Technique of Delight ( in"A Clear Midnight" )

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,

Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,

Night, sleep, death, and the stars.

Walt Whitman, “A Clear Midnight”

From its first phrase, “A Clear Midnight” builds an aura of wonder. Whitman carefully develops the mood to lift the soul in contemplation. But, how does this short poem so easily move one to quiet meditation? The answer is elemental. Every letter is perfectly chosen to fit the mood of its line. After establishing the poem’s quiet, elevated mood in the first line, the next three lines move the reader from the excitement of activity to the peace of meditation. As a true master, Whitman uses the elements of sound and rhetorical devices to delight and inspire the reader’s own soul.

From the first clause, Whitman creates a hushed setting. Entirely lacking mute consonants, “This is thy hour O Soul” (line 1) impresses the reader with a quiet and gentle ambiance. While the liquid letters establish a peaceful tone for the poem, the words inspire a meditative mood in the reader. Whitman begins contemplation of abstract truth with a direct address to the intangible soul. Combined with soft sounds of the consonants and long vowels, the elevated language of “O Soul” works from the quiet setting and lifts the reader into meditation.

The rise is punctuated and confirmed by the emphasis on “flight.” In the first line, only “flight” ends with a consonantal mute, while the other words are full of vowels, liquids and semivowels. Even the other two stops in “into” and “wordless” are softened by vowels and gentler consonants. According to Mary Oliver, “Within a line, use of a mute sound is like a tiny swoon, a mini-caesura” (Oliver 61). As the reader is forced to pause at the end of the word, he is given time to picture the implied metaphor. The alliteration in “free flight” ties the words together and brings up the traditional metaphor of the soul as a dove. By using slightly more powerful letters in the second phrase, Whitman and further lifts the reader’s thoughts builds up his exhilaration.

The second line builds off this energy to move the reader out of pressures and distractions. With a long vowel in “away,” Whitman places a distance between the soul and the business of the day. This is also emphasized his avoidance of mentioning the word “soul” in the line. Without even a pronoun reference, the soul is completely disconnected from both the line and the demanding work it represents. Whitman establishes the day’s agitation with heavy mutes in “books” and “art.” The oppressive consonants build the feeling that if the soul does not escape, books and art will trample it. Whitman demonstrates this detachment with the line’s ending. As the d’s enclose “day erased,” one can see the whole day closed and put away just like a book. At midnight, the soul leaves all distractions and finishes the day. Even so, another mute consonant in “done” emphasizes the break from stress while the liquid n closes both the line and the reader’s mouth. Whitman builds up the antagonistic energy with the power of mutes and uses the visual absence of the soul to argue that, as in the line, the soul must break with the day’s pressure and fly away to the quiet of midnight to meditate.

After establishing the flight from the cares of the day, Whitman transitions back to the soul and its meditation by returning to the softer voiced “Thee” and “thou.” With the opening vowels and consonant clusters he presents a fall from the forceful energy in the second line. Mary Oliver explains that liquids “suggest softness, fluency, motion” while a mute “is an enforcer of the self-containment, and so the certainty, of what has been said” (Oliver 61). Thus, the rest of the line returns to the initial sense of quiet elation by swelling the energy from the opening th’s to the gentler g’s within “emerging” to the hard t’s closing “lovest best.” In the description of the soul, one word stands out from the parallel –ing suffixes. “Silent” is not only set apart from the balance, but its t ending also helps to elevate it above the rest of the line. Like “wordless” from the first line, it hits on the poem’s main point. When the soul is engaged in meditation, it has no words to describe the beauty it contemplates.

As it rebuilds a meditative mood, the third line also returns to a more cheerful attitude. Whitman develops the thoughtfulness by using increasingly more forceful words. Yet, even with more stops, as in “gazing” and “pondering,” only the t’s particularly stand out. As the line ends, several technical devices focus the reader’s attention on the last two words. Once again, the reader lingers over the words because of the mutes’ natural pause. Furthermore, the slight rhyme ties together “lovest best” and multiplies the impact of the pleasant word and positive superlative. These devices effect a happy feeling as the soul fully embarks on its journey of wondering meditation.

The poem’s upward flight reaches its crescendo in Whitman’s final line. Fittingly, each of the beginning three words has a natural punch from a consonantal mute. Since they are the substance of the soul’s contemplation, “night,” “sleep,” and “death” rightly stand out from the rest of the poem. The hard consonants, however, also set them apart from the rest of the line and emphasize their significance. But, the stops only symbolize the weight that each word carries in its own meaning and the silence inherent in each. Although the first few words of the line hit the reader with their quiet heaviness, Whitman does not leave the reader depressed and weighed down. Rather, he ends the poem on a pleasant note.

The very last word perfectly encapsulates Whitman’s excellent use of words and sounds. In the end, Whitman again lightens and elevates the mood by metaphorically lifting the reader’s gaze to “the stars.” The final word inspires the soul in its meditative hour to think of great things outside itself. Here is the full culmination of the poem as the reader saying the last a in “stars” physically drops his jaw like the soul in silent wondering meditation in “A Clear Midnight.” Thus, Whitman proves his masterful use of sounds and letters, which gives the poem its inspirational power and encourages the reader to join the soul’s contemplative wonder.

Works Cited

Oliver, Mary. Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

Whitman, Walt. “A Clear Midnight.” From Leaves of Grass, 1900. Bartleby. 17 April 2006. http://www.bartleby.com/142/283.html

Happy Memories

When Father Carves the Duck

E. V. Wright

We all look on with anxious eyes
When father carves the duck,
And mother almost always sighs
When father carves the duck;

Then all of us prepare to rise,
And hold our bibs before our eyes,
And be prepared for some surprise,
When father carves the duck.

He braces up and grabs a fork
Whene'er he carves a duck,
And won't allow a soul to talk
Until he's carved the duck.

The fork is jabbed into the sides,
Across the breast the knife he slides,
While every careful person hides
From flying chips of duck.

The platter's always sure to slip
When father carves a duck,
And how it makes the dishes skip!
Potatoes fly amuck!

The squash and cabbage leap in space,
We get some gravy in our face,
And father mutters a Hindoo grace
Whene'er he carves a duck.

We then have learned to walk around
The dining room and pluck
From off the window-sills and walls
Our share of father's duck.

While father growls and blows and jaws
And swears the knife was full of flaws,
And mother laughs at him because
He couldn't carve a duck.


HT: To Kristen, who introduced me to this poem.

Ten reasons to be in academia

I will post something educational-philosophically-related one of these days, but a conversation earlier today inspired the following list (not in order of importance, necessarily):

1. Constant immersion in ideas (good, bad, or indifferent) from the wide range of human experience
2. Constant contact with people who also have constant contact with those ideas (meaning that one can actually converse with them instead of having to explain everything)
3. A heightened appreciation for ever-subtler jokes (mostly puns – and then there is Bales, which is not a purely intellectual reference)
4. Having the pleasure of talking about the stuff one enjoys every week while school is in session
5. Related to that, the pleasure of having people pay attention to what one says (mostly)
6. For those who tend towards the sadistic, there is the pleasure of wielding power embodied in the red pen
7. Professors have .edu email addresses. That sort of email address can get lots of fees lowered.
8. One can justify favorite books because “I’m doing research.” (provided one doesn’t have a mid-life crisis in the middle of a semester)
9. One can justify having shelves and shelves of books – they’re one’s livelihood, after all
10. One has access to ILL services!

The Venerable Bede

I used to wonder what he ever did to earn that title, but after reading his book, I think I knew. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People is a very precise, very accurate, sometimes dry, but also mystical exploration of the Church’s founding and history.

