How Wordsworth Helps

We were originally going to post this as a comment to Signor L.E.’s recent post about Romantic poetry, until it grew into a post of its own. Long story short, we disagree with much of what our fellow Mahwahvian says about the value of Wordsworth’s poetry.

It is true that a lot of contemporary poetry is too much like Wordsworth at his most solipsistic. While “Tintern Abbey” is one of our absolute favorite poems, and we love The Prelude, it would be nice if contemporary poets moved outside of their own minds to explore other lives and other minds. But many of Wordsworth’s poems were narratives about extraordinary events of ordinary people (that is to say, common and rural rather than aristocratic and urban), such as “The Idiot Boy,” “The Thorn,” “Goody Blake” (just to name a few from Lyrical Ballads), and modern readers tend to overlook major, un-personal efforts like Ecclesiastical Sketches (a sonnet series about the history of Christianity in Britain) and The White Doe of Rylestone. (And it’s also worth noting that his most insular work, The Prelude, was never published in his lifetime.)

Most importantly, it’s not fair to say that Wordsworth expressed “embarrassment at art,” that he was “hostile to the [tenets] which had prevailed in the Western tradition from its beginning,” or that he was suspicious of “artistry in all its forms.” Wordsworth displays strict artistic discipline, and there’s nobody better to look to as a model for formal craftsmanship and artistry in blank verse, the sonnet, and the ballad. In fact, one of the central purposes of the Lyrical Ballads (as the title suggests) was to revive the ballad, which was of course an ancient medieval form, by incorporating lyrical elements to varying degrees. So, in at least that case, he was trying to bring new life to a Western tradition.

The sort of artistry Wordsworth was attacking was narrow and well-defined. He was not challenging all artifice but what he called “poetic diction,” or “the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers.” He explains this in an appendix to the Preface of Lyrical Ballads:

The earliest poets of all nations generally wrote from passion excited by real events; they wrote naturally, and as men: feeling powerfully as they did, their language was daring, and figurative. In succeeding times, Poets, and Men ambitious of the fame of Poets, perceiving the influence of such language, and desirous of producing the same effect without being animated by the same passion, set themselves to a mechanical adoption of these figures of speech, and made use of them, sometimes with propriety, but much more frequently applied them to feelings and thoughts with which they had no natural connexion whatsoever. A language was thus insensibly produced, differing materially from the real language of men in any situation.

He concedes “that the language of the earliest Poets was felt to differ materially from ordinary language, because it was the language of extraordinary occasions; but it was really spoken by men, language which the Poet himself had uttered when he had been affected by the events which he described, or which he had heard uttered by those around him.” He also acknowledges that the earliest poets added “metre of some sort or other” (which he of course does himself) which “separated the genuine language of Poetry still further from common life, so that whoever read or heard the poems of these earliest Poets felt himself moved in a way in which he had not been accustomed to be moved in real life, and by causes manifestly different from those which acted upon him in real life.”

He also approves of that distance between the poetic and the common, but also calls it the “great temptation to all the corruptions which have followed: under the protection of this feeling succeeding Poets constructed a phraseology which had one thing, it is true, in common with the genuine language of poetry, namely, that it was not heard in ordinary conversation; that it was unusual. But the first Poets, as I have said, spake a language which, though unusual, was still the language of men. This circumstance, however, was disregarded by their successors; they found that they could please by easier means: they became proud of modes of expression which they themselves had invented, and which were uttered only by themselves.”

Put more simply, Wordsworth was annoyed with the clichéd phrases and abstractions that populated eighteenth-century poetry especially. One can prefer the more abstract and artificial (in the negative sense) style Wordsworth was resisting, but he certainly was not throwing out centuries of English poetry with the bathwater.

