Written by Kate McPhail<\/p>\n
Typology as it is understood in a theological context refers to the study of the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible. More specifically typology seeks to identify people, symbols or events from the Old Testament as types that prefigure the arrival of Christ on earth which occurs in the New Testament. The antitypes that appear in the New Testament can thus be seen as a completion or fulfillment of the corresponding Old Testament types to which they are linked. The poem \u201cA Paraphrase on Simeons Song\u201d was written by the jurist Sir Matthew Hale and transcribed by Elizabeth Newell. Both Hale and Newell lived in the seventeenth-century when the practice and study of typology was quite widespread. \u201cA Paraphrase on Simeons Song\u201d is a poem that is based on a canticle found in Luke that is known as the Song of Simeon. The poem is rich with Biblical allusion and is informed by a broad typological understanding of time. <\/span><\/p>\n In both the Biblical passage from Luke and Hale\u2019s poem, time is understood as the means by which everything is joined and redeemed through the figure of Christ. This perception of time is indicative of typological thinking. In his book \u201cChrist Revealed: The History of the Neotypological Lyric in the English Renaissance,\u201d Ira Clark describes typology as \u201cthat form of biblical interpretation which reads a faded Old Testament through the enhancing lens of the New, sees in Old Testament persons, events, and things imperfect predictions of New Testament persons, events and things. Both covenants reveal and are revealed by Christ: the Law and the Prophets and the Writings show God\u2019s dispensations to mankind in Christ\u201d (1). Typology can be viewed as a sort of framework for understanding not only specific events and figures in the Bible but also broader passages of time and history.<\/span><\/p>\n Technically speaking there are two important components which are the basis for typological structure, the type and the antitype. In \u201cTypology and Seventeenth-Century Literature\u201d Joseph A. Galdon explains that \u201cin typological exegesis, the \u2018type\u2019 is usually applied to the Old Testament \u2018shadow\u2019 and the \u2018antitype\u2019 to the New Testament fulfillment\u201d (20). He goes on to say that \u201cthe type is a model, a pattern which is fulfilled and perfected in the completed work of art, the antitype. It is this basic meaning of type and antitype, as pattern and impression, which is at the basis of all scriptural typology\u201d (21). Hale\u2019s poem makes direct reference to this typological convention in the lines reading \u201cVisions, Types and prophesies as we\/ \u00a0Things at a distance in perspective see.\u201d This reference to types is one of the strongest links Hale makes to the subject of typology within the poem because he uses the word \u2018Types.\u2019 In the context of the poem types can also mean symbols. The Oxford English Dictionary defines typology as \u201cthe study of symbolic representation, esp. of the origin and meaning of Scripture types; also transf. symbolic significance, representation, or treatment; symbolism.\u201d The line that follows in the poem, \u201cthings at a distance in perspective see\u201d conjures an understanding of time that couches it nicely within the typological framework of perspective. Time brings fulfillment just as Christ brings salvation and understanding. <\/span><\/p>\n Matthew Hale lived in the seventeenth-century, an era in which, according to Barbara Kiefer Lewalski \u201cthe typological mode of interpretation was alive and well\u201d (79). Joseph A. Galdon confirms this, adding \u201cit is obvious that men of the seventeenth-century read the Bible. It is equally obvious that they read the Bible in a special way, for the seventeenth-century reader invariably read the Bible typologically\u201d (14). The prevalence of typological thinking in this time period serves as a good basis for understanding how and why Matthew Hale composed this particular poem. \u201cA Paraphrase on Simeons Song\u201d does more than just recount a story from the Bible, it also reframes the narrative into a contemporary perspective so that there are two points of reference for a typological framework–the past and the present. Hale places himself within the poem and in doing so creates a dual point of view. The speaker represents not only Simeon but Hale himself and working within both of these voices and spanning across all time is God himself, the \u201cBlessed Creator\u201d appealed to in the opening line and represented physically through Christ. <\/span><\/p>\n Hale\u2019s composition of the poem and