Bede’s history is rich in all the historical details—who was king when, which people groups moved where and when, who executed whom. But the real beauty of the work is the miraculous. The book is mystically top-heavy. Without the knowledge that Bede personally authenticated all his recorded accounts, and the knowledge that modern historians have been unable to discount any of them, one would assume that he was simply making up stories.

Incorruptible corpses, chips from tombs that cure diseases of all kinds, springs that burst forth from the ground where martyrs were slain, all occur repeatedly within its pages. In many ways it is an optimist’s version of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It is a book about death, but an intrinsically hopeful view of death. Most of those mentioned die of natural causes—many of extreme old age. Most have lived lives of great piety and virtue, most are given visions of the exact time of their deaths. Their friends and compatriots are given visions of them escorted to heaven by angels of Christ himself. Death is inevitable, but it is either the gateway to eternal and everlasting beauty, or it is the gateway to misery beyond any human comprehension.

Amid the constant visions of heaven, one is forced to consider, do I take heaven seriously enough. Am I living as if I seriously consider that there is heaven and not reaching it is quite literally, “a fate worse than death.”

The more irreverent might wonder, “did those old Christians do anything besides die?” Well, they say “the blood of the saints is the seed of the Church” and Bede would prove them right. Every peaceful death of every Abbess, abbot, chaste queen, king turned monk, bishop, and eccentric laymen spurred on a new concentration of devotion and piety. Tentative lesson? Your manner of leaving life might be just as important as how you lived it. Now that is a thought to make one shudder.

We know how the saints died, but, how did they live? According to Bede, they lived by a code of constant self-denial, humility, chastity, study, and asceticism. In his praise of their lives there is a strong influence, and the accompanying weaknesses of Old-School Catholicism (such as if everyone was perfectly chaste producing the next generation might be a problem). But in a model that presents men and women who pursued the study of the world and Christ with never-ending fervor and willingly gave up meals two days a week to pray, at the very least one can’t complain about a measly getting up at 7:00 to go to church again. Protestants are quite amazing about how saying asceticism is unnecessary to true faith, but in reading Bede’s history I am forced to wonder what we are missing. Can 2000 years of church history be entirely wrong?

Bede’s work is readable, well-researched, convicting, and a thoroughly good read for anyone with any interest in church history or the balance between faith and reason.

Burnt Norton, Section V

Perhaps it is a mistake to try and unravel the magic of Eliot in stages. He is complex, he is abstract, and one must believe that the imagery is consistent, but it is difficult to maintain that consistency when one is analyzing in long-separated sequences. However, we try.

Throughout this segment of the poem, Eliot has been working with the divided cohesion of time. All time, past, present and future, are all gathered together in one picture, one glimpse, in the now. This last segment continues that thread.
“Words move, music moves/Only in time.” With the abstract nature of the examples, he identifies objects that possess an odd immortality, yet the epitome of a temporal life form. Words and music live only as long as the breath that summons them. Only in print can they live beyond, and even that is dependent on the book that holds them and the eyes that read them. They live, like humans, but they can live beyond, much like an antiquity, such as a Chinese jar.

Does this analysis have a point? Good question. I’d love to hear the answer. Yet, with words and music and antiquity, “Only by the form, the pattern,/Can words or music reach the stillness” dare I say? Of eternity? Yet, how does one grasp those living words that stretch into eternity. Not the “still of the violin, while the note lasts” but the stillness of a co-existence that ties the present to eternity. Words, and lives, without this binding to eternity break, crack, and crumble unto the burden of finding and upholding meaning.

Yet, like any works of art, words of import cannot be fully at rest. They are active, and as they are active, they are strained—the more important the word, the greater the strain. “Shrieking voices/Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,/Always assail them. The Word in the desert/Is most attacked by voices of temptation”

In the last two stanzas, Eliot once more binds himself to the overarching theme of the dances of time—a dance that encompasses the beautiful, the terrible, and the ever changing, the “disconsolate chimera.”

This dance of time is solved and made in the manner of the movement. It isn’t the pattern, it is the steps. I do not have an understanding of the ten steps. It is the perfect number, perhaps the Ten Commandments, perhaps the ten steps to heaven of Jacob’s Ladder. Desire makes a pattern but it does not define the pattern, love cannot move, it must be acted on within the will, and the motive of the will is what dictates its movement in the dance. In the words of Eliot: ends do not justify the means, ends determine the value of the means.

The pattern of the movement, left to itself, is dead, it is limited by its entrapment in a single dimension. It is unbeing and being, and therefore stuck. One must see the forward and backward movement of time, but one cannot treat it like an ancient vase trapped in the present in a museum case that will stolidly be sent forward in time. The movement of time is not a still picture of academic interest. No, rather to live, it is like a “Sudden shaft of sunlight/Even while the dust moves/There rises the hidden laughter.” It is a lively, intricate, joyful and beautiful dance that we enter as children. Left as an academic exercise it is “Ridiculous the waste sad time/Stretching before and after.” But, it has the trademark of "hidden laughter/of children in the foliage."

Where is Eliot going and what was he doing? In Burnt Norton, Eliot stripped away the reader's unimaginative acceptance of the mere present. He challenges them to see the present as a rich continuation of the past, and both binding the future. In short, everything one does echoes all of the past and all of the future. No pressure. He furthers the challenge. Do not be burdened by this and be like the cowardly servant that was given a talent and then buried it. Rather approach this mysterious, powerful, and utterly beautiful whirligig of time like a dance, like a note on a violin, like dust motes in the a beam of light. Knowing this, is successfully reaching childhood.

The paradox, all we do has eternal weight, yet we cannot know all of what we do. As to the Eliot's own continuation? That waits for East Coker.

Without Excuse

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:18-23, ESV)

In my Omnibus class this month, we are studying portions of Genesis, Exodus, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Code of Hammurabi, as well as some Egyptian history. My students, I am happy to report, are horrified at the wickedness of the ancient nations and are constantly pointing out how different the pagans are from the Jews. However, my reaction has been a little different. It is amazing how close the Egyptians and Mesopotamians were to the truth, and yet how far they strayed from it.

During our study of Genesis, we read the flood narratives from the book of Genesis and from The Epic of Gilgamesh. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh meets Utnapishtim, who is the Noah figure of Sumerian mythology. The story of Utnapishtim and the flood is obviously mythical: Utnapishtim is warned about the flood by a god whispering through the reeds of his house, it takes Utnapishtim only one week to build his ark with the help of all his neighbors, and the earth was flooded for seven days. On the other hand, the story is a close parallel to the story of Noah, and many details are similar.

The part of the story that struck me the most came at the end of the flood, when Utnapishtim sends out three birds to look for dry land: first a dove, then a swallow, and finally a raven, who finds land and never comes back. Noah sends out a raven first, who does not return, and then he sends out a dove twice. The similarity of the detail is too striking: there are three birds, one of which is a dove and one of which is a raven. The Sumerians knew so much and were so far from God. Truly, they understood the significance of the flood, but they still refused to turn to the true God for salvation. They were without excuse and followed the foolish desires of their hearts.

Between Genesis and Exodus, we learned about the beliefs of the Egyptians in the Old Kingdom, who built the pyramids. The ancient Egyptians believed so strongly in life after death that their earthly life became a great preparation for the world to come. According to these people, each person had a ba (a soul) and a ka (a spiritual copy of the body). In order for a person to have a happy life in the afterworld, the body was mummified so that the ba and ka could recognize the person after death. Today, people think very little about life after death, and cremations are a popular option at funeral homes. However, as Christians we know that our bodies will be resurrected and perfected at Christ’s second coming. We have more authority than the Egyptians on life in the world to come, and yet we care less about our heavenly future and resurrection bodies.