One last thing. While Coleridge’s most famous poems (Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “Kubla Khan,” and Cristabel) are supernatural or dream-like, much of his poetry was very much like what Wordsworth was writing at the same time, both in subject matter and form. His conversation poems (“The Aeolian Harp” and “Frost at Midnight” are my favorites) and “Dejection: An Ode” are very personal and, while metaphysical in some regards, are certainly not supernatural tales.

We say all that to say all this: Mahwahvian poets should look to Wordsworth as a model, because his technique was superb, he understood the power of poetic tradition—and wasn’t afraid to reject what was false and phony in fashionable poetry. His arguments about poetic language are still important, especially for younger poets, who tend to resort to abstractions and stock phrases. Nor would it hurt us to emulate the variety of his subject matter and style, as he explored not only his own consciousness in exciting ways through his lyric poems, but also presented the lives of other people, and evokes powerful emotions, through his narratives.

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"The Ballad Rode Into Town"

As long as we're posting about ballads...Here's one by the Godfather of Mahwah himself, Dr. Baer.

“The Ballad Rode Into Town”

The ballad rode into town one day,
wearing his deadly gun,
and his Mexican spurs jingled along
in the heat of the mid-day sun.

He wore his blacks, he wore his boots,
he wore a Colt on his hip,
with a re-bored barrel, its trigger filed,
and a custom black-butt grip.

He’d come across the desert heats,
like Dante through his hell,
over the mesas, day and night,
through the sage and the chaparral.

Right up the only street in town,
he and his Morgan came,
as the free-verse rummies scattered,
and slithered away in shame.

But at the saloon, the rondels came out,
with the pretty villanelle,
“Now, that's what I would call a man—
a man with a story to tell.”

And even the gambler couplet agreed,
“That's a mighty heroic chap,
who'll face them alone, and fire his Colt,
with the crack of a thunderclap.”

They followed him past the Sheriff's door,
abandoned back in June,
then passed the burned-out Weekly Press,
in the silent afternoon.

The ballad rode into town that day,
wearing his deadly gun,
and his Mexican spurs jingled along
in the heat of the mid-day sun.

He rode his Morgan up the street,
and stopped at the only birch,
where all the decent blank-verse folk
were coming out of church.

“Where is she?” he said and waited,
under the Texas skies.
“I'm here!” the lovely sonnet called,
and lit up the rider’s eyes.

“They've terrorized this western town,
and bullied us all, my dear.
So set things right and proper,
then take me away from here.”

Right then, the critics gang rode up,
a motley crew of thugs,
with .38s and rifles cocked
with lethal dum-dum slugs.

Quickly, the fearful crowd dispersed,
to hide and watch and wait;
the gang boss sneered, “Any last words?”
as he aimed his .38.

But the ballad blew a bullet hole
right through the de-con's eye,
and dropped the freud and marxist crits,
and then the gender guy.

There were, when his chambers were empty,
six dead in the Texas heat;
there were, when he holstered his .45,
six thugs on the dusty street.

And when the celebration peaked,
Miss Sonnet reappeared,
and she and her man rode off to the west,
and even the rummies cheered.

So the ballad rode out of town that day,
still wearing his deadly gun,
and his Mexican spurs jingled along
in the heat of the mid-day sun.

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Two Romantic Revolutions

I have been covering the Romantic period with my class over the last few weeks, and consequently, have been spending a good deal of time thinking about the work of Wordsworth and Coleridge. And since I know the literature of this period is a matter of special interest and expertise to at least one member of the Review's illustrious staff, I thought a few reflections on these two authors might be of interest here.

The publication of the Lyrical Ballads is recognized, I think, as the most revolutionary event in the history of English poetry. That revolution was almost entirely of Wordsworth's making; that is to say, the principles of taste which have arisen to precedence since the publication of that book were drawn from Wordsworth's work, both from his poetry and his theoretical musings in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (I am ignoring for now the very real inconsistencies between the two). Some of the most famous of these principles are the well-known focus on "incidents and situations from common life," a preference for the "language really used by men," and a general suspicion of artistry in all of its forms.

