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Faun
- The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers
- To his Coy Mistress
- Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax
- An Elegie upon the Death of the Deane of Paul's Dr John Donne
- To a Lady that Desired I would Love her
Imagery and symbolism in Hymn to St Teresa
Although there is a small narrative element in Hymn to St Teresa, Crashaw is much more interested in finding what images fit the events or person being described, and how those images may convey the emotional intensity and richness.
Male and female images
The imagery can be divided up into male and female images. The male ones are military or of trading; the female largely of riches and jewels. Between them lies a series of images of wounding, and semi-erotic or sexual images betokening the love of Christ as spouse for Teresa his bride. For example, the passage ll.69-73 goes fairly near to suggesting her martyrdom at the hands of the Moors would be rape:
Thy Brest's chaste cabinet.
This is counterpoised with the image later of the moon, which traditionally symbolises romantic chastity, and ‘the maiden starrs'.
The ‘blood and sweat' of the male martyrs echoes through the ‘barbarous knife' to love's dart,
Upon whose choice point shall be spent
A life so lov'd (ll.89-91).
The military images continue in ‘love's souldiers' with ‘their archerie' and ‘the Lamb's warres' (l.153).
Wounds and fire
However, it is the imagery of wounds and of fire that in the end becomes central. There is an oxymoron in ‘delicious wounds' (1.108) leading to the paradox of the self-healing wounds ‘that weep/ Balsom to heal themselves with'. Crashaw has used the balsam image before in St Mary Magdalene l.60, where the image was used of healing tears.
The fire image betokens the heat of passionate love. But it is extended, for example into her actual death, when
Like a soft lump of incense, hasted
By too hot a fire …
The image is one of the few we would naturally associate with Catholic liturgy, especially as it goes on to talk of ‘perfuming clouds'.
- Explore the imagery of Hymn to St Teresa
- Gather together imagery associated with fire
- Do you see any particular pattern or coherence?
- Gather together imagery associated with fire
- What happens to the early personification of love?
- When Teresa reaches heaven, is love still around?
- The description of heaven is created through a series of personifications
- Can you find them?
- What particular images have caught your eye (or ear)?
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