Next week, my class will be comparing the law of Moses from Exodus with The Code of Hammurabi. The Code of Hammurabi, given by the king of Babylon around 1800 B.C., is famous for being the first written law code. Many of Hammurabi’s laws are similar to the laws in Exodus, reminding us of the passage in Romans 2:14-16:

“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of God is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”

Even though Hammurabi did not receive a special revelation of the law from God like Moses did, he still saw much of the same truth, leaving him and his people without excuse.

Through all these instances, God has left knowledge of himself in the hearts of men. The Epic of Gilgamesh shows how oral histories passed down the story of the flood in Sumerian culture. The Egyptians realized the importance of the physical body in the world to come, and Hammurabi showed that God’s law is written on the hearts of men. Although the ancient peoples chose to ignore this knowledge of God, the signs are still there.

This summer, I was lamenting that I did not get to read medieval literature with my students. I enjoy medieval literature, because it is a Christian response to pagan literature and philosophy. However, I have realized in the last month that ancient literature still has a connection to Christianity: it shows the world that Christ came to save, and it shows clearly that men are without excuse. Once again, I am excited to be teaching about the ancient world.

Burnt Norton, Section 5

V

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

Hear ye, hear ye!

Announcing the boldest move in remembered history since 1066 (and all that). Little Audrey and friends have been working for years and are now prepared to publish A Memorable Philosophy: Containing the briefest summary of sophistry a sophomore can instantaneously recall.

Here's how it works, guys, choose your favorite (or anti-favorite) philosopher and write up a precise on his life and works. Usually discouraged, sources may be used if necessary to avoid plagiarism. Wit is preferred, but accuracy is not required. Tag post or comment submissions with the line "Memorable Philosophy." Dueling entries will be handed a pair of foils. Submissions will be evaluated, critiqued, and edited by a team of highly sophisticated professionals. The results will be compiled for the authors' pleasure. If it is any good, the editors will consider more lucrative options for publication.

If you have any questions, ask away.

This should give you the general idea:

Socrates

Socrates is the father of philosophy because, like any good founder, patriarch, or ancestor, he is best known for dying (thus initiating a long and glorious tradition of discussing the meaning of life).


Early in life, Socrates heard an oracle declaring him the wisest man. Convinced that this was wrong, Socrates set about to prove it right. Through the dialectic method, he succeeded in demonstrating both his ability to ask pointed questions and his talent for confusing the original point.


After hearing him declare, “One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing,” the Athenians promptly convicted him of atheism and corrupting Nietzsche. Socrates appealed by asking for money and calling himself a fly, clearly showing that he had never known the man. Since the Athenians did not believe in executing the insane, they merely asked him to have a drink.


Unfortunately, Socrates later drank himself to death. Upon his deathbed Socrates revealed the nature of the human soul, secrets of the after life, and the first rule of morality, “et tu brute,” meaning “eat true bread” (often mistranslated “drat you brute!”). The most important of these insights were, however, lost with the island of Atlantis.

Burnt Norton, Section III, and IV

Long overdue they are, but here be the analysis of Burnt Norton Sections III and IV.  Good news, we are almost to East Coker.

A recurring theme of the work seems to be “time present and time past” the contemplation of the past accompanied, or inspired by, the swift-flowing insolvency of the present. While the present is vivid, it is moving too swiftly to provide rest or answers. The past, is captured in staccato images—images that mix the beatific with the mundane, “garlic and sapphires in the mud.” Artistically, there is nothing to capture the poet in the past or the present; he must chase the future. Here, “is a place of disaffection…neither daylight / investing form with lucid stillness / nor darkness to purify the soul.” The scene is reminiscent of Dante’s Paradise for Pagans. There is a loveliness to it, but the scene is haunted by an incompleteness, a sense that so much more beauty would be possible, if you could only see the Sun. But, there is hope, this poet can and will strive for the Son. In an almost Siddharthic cleansing, the empty whirl of time and image are “emptying the sensual with deprivation / cleansing affection from the temporal / neither plenitude nor vacancy.”

Also, as in Limbo, the poet is not alone. In the congestion of nothing he is accompanied by people—or is it memories?—all filled with the same yearning, yet chasing it in different directions. “Distracted from distraction by distraction” like an over-caffeinated student writing a paper in the early morning, they get distracted from the bunny trails to chase the bunny trails, all the while forgetting that they were supposed to be hunting bear. They are reduced to “Men and bits of paper, whirled by a cold wind / that blows before and time after.” They yearn for the future, they can’t escape the past, but they so frantically chase the present that they drive themselves into the echoing dark. The wind of the present sweeps through London, consequently through all the world. Yet still, it is not an entirely unfriendly wind, or an empty darkness, “this twittering world” is still alive.

As the wind leaves London, so the poet leaves the present, physical world. He leaves the crowd, leaves the light, and descends from Limbo to the world that isn’t even a world—one might even say hell—the place of no light, no substance, no senses, no company, no spirit, not even an imagination—truly hell for the poet. The hell is not like Dante’s, not one of an excess of sensitivity, but an absence of all things. By an absolute stillness “while the world moves / in appetency, on its metalled ways / of time past and time future.”

But while the poet descends to the depths, where is “the twittering world”? It continues on, by custom and the natural order, where “time and the bell have buried the day.” This nightfall of sunfall will not follow the poet into the Stygian depths. The sunflower does not worship the ground, and the clematis clings only to the tallest trees. Yew, the ever-faithful wood, even it refuses to follow. Yet one thing of the natural world remains….the light still remains.

Sir Walter Scott

For your amusement, we present two short passages from Sir Walter Scott. This first excerpt is from Ivanhoe.

"Wert thou not in presence yester-even," said De Bracy, "when we heard the Prior Aymer tell us a tale in reply to the romance which was sung by the Minstrel?—He told how, long since in Palestine, a deadly feud arose between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the Israelitish nation; and how they cut to pieces well-nigh all the chivalry of that tribe; and how they swore by our blessed Lady, that they would not permit those who remained to marry in their lineage; and how they became grieved for their vow, and sent to consult his holiness the Pope how they might be absolved from it; and how, by the advice of the Holy Father, the youth of the tribe of Benjamin carried off from a superb tournament all the ladies who were there present, and thus won them wives without the consent either of their brides or their brides' families."

"I have heard the story," said Fitzurse, "though either the Prior or thou has made some singular alterations in date and circumstances."

The second excerpt is from The Talisman, and is a footnote appended to an Islamic hymn. HT to Kristen for suggesting the passage.

The worthy and learned clergyman by whom this species of hymn has been translated desires, that, for fear of misconception, we should warn the reader to recollect that it is composed by a heathen, to whom the real causes of moral and physical evil are unknown, and who views their predominance in the system of the universe as all must view that appalling fact who have not the benefit of the Christian revelation. On our own part, we beg to add, that we understand the style of the translator is more paraphrastic than can be approved by those who are acquainted with the singularly curious original. The translator seems to have despaired of rendering into English verse the flights of Oriental poetry; and, possibly, like many learned and ingenious men, finding it impossible to discover the sense of the original, he may have tacitly substituted his own.

Burnt Norton, Section III, and IV

Analysis to follow, by the Grace of God.

III

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Desiccation of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movement; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.



IV

Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?

Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

The Seven Mechanical Arts

Hugh of St. Victor explains the Seven Mechanical Arts in his book, Didascalion: Concerning the Art of Reading. Basically, the Didascalion is the How to Read a Book of the twelfth century. In it, Hugh provides instruction for the students entering the school of the monastery of St. Victor in Paris. The first half of the work covers the twenty-one arts, how to study them, and what to read concerning them. The second half of the work deals with Scripture and other sacred writings. Among the twenty-one arts, Hugh includes the Seven Mechanical Arts: fabric making, armament, commerce, agriculture, hunting, medicine, and theatrics.

Fabric making is all kinds of weaving, braiding, sewing, twisting, etc. with materials of wool, flax, hemp, jute, hide, etc. to make clothes, sails, coverings, sacks, etc. (This is the short summary; Hugh’s list is quite extensive.)

Armament originally meant weapons, but through a lengthy etymology, Hugh shows that this science applies to the making of all tools or instruments. Thus, armament has two divisions: constructional and craftly. Constructional armament includes building houses and walls. Craftly armament includes everything that is made in the forge or foundry.

Next up is commerce. It’s just what you think it is: all buying and selling of goods both foreign and domestic.

Moving on to agriculture, we find four types of land: arable, used for sowing; plantation, used for trees and vineyards; pastoral, used for sheep and cattle; and floral, used for gardens and roses.

All hunting is divided into three parts: gaming, fowling, and fishing. Hugh also includes all preparation of food by cooking. He notes that there are two kinds of food: bread and side dishes (everything else).

The two studies of medicine are occasions and operations. Occasions are the six reasons for good or bad health: air, motion and quiet, emptiness and satiety, food and drink, sleep and wakefulness, and reactions of the soul. All operations are interior (medicine) or exterior (surgery).

Finally, Hugh comes to theatrics. Theatrics contains all types of public entertainment, including sports.

The Seven Mechanical Arts are so-called because they contain all things produced by human artifice. Hugh sees these arts as lesser than the Seven Liberal Arts because the Liberal Arts require the use of the mind, whereas the Mechanical Arts require the use of the body. For Hugh, the body is inherently inferior to the mind, and the great goal in life is to move beyond the body (he does lean towards Gnosticism). Hugh recommends the study of the Mechanical Arts, but prefers the Liberal Arts, since he believes that they renew the image of God in man.

Work Cited

Hugh of St. Victor. The Didascalion of Hugh of St. Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts. Translated by Jerome Taylor. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

Delights of "A Clear Midnight"

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,

Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,

Night, sleep, death, and the stars.

Walt Whitman, “A Clear Midnight”

From its first phrase, “A Clear Midnight” builds an aura of wonder. Whitman carefully develops the mood to lift the soul in contemplation. But, how does this short poem so easily move one to quiet meditation? Elements are the key. Every letter is perfectly chosen to fit the mood of a line. After establishing the poem’s quiet, elevated mood in the first line, the next three move the reader from the excitement of activity to the peace of meditation. A true master, Whitman uses the elements of sound and rhetorical devices to delight and inspire the reader’s own soul.

In the first clause, Whitman creates a hushed setting. Entirely lacking mute consonants, “This is thy hour O Soul” (line 1) impresses the reader with a quiet and gentle ambiance. While the liquid letters establish a peaceful tone for the poem, the words inspire a meditative mood in the reader. Whitman begins contemplation of abstract truth with a direct address to the intangible soul. Combined with soft sounds of the consonants and long vowels, the elevated language of “O Soul” works from the quiet setting and lifts the reader into meditation.

The rise is punctuated and confirmed by the emphasis on “flight.” In the first line, only “flight” ends with a consonantal mute, while the other words are full of vowels, liquids and semivowels. Even the other two stops in “into” and “wordless” are softened by vowels and gentler consonants. According to Mary Oliver, “Within a line, use of a mute sound is like a tiny swoon, a mini-caesura” (Oliver 61). As the reader is forced to pause at the end of the word, he is given time to picture the implied metaphor. The alliteration in “free flight” ties the words together and brings up the traditional metaphor of the soul as a dove. By using slightly more powerful letters in the second phrase, Whitman and further lifts the reader’s thoughts builds up his exhilaration.

The second line builds off this energy to move the reader out of pressures and distractions. With a long vowel in “away,” Whitman places a distance between the soul and the business of the day. This is also emphasized his avoidance of mentioning the word “soul” in the line. Without even a pronoun reference, the soul is completely disconnected from both the line and the demanding work it represents. Whitman establishes the day’s agitation with heavy mutes in “books” and “art.” The oppressive consonants build the feeling that if the soul does not escape, books and art will trample it. Whitman demonstrates this detachment with the line’s ending. As the d’s enclose “day erased,” one can see the whole day closed and put away just like a book. At midnight, the soul leaves all distractions and finishes the day. Even so, another mute consonant in “done” emphasizes the break from stress while the liquid n closes both the line and the reader’s mouth. Whitman builds up the antagonistic energy with the power of mutes and uses the visual absence of the soul to argue that, as in the line, the soul must break with the day’s pressure and fly away to the quiet of midnight to meditate.

After establishing the flight from the cares of the day, Whitman transitions back to the soul and its meditation by returning to the softer voiced “Thee” and “thou.” With the opening vowels and consonant clusters he presents a fall from the forceful energy in the second line. Mary Oliver explains that liquids “suggest softness, fluency, motion” while a mute “is an enforcer of the self-containment, and so the certainty, of what has been said” (Oliver 61). Thus, the rest of the line returns to the initial sense of quiet elation by swelling the energy from the opening th’s to the gentler g’s within “emerging” to the hard t’s closing “lovest best.” In the description of the soul, one word stands out from the parallel –ing suffixes. “Silent” is not only set apart from the balance, but its t ending also helps to elevate it above the rest of the line. Like “wordless” from the first line, it hits on the poem’s main point. When the soul is engaged in meditation, it has no words to describe the beauty it contemplates.

As it rebuilds a meditative mood, the third line also returns to a more cheerful attitude. Whitman develops the thoughtfulness by using increasingly more forceful words. Yet, even with more stops, as in “gazing” and “pondering,” only the t’s particularly stand out. As the line ends, several technical devices focus the reader’s attention on the last two words. Once again, the reader lingers over the words because of the mutes’ natural pause. Furthermore, the slight rhyme ties together “lovest best” and multiplies the impact of the pleasant word and positive superlative. These devices effect a happy feeling as the soul fully embarks on its journey of wondering meditation.

The poem’s upward flight reaches its crescendo in Whitman’s final line. Fittingly, each of the beginning three words has a natural punch from a consonantal mute. Since they are the substance of the soul’s contemplation, “night,” “sleep,” and “death” rightly stand out from the rest of the poem. The hard consonants, however, also set them apart from the rest of the line and emphasize their significance. But, the stops only symbolize the weight that each word carries in its own meaning and the silence inherent in each. Although the first few words of the line hit the reader with their quiet heaviness, Whitman does not leave the reader depressed and weighed down. Rather, he ends the poem on a pleasant note.

The very last word perfectly encapsulates Whitman’s excellent use of words and sounds. In the end, Whitman again lightens and elevates the mood by metaphorically lifting the reader’s gaze to “the stars.” The final word inspires the soul in its meditative hour to think of great things outside itself. Here is the full culmination of the poem as the reader saying the last a in “stars” physically drops his jaw like the soul in silent wondering meditation in “A Clear Midnight.” Thus, Whitman proves his masterful use of sounds and letters, which gives the poem its inspirational power and encourages the reader to join the soul’s contemplative wonder.