But we should remind ourselves that another, and very different, revolution was undertaken by Coleridge, both in the poems he published in the Lyrical Ballads, and in his own critical reflections later presented in the Biographia Literaria. It is interesting to note one place where he and Wordsworth concurred; they both agreed that the tenets laid down by Wordsworth in his Preface were radically hostile to the ones which had prevailed in the Western tradition from its beginning. For Wordsworth, this was cause enough to reevaluate that whole tradition, including the work of many long acknowledged masters; for Coleridge, this was self-evident proof that these principles were themselves inadequate.

Coleridge's revolution was specifically against the stultified mannerism of late neo-classicism, but it took the form of an appeal to the long tradition of poetry preceding the neo-classical period; in this sense, it was more a reform than a revolution. The masters to whom Coleridge appealed "placed the essence of poetry in the art," who aimed at an "exquisite polish of the diction." The language they used had a greater affinity with the language of the philosophers than the language of the common man. His own great contribution to the Lyrical Ballads, the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," is unquestionably one of the most artificial - in the true sense of the term - works in the entire history of English poetry.

Over the last two centuries, it is Wordsworth's revolution that has carried the day. True to his boast, he has indeed established the taste by which not only his own works, but, to a great extent, all poetic works, are judged. The contempt for artistic tradition, implicit in Wordsworth's theory, has become overt and prominent in the modern age. The language of ordinary life is the only language employed by contemporary poets; an "exquisite polish of diction" would be regarded now as something merely archaic or pretentious. The embarrassment at art expressed by Wordsworth can still be recognized in the lack of stylistic effect so common in contemporary poetry; the death of rhetoric has been both a cause and an effect of this figurative deprivation. The concern with the quotidian remains central; the latest click on the Eratosphere reveals poems written on the following, very mundane topics: the poet's backyard, the poet's driveway, a pigeon, aftershave, garbage floating in the ocean, a dog burying a bone, and (believe it or not) sheet protectors.

But if we want to restore poetry to a flourishing condition, we might want to consider reviving Coleridge's revolution instead, and seek, as he sought, a poetry of rich artistry, with all the freedom that such artistry bestows; a poetry which does not flatter the reader with a familiar language or thematic content, but which attempts to elevate the mind of the reader through extraordinary language and extraordinary insight; a poetry, above all things, formed and directed by the same principles which have formed and directed the tradition of Western poetry, and the works of the incomparable masters so plentiful in that tradition.

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Opening Day!

We believe the following poem is the most poignant metaphysical meditation on baseball since Field of Dreams. And although it has its share of metrical infelicities, at least it doesn't have Kevin Costner.

"On the Eternal Implications of America's National Pastime"

For me, the World Series of 1990
Had all the holy force of St. Paul's blinding.
O! the Lord did earn my infinite praise
When Cincinnati swept the Oakland A’s.
As I watched each game I was begging, kneeling,
clasping my hands and staring at the ceiling.
I promised God that, should the good guys win,
I’d lead a holy life, one free from sin.
An early homer clubbed by Eric Davis
Confirmed the gospel word that Jesus saved us;
His Resurrection was briefly in doubt
With runners on corners and no one out,
But God can lose no spiritual quibble
If His bullpen includes Robbie Dibble,
Who did much more than simply save two games—
He saved my soul from Hell’s fierce flames.

To cheer a losing club for nine long innings
Can kill your soul as sure as mortal sinning.
For Heaven’s sake, be careful who you choose—
Eternal damnation’s yours if they lose.
That deadliest of vices, Doubt, creeps in
When your team’s dead last and can’t buy a win.
The faith of fans is fragile: “Oh, why bother
To reconcile my soul with God the Father
When He and I could never get along:
His taste in teams is vile! His judgment, wrong!
It’s bad enough He lets a good man suffer—
But letting Boston blow a two-run buffer?!”
(So Billy Buckner lost the Catholic Church
With that famous, graceless, run-ceding lurch.)

