ROBERT HERRICKの詩の'SIMPLICITY'について

Herrick's poetry is often called, depreciatingly, 'simple', while Donne's, appreciatingly, 'complex'. A recent criticism has not exempted even two brilliant pieces in his Hesperides, Corinna's going a-Maying and To the Virgins, to make much of Time, from being given similar disparaging remarks, 'having no discipline ' and 'lacking complexity'. Is Herrick really simple? And if so in what sense? A careful study of the two poems proves the criticism to have been hastily made. Herrick is indeed simple in much of his poetry, but it is also true that some are quite complex under the disguise of simplicity. Herrick has been and is still often grouped together with such poets as Carew, Suckling, and Lovelace, under the label of 'the Cavalier poets'; he is regarded as one of the least 'Metaphysical' among his contemporaries. The term 'Metaphysical' itself contains many problems and is often vaguely and misleadingly used. But if it is taken as pointing to such characteristics as 'far-fetched imagery' and 'witty conceits' found in Donne and Cowley, Herrick's poetry is not without their instances. Herrick's 'simplicity' can be ascribed to various elements in both the subject and form of his poetry and has to be approached in its two different phases-'genuine simplicity' and 'simplicity in disguise'. Of the former much has been written since his revival in the latter half of the previous century. As for the latter, more attention is invited since it is a medium through which his unique world is revealed, his world built upon the dualism of pagan and Christian attitudes toward life. His repeated identifications of human creatures with flowers and plants is remarkable, making us believe that there he had really something to say. His obsessions of time and death, mitigated by his favourite themes of love and rebirth, give a complex undertone to his smooth verse. Perhaps we Japanese are better qualified than others in being a congenial appreciator of Herrick's simplicity, which has much in common, as Emile Legouis has pointed out, with our poetry of shorter forms and sensuous qualities.