Works Cited

Oliver, Mary. Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

Whitman, Walt. “A Clear Midnight.” From Leaves of Grass, 1900. Bartleby. 17 April 2006. http://www.bartleby.com/142/283.html

The Tragicomedy of Victor Hugo

I have not yet read Les Miserables in its entirety. This probably counts as a personal failing for a Literature major, but there stands the awful truth. I have, however, read most of it and listened to the musical several dozen times. I’ve just finished reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo’s other great work. While Les Mis is celebrated in music, verse, and movies, Hunchback exists in relative obscurity. Some argue it was written simply because Hugo wanted an excuse to write a travel book for Paris and the Bell Ringer of Notre Dame had a useful perspective.

Yet, as I read it, it occurred to me that they are almost the same story, yet one is driven by virtue and ends as a comedy, while the other is driven by vice and ends as a tragedy. Both figure the rejects of society. Jean Valjean, a convict, and Quasimodo, a cripple with little power of speech—both are feared and despised, and both, coincidently, are given shelter by churchmen. Yet while the bishop forgives Valjean his faults and urges him towards a higher life and serve humanity, the priest of Hunchback urges Quasimodo to shun the world, to seek only his company and to flee his humanity.

This is the first great break of the novel. Valjean’s sense of his forgiveness and love of people leads him to compassion for Fantine, to adopt Cossete, and save Marius’ life. Quasimodo’s inexperience and fear starves him of affection so deeply that when he loves, he loves as one obsessed, he has no way to form friendship with either the priest or Phoebus, the young soldier, and as a result dooms the one he loves, the dancer Esmeralda.

Esmeralda stands as the equivalent of Cossete. But where Cossete chooses to obey her father and submit to an external rule. Esmeralda is entirely guided by her passions—most powerfully, her infatuated love of Phoebus. But where Cossete recognizes a higher law than that love, Esmeralda will sacrifice honor, family, and culture for Phoebus’ whim. Cossete is rewarded with a loving husband and a good marriage, while Esmeralda meets tragedy. Fantine and Esmeralda’s mother also have interesting parallels, but I would hate to reveal all the plot twists.

Finally, there are the young men of the story. Phoebus is a young braggart who lives only for his own pleasure. He seduces Esmeralda in the night, but refuses to acknowledge her existence by daylight. Even when she stands falsely accused for his attempted murder. He wants a rich wife to secure his own comfort and promotion-he knows no higher goal. Marius, though young and headstrong, lives to serve: his country, his family, and soon, Cossete. While Phoebus only takes, Marius can’t wait to offer up his own life.

There are numerous other parallels, Javier and Frollo’s sense of justice, the convict versus the gypsy in society, the treatment of fallen and holy women and the similarities thereof, but those I leave to your discovery.

Five Favorite Picture Books

Inspired by a book meme and my recent trip down memory lane to the children’s section of the public library, here are my five favorite children’s picture books:



1. Roxaboxen. Written by Alice McLerran and illustrated by Barbara Cooney.

Barbara Cooney is quite possibly my favorite children’s illustrator of all time. Her vivid watercolors evoke a sense of a better world in days gone by. However, Alice McLerran’s story is the real reason I love this book. A small group of children create an imaginary town in the desert, complete with stores, currency, and a mayor. I always wanted to live in Roxaboxen and have my own house, edged with white stones and desert glass.

2. Tikki Tikki Tembo. Retold by Arlene Mosel and illustrated by Blair Lent.

I first remember hearing Tikki Tikki Tembo at the age of five years old, when my teacher at BSF read it to our class. This retelling of a Chinese legend quickly became a household favorite. After all, who wouldn’t want to repeat Tikki-tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo over and over again? We always made our babysitter read it to us and gave her a copy when she got married last summer.

3. Bored—Nothing to Do! Written and illustrated by Peter Spier.

I think Bored—Nothing to Do! is my mom's favorite children’s book. Illustrated in detailed watercolors, Peter Spier tells the story of two brothers who were bored and end up tearing the house apart to build an airplane. I always marveled at the number of toys the boys had strewn all over their room and yard – how could they still be bored? Sadly, this book is now out of print and nearly impossible to find.

4. The Tooth-Gnasher Superflash. Written and illustrated by Daniel Pinkwater.

If you’re starting to get the impression that we watched too much Reading Rainbow as kids, you’re right. The Tooth-Gnasher Superflash sat on our shelf until our grandpa came to visit and gave each of the characters a funny voice. The book became an instant hit, as we went around the house chanting in high voices, “Buy it, Daddy, buy it!” (the five little Popsnorkles) and remarking in an airhead voice “It is a lovely color” (Mrs. Popsnorkle). Besides enjoying the characters, we thought it would be cool to have a car that turned into a giant chicken, too.

5. Could Be Worse! Written and illustrated by James Stevenson.

This tale of a fantastic nightmare has the refrain, “Could be worse!” Another of our read-aloud favorites, we made our babysitter read it over and over again. As she got to the familiar refrain, we would always chime in, “Could be worse!” (Our babysitter probably said this often to herself as my siblings and I climbed on each other and locked ourselves in closets for protection.)

What were some of your favorite picture books?

Playing with alliteration

(Because I don't know when I will gather time to write the post I've had in mind about women, Yeats, and Memoirs of a Geisha.)

Sunday Meditation

Laud love's last work--
cross-crushed king cast
low, lately come and
quickly coming, crowned
conqueror. Long labors
laid by in lasting keep
of quickened creatures
let loose to love's labors laud.

Meadowlark Lane

The policemen put a speed trap
next to the hills beside the Hamilton exit,
so I always hit the brakes when I see the sign
for Meadowlark Lane.

It's the "T" that runs from the frontage road
along business 7 into the little dell
with five houses, two stables,
and a stone footbridge.

When I get caught in a traffic jam during
the evening commute, my mind often wanders,
passing the time by planning a picnic
on a new-mown lawn.

I found the lane once with a friend
as we drifted a little farther than usual
down the walking trail after dinner
on a Sunday afternoon.

One day, I hope we'll drive over
to buy the house with the stone footbridge
so we can have our tea on Meadowlark Lane
where time travels by footsteps.



Criticism welcome.

Roma Aeterna

In this final sonnet, Longfellow skillfully portrays Dante’s dual vision of salvation. Influenced by Virgil, Dante dreams of a political salvation that comes from Rome and spreads over the world. However, Dante also looks for a spiritual salvation (portrayed in the sestet) that comes from God through the Roman Catholic Church.

In this sonnet, the octave refers primarily to political salvation. Political strife is a dominant theme of the Comedy, running from the disreputable Florentines in Inferno to a prophecy of Dante’s exile in Paradiso. The earliest expression of Dante’s political vision is found in the works of Virgil. In the Aeneid, Aeneas’ mission is to return to the home of his ancestors (Italy) and found a new Troy. This Troy will be greater than the former city, conquering the Greeks, Carthaginians, and all the peoples of the world.

Virgil believed that the might of Rome would usher in a Golden Age, where peace would reign and wars would be no more. He first wrote of this age in his Fourth Eclogue, which speaks of the birth of a child who would bring peace to the world. This theme is continued in Book VI of the Aeneid, where the child is given a name – Marcellus. In the underworld, Aeneas sees the future glory and heroes of Rome.

Virgil is especially fit to be Dante’s guide – not just because he has written about a journey to the underworld before, but because he and Dante share a similar vision of political salvation. Peace will spread from Rome to Italy and then over the whole earth.

This vision of political salvation was particularly poignant in Longfellow’s day. After the fall of Rome in 476 A.D., Italy was divided into several kingdoms. These kingdoms were frequently at war with each other, and although Dante and others dreamed of a unified Italy, this dream did not come to fruition until the middle of the nineteenth century. Longfellow was among the first to see the fulfillment of Dante’s political vision.

