Baroque Architecture In The Temple Of George Herbert

George Herbert’s English poetry anthology, The Temple, constructs an internalized and spiritualized church of Baroque style via plain-but-connotation dictions and visual rhetoric."The Church-porch", as the opening ceremony, reveals the enormity of Baroque church space. Adept in word games, George Herbert masterly applies visual rhetoric and skillfully visualizes abstract words and rhyme. Delicate visual pictures such as altar and wings, forming splendid ornamentations, exaggeratedly decorate the internal space. Through the Baroque paradox, this spiritualized church with the plain "facades" and the ornate interiors, mirrors Herbert’s inner conflict and anxiety brought by the two logically irreconcilable world pictures.The introduction of this thesis, after presenting the major points and research method, critically summarizes the criticism upon The Temple from three directions. Firstly, researches on its religious thoughts: Some scholars put forward that The Temple presents devout Protestant ideas; some other researchers, starting from the religious conflicts in British society, focus on the complexity and multiplicity of Herbert’s religious thoughts. Secondly, studies on its poetic style and concrete content:Some commentators explore the application of conceits; some scholars stress Herbert’s unique language style - the complicated simplicity; some other critics analyze The Temple together with Herbert’s other works and the social reality at that time. Thirdly, analyses on the poetic forms:Some pattern poems in this anthology receive attacks for some researchers believe that more concern on the poetic forms causes neglect on its content; nevertheless, these shaped poems receive highly praise from some other Baroque critics. This thesis, based on the previous Baroque interpretations on The Temple, intends to explore the British Baroque church architecture respectively from the church space, ornaments, the designs of colors and the chiaroscuro effect.Chapter one explores the spatial features of the Baroque church architecture in The Temple. The external church space depicted in The Temple manifests infinity, extensionality and enormity. Such spatial quality deviating from the traditional Aristotle-Ptolemy cosmology, reflects a spatial revolution - side-effect of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. The earth will no longer be the center of the cosmos and human cannot find a certain position in the vast cosmos. Spontaneously, spatial anxiety generally arises. The spatial anxiety profoundly affects the church architecture style and consequently forms the infinity of the external church space. Contrast with the immense exterior, the internal space seems relatively enclosed and isolated. In the private pray-room and enclosed garden depicted in The Temple, the worried speaker devotes himself to religious meditation and regains paradise and center via the spiritual dialogue with God. The enormous exterior and the enclosed interior paradoxically coexist. The former, as a consequence of the scientific revolution, causes the absence of faith and spatial anxiety while the latter provides a shelter to the anxious soul.Chapter two concerns the ornaments of the Baroque church architecture in The Temple. A typical Baroque Church of England is described in The Temple, which is to some extent different from the Baroque churches of European continent. The interior of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, a classical Baroque style of European continent, employs complicated patterns, sculptures and murals. Meanwhile, the external facades dramatically undulate, with exaggerative decorations of complex patterns and sculptures. In brief, both the interior and the exterior are gorgeous. However, the British Baroque Church during this period boldly absorbs the plain "Protestant" style on the outside appearance while inherits the luxury "Roman Catholic" taste on the internal decoration. In The Temple, the colloquial and plain dictions conceal exaggeratedly visual rhetoric and word games.Chapter three analyzes the gorgeous colors and the chiaroscuro effect of Baroque church architecture in The Temple. Stained-glass windows, decorative patterns, sculptures and murals in The Temple suggest Baroque’s preference for splendid and bright colors. In the stained-glass windows, a series of colorful pictures silently but impressively tell the stories of Jesus Christ and the saints. The pictures in the windows become more glorious when the sunlight filters through the windows, which creates a dramatically visual effect. Rather than a lower perceptual experience, the visual pictures express a rational experience of religion, ethics, philosophy, morality, etc.The conclusion summaries the characteristics of the British Baroque church architecture in The Temple, which presents the Baroque quality of paradoxical coexistence. Meanwhile, it mirrors Herbert’s inner conflict. On the one hand, Herbert, as a devout priest, believes in God and the geocentric world picture; on the other hand, the religious poet has to accept a non-geocentric and boundless world picture of the new trend. The anguished poet builds an internalized temple with poems for God’s dwelling and regains the paradise and the centre.