George Herbert’s The Temple: A Religious Rhyme or Political Poetry?

George Herbert’s retreat from a political path and a turn towards a religious route has created a perception that the poet and priest had separated himself from politics. His magnum opus, The Temple, corroborates such a point of view with it verses coated with poetic praises and surrounded by biblical allusions, morals and confessions. Within Foucauldian perspective, this study peruses a different path of repainting the picture of the pious priest into a political poet, highlighting how his religious intentions were not separated from political influence. This paper highlights the inseparable bond between politics and religion in the Jacobean Era by analysing how the regimes of truth play its part in shaping the poet’s discourse.