Closely tied to Dante’s political salvation is the spiritual salvation shown through the Roman Catholic Church. This comes from the book of Acts, which chronicles the spread of the early church. In Acts 1:8, Christ tells the apostles, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (KJV). In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit enters the apostles at Pentecost, and they preach to all the peoples gathered at Jerusalem, each in his own tongue. This spiritual salvation is reflected in the sestet, where Longfellow uses images of wind to represent the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The last three lines of the sestet describe the preaching of God’s word, which brings spiritual salvation to the nations (VI.12-14).

Dante’s vision of salvation is both political and spiritual. In one sense, he is seeking to create heaven on earth, with peace spreading from Rome as the new Jerusalem. He is trying to recreate the Holy Roman Empire of Constantine, where the world is united under one government and one religion. However, Dante’s vision of salvation is not limited to this present life, for he also looks for the spiritual kingdom that will be established in the second coming of Christ (VI.4). Both these kingdoms, Dante believes, will bring peace to the world.

Sonnet VI: Paradiso

O star of morning and of liberty!
O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
Above the darkness of the Apennines,
Forerunner of the day that is to be!
The voices of the city and the sea,
The voices of the mountains and the pines,
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!

Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
And many are amazed and many doubt.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Review - Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana

Anne Rice is living proof that studying vampires leads to Christ. At least, that is a simplistic way of describing this contemporary author's spiritual and literary journey. Rice is well credentialed in historic fiction through a plethora of books dripping with vampires, blood, and intense sense experiences.[*] But, according to her testimony,[†] this research expertise helped her move back from a liberal and almost atheistic perspective to a spiritual reconciliation with the church. As her research focus moved back in time, Rice realized that her inquiries revolved around the development of Christianity. "Ultimately, the figure of Jesus Christ was at the heart of this obsession."[‡] Within the last few years, she published two novels in a series on Christ The Lord, namely, Out of Egypt, and The Road to Cana. Together they present a well-known character writer's foray into the fathomless question, "Who is Christ the Lord?"

For the most reliable history of Jesus' life on earth, the gospels would certainly make a better start. This is fiction, after all. Well researched, and grounded, yes, but not a systematic theology. As fiction, Christ the Lord reveals at least as much about the character of its author as its subject. The series is richly draped with literary, emotional, and historic development. Coming from a liberal academic social climate, Rice encompassed the remotest regions of doctrine and speculation in her research. No source could be too avant-guarde, too bizzare, or too traditional, not even Islamic authors. Unfortunately, like the Lord she portrays, Rice suffers some theological confusion in her steps to reconciliation. While her open perspective on research allows her to incorporate a variety of creative situations, the incorporation of apocryphal stories and substantial hint of Roman Catholic doctrine both provide footholds for denominational criticism. Nevertheless, a reasonable suspension of disbelief and some Christian charity can open the door to the depth of insight Rice offers.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt just slightly outdoes its sequel in establishing a living context with the major events in Jesus' early life. Rice's research and conjecture take her plot far beyond the meager facts of Scripture. She easily weaves in obscure gospel personalities to create the intricacy and intimacy of ancient family relationships. Then she spins the plot through the most formative events Jesus might have encountered as a child. Embarking from Alexandria, Rice's characters face the challenge of moving out of the base Hellenistic philosophy back into the pervasive Hebrew culture. The natural change from Greek to Hebrew or Aramaic dialogue is one notably historical and appropriate literary device she uses in the transition. Through dozens of other references, allusions, and events, the characters proceed to reveal the detail and meaning for rituals, contemporary strains of philosophy, and the political problems of the day. Thus, Rice helps the modern reader to a better understanding of tumultuous Jewish life.

Like the first book, Christ the Lord: The Road To Cana builds from a thorough grounding in ancient Hebrew customs and values. With more Scriptural details about his later life, however, the sequel naturally adds another level of theological development. In Out of Egypt Rice delves into the progressive recognition the Christ child might have experienced in discovering himself. Though on the border of orthodoxy, Rice's Jesus performs miracles, struggles with obedience, and even suffers disease, all in the most realistic vision of growing "in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and men." The Road To Cana adds a more mature perspective appropriate for the one who is fully God and fully man. Though the protagonist is unlike any other, Anne Rice is one of the few authors capable of making this divinity truly human. And, it is this profound insight into the godhead that makes her story particularly worth reading.

With good reason Rice is also a popular author. Having developed a talent for narrating intense sensory experience, she uses the full gift to develop scenes of temptation and reveal the intellectual and spiritual power in Christ's character. Even if one knows how it will all play out, this emotional development adds an engaging layer over the books' dry facts of lifestyle and theology. A mature believer may well appreciate this spicy crust covering the hefty meat. For a casual seeker, on the other hand, Rice's vibrant mental and material worlds may be the one temptation to taste more serious questions. Either way, it would be worthwhile, if only because it makes one continue to ponder, "Who is Christ the Lord?"

[*] "It's been my delight that no matter how many supernatural elements were involved in the story, and no matter how imaginative the plot and characters, the background would be thoroughly historically accurate." Anne Rice, “Author’s Note” in Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (Ballantine Books: New York, 2006), 321.
[†] Ibid.
[‡] Ibid.

Planet Narnia

This particular post may go down in history as a case study in “why one should not attempt to write sensible things while sick.” But then again, it may not, so we shall see how it turns out.

Let it be known in advance that virtually nothing I am about to say is original to me. All thoughts were called from Matthew Ward’s article in Touchstone entitled, “Narnia’s Secret: The Seven Heavens of the Chronicles Revealed.” If you want to read more by him, I suggest his book, Planet Narnia.

In his article, Ward is attempting to explain a question that has been puzzling Lewis critics for years—what is the central theme that ties all the Chronicles together? Lewis was a powerful and organized writer, more he was a medievalist, all things tie together in a universal system. Yet, he drew from all sorts of classical traditions and myths: Father Christmas, a snow queen, E. Nesbit, classical mythology, even a few Norse symbols. Critics have argued for several binding themes: an analysis of the seven deadly sins, the seven Roman Catholic sacraments, and a miniaturized version of the Faerie Queen. None of them have been particularly convincing. Lewis himself said that the entire series was about Christ –an assertion that has led to more than a little confusion. Ward argues for a different interpretation—that the theme that binds all seven books together is nothing more than and extension of the gods of the seven heavens of medieval cosmology.

“Wait,” one might ask, “how does a set of pagan gods show Christ?” Well, that gets a little complicated. One of the major extension of Lewis’ writing is the essentialness of God—his overlookability. To Lewis, Christ is in all things; Christ is the obvious center of the entire world, the element that allows us to enjoy anything, to think about God, to see any beauty. Christ is, in fact, so utterly obvious that we are oblivious to his presence. Add to this, his theory of what made excellent literature was not its characters or stories, but how successfully it wove its atmosphere. An essential part of this atmosphere, to him, was a hidden element, a kappa stone that binds the entire work together. This hidden element may be nothing, but it is everything to the work. Finally, Lewis wrote a treatise on how to convey Christianity in literature, one of the methods he argued for was a pattern of transferred classicism, in which Christ is portrayed in the manner of a mere god of classical tradition. Christ is God, above all gods, but can also be portrayed within the pattern of the classical deities. Hopefully, that was not excessively tangential.

Ward presents quite a compelling picture for viewing each of the Chronicles as manifesting a specific planetary deity. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe portrays Jupiter, or Jove. Prince Caspian personifies Mars, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the Sun. The Silver Chair shows the Moon, while Horse and His Boy shows Mercury. Finally, the prequel and the sequel, The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle display Venus and Saturn respectively.

