The Altar Essay Questions

What are some multiple meanings of the altar in the poem and how do these intersections contribute to the poem’s overall meaning?

“The Altar” offers multiple meanings for the object in its title. As the first poem in “The Church” section of Herbert’s book The Temple, the altar is first of all the kind of ceremonial altar found in churches. This is also one interpretation for what the shape of the poem is meant to resemble. At the same time, the speaker declares in the second line that the altar mentioned here is “[m]ade of a heart.” Finally, the poem itself becomes a kind of altar, made of words instead of stones. By “rear[ing]” a poem within his heart, Herbert is suggesting that one must worship God externally, internally, and through art—all at the same time. By keeping these multiple paths to God open, the poem shows that worship is multifaceted and requires the participation of the entire person, both internal and external.

How do some of the many Biblical allusions present in the poem help us to understand its meaning?

Several difficult aspects of “The Altar” are clarified by Biblical allusions. For example, the reason the altar/heart of the poem remains as God “did frame” it, without any “workman’s tool” having touched it, is because the Hebrew Bible includes a prohibition on the use of iron tools in the creation of stone altars. The altar is “broken” because it has been constructed using existing stones. Another reason the altar is broken is clarified by Psalm 51, which declares that God loves “a broken and contrite heart.” In this way, brokenness comes to stand in for humility. Finally, the reason the stones in the poem “may not cease” praising God even if the speaker dies is that Jesus had similarly declared in the Gospel of Luke that the stones praise him even when people fall silent.