Who ‘laid him in a manger’? Biblical Women in Herbert, Vaughan, and Traherne

Abstract

Although female figures from the Bible are largely absent from the poetry of George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Thomas Traherne, a few poems treat female biblical characters in a substantive way. Yet even in these poems, biblical women are more passive and more silent than in the Bible, and each of these poems must be considered in the context of a poetic corpus which reinforces female passivity and silence. Overall, in drawing from the biblical narrative the poets follow two patterns: the omission of biblical women, leaving the corresponding male figures; and a treatment of the remaining female figures in which they are usually rendered passive, sometimes objectified, and always silenced.