First, Jove. Jove is the king of all gods and from his name comes the English word “jovial.” He is a merry master of all. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the line of Narnian kings is established once and for all. “Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen of Narnia. Those that take the thrones reign eternally. Jupiter is also the god that punishes winter. Jove is the one that beats it back to its cage and brings the joy of spring. The way this motif manifests in the books should be fairly obvious.
There is also the concept of death and blood for redemption—namely Aslan’s death for Edmund. Jupiter is called “the bleeding planet” because winter and darkness are exiled through Jove’s giving of his own blood. Through his sacrifice, the world is redeemed. In the Arthurian cycle, Jove gave of his body to defend Pellets. It is in this spirit if Joviality that Lewis brings in Father Christmas, the sacrificial death of Aslan, and even Peter’s exclamation, “By Jove!” when he first enters Narnia.

Don’t worry, gentle reader, all seven won’t take quite that long. In Prince Caspian the story is about a rightful king taking his take back his kingdom by force—appropriately, Mars is the god of war. Also, Mars is Mars Silvanus the god of the woods, maybe even the woods that the children both appeared from and spent most of the book travelling through. Arboreal imagery appears throughout the novel. Silvans, a beast that appear in no other book, appear at the final battle, Miraz frets over his martial o policy, Reepicheep is the most martial of all creatures, and the object that proves that children are in Narnia? A knight.

Voyage of the Darn Treader is a quest towards the rising run: Aslan appears out of a sun to Lucy, Aslan as an albatross flies out of a sunbeam. God, the metal of the sun, appears throughout the story--a man turned into gold and Eustace trapped by a gold armband. Even the dying dragons are taken from Apollo, the sun god, and lizard slayer.

Fittingly, the book that shows the Moon follows on the heels of the book on the Sun. In The Silver Chair, Aslan only appears in his own country, on earth he can only be known by signs and dreams, automatically making the night mistress of the day for a time. The moon in Latin is luna root of our word “lunatic.” Prince Rilian is a lunatic who must be freed from silver chair—silver being the metal of the moon. Even the names of the horses, Coalblack and Snowflake, are drawn from the names of the horses that pull the Moon’s chariot in Spenser’s Faerie Queen. Even more complicated, the whole book portrays the medieval model of the great divide between the realm of certainty and the realm of confusion, a divide shown in their travels in the overland and the underworld.

The Horse and His Boy is Mercury, the messenger of the gods. It concerns a tale of two twins, “meeting selves, same but sundered.” Twins who is recognizable as Castor and Pollux, the Horseman and the Boxer of Homer’s Iliad and The Twins, a constellation in the house of Mercury. Lewis even takes the time to let us know that the helmet of one of the Narnian lord’s helmet is marked with the sign Mercury, a metal helmet with wings on either side.

As the only lady of the deific constellation, Venus is the goddess over the book of life, The Magician’s Nephew. The book speaks of laughter and joy in the creation of the world and the fun of “The First Joke.” Motherhood, as Digory fights to save his mother, and Helen is the first queen, and in some ways, the mother of Narnia. Even her name, Helen, harkens back to Helen of Troy, whose troubles began with Venus. Warmth and beauty are in the Wood Between the Worlds and the new-born Narnia. Also, the apples that give life hearken back to the Apple of Hesperides. More ominously, Jadis is the anti-Venus, she is in the model of Ishtar, a goddess who reigned by a powerful use of her sex and pride. Charn in described as “the great city” an allusion to Nineveh, the stronghold of Ishtar’s worship.

Finally, there is The Last Battle and if you are still reading, my hat is off to you. The Last Battle is ruled by Saturn, the god of ill-chance, treachery, and death. Aslan does not appear until all the main characters are dead. Here, God is portrayed as the God who is seen most clearly in abandonment and loss. In this story, Father Time, who was originally based on Saturn, is the great leveler. In this book, loyalty costs life, and betrayal brings madness. In this book, righteousness bears the ultimate price.

Whether it is a true analysis or not, I do not know, I am re-reading the series to find out. But in any case, it fits the medieval pattern that C.S. Lewis both knew, and was known to respect. It is in any case, very interesting and illuminating.

Ubi Caritas et Amor

Now that Dante has ascended to heaven, Longfellow looks up to the stained glass windows of the church. In medieval times, stained glass windows were used to teach the common people Bible stories, since the commoners often could not read. The saints in heaven teach Dante about Christian love and virtue. Longfellow, instead of seeing the saints in heaven, sees them in the stained glass windows and imagines that he is hearing their stories.

The centerpiece of the cathedral is the rose window, which depicts the glorification of Christ. In the primum mobile, the outermost sphere of Dante’s Paradise, the saints are arranged in the shape of a rose. This rose, and indeed all of heaven, blazes with a glorious light. Beatrice ascends to join her place in the rose, and smiles on Dante at last – he could not bear the bliss and glory of her heavenly smile before.

After describing the sights of heaven in the octave, Longfellow describes the sounds of heaven in the sestet. All the saints and all creation join in praise to God. Their worship is supported by organ and choir and bells, all united to proclaim the mystery and wonder of Christ’s sacrifice. This sestet demonstrates a portion of the bliss, joy, and excitement experienced by the communing saints in heaven.

In keeping with his ecclesiastical theme, Longfellow echoes the order of the liturgy in his sonnets.* Sonnets III and IV both contain a confession of sins and God’s pardon. Liturgical services begin with a public confession, followed by a plea for God’s mercy in the Kyrie. Not only is this order fitting for a cathedral service, but it is the pattern of all Christian life. Confession ought always to precede salvation and thanksgiving to God.

The Kyrie is followed by praise to God in the Gloria. Longfellow depicts the joyful praise of the church in V.9-11. Although Longfellow does not specifically mention the Gloria, he is probably thinking of it, because this service is full of Latin hymns (V.10). Latin hymns appear quite often in Dante – most particularly in Purgatory when the souls sing psalms as they ascend the mount of Purgatory. In the ordinary of the mass, the Gloria is followed by the Credo – a recitation of the Nicene Creed. This is also a confession – not of sin, but of belief in God.

The high point of the mass is the celebration of the Eucharist. After praying over the bread and wine, the priest lifts them to heaven (“the elevation of the Host,” V.14). All the bells ring as the Sanctus is sung. The Sanctus is a hymn, taken from heavenly worship services in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4. It is a fitting close to this first sonnet on Paradise.

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth!
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis!

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts!
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest!



* HT to Emily for asking about speech patterns in the sonnets, which made me think about a liturgical order.

Sonnet V: Paradiso

I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
With forms of Saints and holy men who died,
Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,
With splendor upon splendor multiplied;
And Beatrice again at Dante's side
No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.

And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs
Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love
And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;
And the melodious bells among the spires
O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above
Proclaim the elevation of the Host!

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Beata Beatrix

Of all the sonnets, the fourth sonnet is most specific to a scene in the Divine Comedy. This sonnet describes Dante’s meeting with Beatrice, at the climax of Purgatory. In the third sonnet, Dante watched the other sinners ascend the mount of Purgatory and confess their sins. Now it is time for Dante to internalize his lessons and confess his own sins.

Like the other sonnets, the distinction between the octave and the sestet is significant. The octave depicts Beatrice in all her heavenly glory, calling Dante to confession. She reminds him of his sins, and Dante weeps in anguish. In the sestet, Dante repents and receives pardon for his sins. Now that the burden of sin has been lifted, he is free to ascend with Beatrice to the heights of heaven.

