'Full of all knowledg' : George Herbert's Country Parson and early modern social discourse

George Herbert is best known as a 17th-century sacred poet, often associated with such writers as John Milton and John Donne, but it is Herbert's portrait of an idealized rural clergyman in "The Country Parson" which perhaps best shows Herbert's engagement in a wide range of complex social debates.

In "Full of all Knowledg", Ronald Colley examines the 1632 pastoral manual through four distinct lenses: church history, the history of the "learned professions" (law and medicine), local and agricultural history and the history of the patriarchal nuclear family.Cooley argues that in Herbert's portrait of the clergyman who is "full of all knowledge" and who counsels parishioners on matters of faith, law, health, agriculture and family obligation, Herbert engages with contemporary cultural and social ideals, and offers today's scholar a unique opportunity for synthetic literary-historical study.

Through his investigation of "The Country Parson" and a selection of Herbert's later poems, Cooley shows how traditionalist rhetoric and appeals to customary wisdom facilitated innovative practices in agricultural, professional, social and domestic affairs and he provides new illumination of the mental and material world of the 17th-century cleric and poet.

In positioning George Herbert as a spokesman for a legal-rational social order, and in placing "The Country Parson" in its cultural milieu, Cooley reveals a new dimension to Herbert's work and provides a tool for future study of Herbert and 17th-century culture and history.