Newell\u2019s act of copying it are both examples of neotypological reasoning put into action. Neotypology is similar to the traditional typology that has been discussed but goes one step further by making a personal link to the self. Ira Clark writes that \u201cthe characterizing features of the neotypological lyric are first, the poets\u2019 strict definition of types, and second, their personal application of typology\u201d (4). \u201cA Paraphrase on Simeons Song\u201d fits this description perfectly. The poem is ostensibly a re-telling of the story of Simeon that is found in Luke 2:25-35 but it also a personal poem that presents Hale himself as a type who is saved and redeemed through Christ. There is a parallel narrative in which both Simeon and Hale are reflected through and delivered by the omnipotent and all encompassing love of God, \u201cthe Joy of Israel\/ The worlds Redeemer, blest Emmanuel\u201d (Hale). The fact that Elizabeth Newell included this poem in her commonplace book adds further life and dimension to the poem, she takes Hale\u2019s paraphrase and adds her own echo and voice to it through the act of copying. <\/span><\/p>\n Hale and Newell are thus both participants in varying degrees to a larger trend of neotypological lyricism that was practiced by Metaphysical poets such as John Donne and George Herbert. The trend included \u201ca new, primary focus upon the individual Christian, whose life is incorporated within, and in whom may be located, God\u2019s vast typological patterns of recapitulations and fulfillments operating throughout history\u201d (Lewalski 82). In other words, the focus in religious poems began to turn inward, towards the individual. \u201cTypological symbolism became in the early seventeenth century an important literary means to explore the personal spiritual life with profundity and psychological complexity,\u201d poetry was used as a means through which to explore \u201cthe new Protestant emphasis upon the application of Scripture to the self, that is, the discovery of scriptural paradigms and the workings of Divine Providence, in one\u2019s own life\u201d (Lewalski 81). Understood in this light, Hale\u2019s poem can be viewed as a personal exercise in celebrating Christ\u2019s presence in his own life. <\/span><\/p>\n In the 1611 version of the King James Bible, Luke 2:25 reads \u201cSimeon, and the same man was iust and deuout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.\u201d Simeon is presumably an old man to whom God has made a promise that he shall see the coming of Christ before he dies. By twining the narrative voice to include both Simeon and himself, Hale\u2019s poem carries the implication that Hale himself is also a \u201cjust and devout\u201d man. The mirroring of Simeon and Hale\u2019s voices \u00a0carries throughout the poem. Maurice Farbridge states that \u201creligion depends for its inexhaustible power upon symbols of its life and as soon as these symbols are performed they help to emphasize its existence\u201d (10). Hale transposes himself over the symbolic figure of Simeon as a means to access a typological structure that will support him across the barriers of time and history to find and express union with his Creator. The poem implies that like Simeon, Hale recognizes that Jesus is the messiah who is prophesized in the Old Testament and also like Simeon, Hale celebrates the fulfillment of this prophecy in the figure of Christ. Thus \u201cA Paraphrase on Simeons Song\u201d is an excellent example of the use of typology in the seventeenth-century.<\/span><\/p>\n Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n Clark, Ira. Christ Revealed: The History of the Neotypological Lyric in the English Renaissance.<\/em> Gainsville, FL: University Presses of Florida, 1982.<\/p>\n Farbridge, Maurice H. Studies in Biblical and Semitic Symbolism.<\/em> New York: Ktav Pub. House, 1970.<\/p>\n Galdon, Joseph A. Typology and Seventeenth-Century Literature.<\/em> The Hague: Mouton, 1975.<\/p>\n The King James Version Bible: 1611 Edition. Online. Accessed 11\/9\/2015.<\/p>\n Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer. “Typological Symbolism and the “Progress of the Soul” in Seventeenth-Century Literature.” Literary Uses of Typology: From the Late Middle Ages to the Present.<\/em> Ed. Earl Roy. Miner. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1977.<\/p>\n Oxford English Dictionary. Online. Accessed 11\/12\/2015.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Kate McPhail Typology as it is understood in a theological context refers to the study of the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible. More specifically typology seeks to identify people, symbols or … Continue reading