Unlike the other sonnets, this sonnet contains four notable pairs of concepts: the veil and flame, the passion and woe, Lethe and Eunoe, and pardon and peace.

The first pair is fond in line 1: “With snow-white veil and garments as of flame.” This description of Beatrice as she stands before Dante is taken directly from the Comedy. John Ciardi notes that Beatrice’s garments symbolize the three theological virtues: faith is white, hope is green, and love is red (Ciardi 552). It is Beatrice’s faith and love that cause her to rebuke Dante, and faith and love allow Dante to confess his sins.

Next comes the “passion and the woe” of the young poet Dante (IV.3). Dante is Longfellow’s Virgil in these sonnets (cf. III.2), and Longfellow is taking a typically Dantean digression to praise his master. Longfellow also praised Dante’s passion and woe earlier in the second sonnet: “What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, / Uprose this poem of the earth and air, / This mediæval miracle of song!” (II.12-14) Dante’s love for God and his grief over sin led him to produce his masterpiece.

In line 12, Longfellow refers to the mythical streams Lethe and Eunoe. Lethe caused forgetfulness in Greek mythology, and the souls who went to Hades drank from it to forget their former lives. In Canto XXXI, Matilda plunges Dante into Lethe so that his sins are remembered no more (“the forgotten sorrow”, IV.13). Eunoe, a river of Dante’s own invention, increases his love for the good – “the remembered dream” (IV.12).

Finally, Dante gains “That perfect pardon which is perfect peace” (IV.14). As in the last lines of the third sonnet, God’s forgiveness of sins is announced. This is a fitting close to Purgatory – Dante is now inside the church, with the redeemed, and can raise his eyes to heaven. Now that the peccata have been erased, the light of heaven dawns on his lifted forehead (IV.11). Since his sins are no longer remembered or counted against him, Dante is able to love freely and to rise to the stars.


* The painting is Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Sonnet IV: Purgatorio

With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
She stands before thee, who so long ago
Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
From which thy song and all its splendors came;
And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.

Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
Lethe and Eunoë -- the remembered dream
And the forgotten sorrow -- bring at last
That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Wash All My Sins Away

As Dante enters Purgatory, Longfellow steps inside the cathedral. Both are now inside the church – the realm of the saved. Like the first sonnet, the third sonnet is somber and reflective. This is Purgatory, and here the souls mourn their sins.

To create the solemn mood, the octave of the sonnet sets up an atmosphere of sanctity. There is an otherworldly quality that greets all the senses – the smell of incense, the light of the candles, and the sound of whispered Latin prayers. In the book of Revelation, incense symbolizes the prayers of the saints. In Catholic churches, votive candles are often lit as prayers are offered. The incense, candles, and whisperings are the prayers of the souls as they gradually ascend the mount of Purgatory.

Inside the church, Longfellow is surrounded by the dead souls who are buried in tombs along the aisles and down below in the crypt. Longfellow pictures himself as hearing the life stories of the Christians in his cathedral, who are still working their way into heaven. This is like Dante, who is encircled by a cloud of souls in Purgatory—souls who are gradually being released from the weight of sin.

Longfellow’s mood invites contemplation and introspection. For him, Purgatory is the place of repentance, not of rejoicing. His rejoicing will be saved for the time when the burden of sin is lifted and the soul is free to rise to God.

In the sestet, Longfellow describes the process of repentance more specifically. He hears “rehearsals of forgotten tragedies / And lamentations from the crypt below.” (10-11) The dead souls confess their sins to Longfellow, just like they do to Dante. Longfellow learns and profits from by their example. Additionally, these confessions may serve a similar purpose as the whip and the rein found on each step of Purgatory. The rein shows negative examples of each of the seven deadly sins, warning Dante not to commit these sins; the whip displays positive examples of the corresponding virtues, spurring the poet on to love and good works.

While the dead souls confess their sins, their confessions and prayers rise upwards to God. This parallels the soul’s ascent in Purgatory: as each sin is rubbed away, the soul rises higher to God, love, and holiness.

This sonnet ends with the emotional announcement of God’s pardon (13-14). Longfellow is quoting Isaiah 1:18, but he is also referring to Dante’s “baptism” in the garden. As Matilda plunges Dante into Lethe, he hears her quote from Psalm 51: “Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor; lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor” (Ciardi 560). Like the poet David, Dante is washed clean as he repents from his sins. Once the poet has confessed, God grants his pardon. Rejoicing now replaces repentance.

Sonnet III: Purgatorio

I enter, and I see thee in the gloom
Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!
And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
The congregation of the dead make room
For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine
The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.

From the confessionals I hear arise
Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
And lamentations from the crypts below;
And then a voice celestial that begins
With the pathetic words, "Although your sins
As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Doctrine of Substituted Love

Hopefully, my co-author will forgive me for putting a break in her stream of sonnets.

The phrase causes an instant doubletake. "What on earth does that doctrine mean? Is it a variation on works-based salvation? A spin-off of the whole Eucharist debate? Or maybe it is just another term for Christ’s death. Yes, that's it!" The confusing doctrine is well in keeping with its author or identifier, Charles Williams.

Charles Williams was once quoted as saying that his novels always went better after he had dispensed with space and time. Descent Into Hell, widely considered his best novel, is a striking proof of this claim. I won't try and explain the novel: two reasons, first, it would rob you of all the fun of figuring it out for yourself, and two, after three re-reads, I am quite positive I don't understand it all.

But, I do want to take a few minutes to dwell on the doctrine of substituted love that he presents in the novel. It stems from the daring idea of taking Christ's words literally. Specifically, His command to "bear one another's burdens." The crux of the problem is our heroine, Pauline, who lives in the grip of debilitating fear. Peter Stanhope, a poet and the leading man of the piece, explains the doctrine of substituted love and offers to bear her burden of fear:

"'but you'll [to Pauline] be free of all distress because you can pass it on to me. Haven't you heard it said we ought to bear one another’s burdens?'

'But that means--she began, and stopped.

'I know,' Stanhope said. 'It means listening sympathetically, and thinking unselfishly, and being anxious about, and so on. Well, I don't say a word against all that; no doubt it helps. But I think when Christ or St. Paul, or whoever said bear, or whatever he Aramaically said instead of bear, he meant something much more like carrying a parcel instead of something else. To bear a burden is precisely to carry it instead of, if you're still carrying yours, I’m not carrying it for you--however sympathetic I may be."

Pauline is skeptical, but she accepts the offer in the end, and in the freedom of growth she experiences, she is able to bear the burden of others and free them as she has been freed.

There is room to exploit this theory as a way to justify excessively clingy human relationships. You know the one's of which I speak--where one party simply cannot live without the other and they become an amorphous blob of characteristics surpassed only by their "togetherness" For a visual representation, see richandamy.

That is the negative extreme: an extreme that has been re-enacted before our eyes so often that there is now a tendency to resist any dependence or interaction on another human being. But that that idea also leads to dreadful consequences. This also is illustrated in Descent Into Hell as one of the characters locks himself away from the world and chooses his delusions of a preferred reality over Reality. In the end, he becomes so isolated that he cannot bear people at all, and is self-damned.

Man can never be all for another man, no man can atone for another’s sin, or give him salvation. But, I think in this Doctrine of Substituted love, that Williams gives us another powerful picture of how much man needs, and is required to join, the "Body of Christ." A Body that is not merely a metaphor for our happy-togetherness as believers, but is a very real picture of just how much each believer relies upon another to live, to grow, and to function. We cannot rely fully on our fellow man--he is a fallen creature and will break under the strain, and/or let you down. But God, in his blessing and wisdom, gave us the Church, to help bear our burdens, so, in turn, we can bear anothers.