Delight in Disorder

Robert Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder” was published in 1648 but could have been written as much as 30 years earlier. In the poem, the speaker describes the arrangement of a woman’s clothing and the effect that it has upon them. Instead of desiring perfection in attire, Herrick’s speaker feels that it is the imperfections of the female subject’s presentation that add to her attractiveness. This “wild civility” (Line 12) is far more appealing to the speaker than trying to achieve physical perfection through “art” (Line 13). The poem centers on the interplay between the push of the “civil” or rule-bound world of social expectation and the unfettered nature of true desire.

The speaker observes the woman’s clothes and uses wording to symbolically note the way they inspire passion and arousal. The vaguely unkempt status of the woman’s attire suggests a more natural way of being, something that would have been unusual in the elaborately stylized dress of the court and upper class. Since she is not bound by typical artifice, the speaker is immediately drawn to her. The woman’s “dress” (Line 1) is responsible for “kindl[ing] in clothes a wantonness” (Line 2), or social irreverence, which the speaker notices and is attracted by.