It seems unfair that Peter turns his keys
For all those jerks who root for the Yankees;
Meanwhile, no Cubs fan’s passed through Heaven’s gate
Since, what, nineteen hundred and zero-eight?
But don’t question God’s justice or wisdom.
Just find a first-place team and root for them—
Until they start to stink. Your next move’s simple:
Go cast them out, like changers from the temple;
Profess your faith in who’s the new best squad,
Till one wins it all—and wins you for God!
The jealous, bound to law, won’t understand;
These Pharisees will spit, “fair-weather fan!”
But years from now, enjoying paradise,
You’ll thank me for my verses and advice.
(I’ll be wearing a hat beneath my halo,
Spitting seeds with Christ and Christopher Sabo.)

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Harry & Man at Yale

Does anyone else find this news a bit depressing?

Drawing on their expertise in theology, children’s literature, globalization studies and even the history of witchcraft, professors have been able to use Harry Potter to attract crowds of students eager to take on a disciplined study of the books.

We realize that nearly everyone but us has read the books, but does that mean a series written for children should be getting so much attention in universities? One can point out that C.S. Lewis’s children’s books get serious consideration, but Lewis wrote other works, too, and they articulated a clear philosophy that The Chronicles of Narnia illustrated. To my knowledge, Rowling's done no such thing.

Even if you don’t mind college students--including Ivy Leaguers!--studying Harry Potter, let's agree this comment is absurd: “What [Rowling's] really done is come up with a mode of captivating a whole generation...As an adult, you’ll be thinking, ‘What would Harry have done?’” WWHHD? I know people like to see Harry as a Christ figure, but that’s taking it a bit too far.

And by the way: if you’re an adult who aspires to act like a fictional adolescent wizard, seek professional help.

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The Trial of Veronese

In 1573, the painter Paolo Caliari (a native of Verona, and so more familiarly known as Paolo Veronese) was summoned before the Venetian office of the Inquisition. He had recently completed a depiction of the Last Supper in one of the city’s basilicas, and the Inquisitors wanted to know why he had filled his picture with such seemingly irreverent figures as dwarves, dogs, and a servant with a bloody nose.

Particularly suspicious were a number of figures who appeared German or Swiss, and thus were presumed to represent Protestants. Veronese addressed his interlocutors with great confidence, asserting that it was his privilege and duty as an artist to paint according to the precedence of artistic tradition, and the lights of his own talent. Eventually, he appeased the Inquisitors by simply changing the title of his work.

This little episode, when it is remembered now at all, usually takes its place in the tired modern narrative, as but another example of the Magisterium’s nefarious authority, exercised across two millennia for the exclusive purpose of suppressing every noble and civilizing impulse in the soul of Western man. From this perspective, it is a parallel to the more famous trial of Galileo, revealing the same spiritual despotism of the Church at work in the artistic, as well as the scientific, realm. The notion that any authority - most especially, a religious authority - can have a just capacity to place any limits on the creativity of the individual artist is almost universally regarded nowadays as an exploded myth from the dark days of superstitious tyranny, from which we and our enlightened predecessors have long been liberated. Cries of censorship and dictatorship accompany even the attempt to withhold public funding from the latest abomination on display at the Whitney or the BMA, so perfect is the contemporary belief in the inviolability of the artist's vision.

And yet, this absolute deregulation of the arts is less likely a sign of their liberation, than of their insignificance. The era of modern art began with the "art for art's sake" movement, whose proponents disclaimed any moral import in the work of art. Within less than half a century, the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset could claim, “to the young generation, art is a thing of no consequence.” And of course, this is the obvious effect of the Decadent credo, for when art has been divested of any moral content, it has quite simply ceased to be of relevance to the lives of individuals or societies. On account of its irrelevance, the people grow increasingly indifferent towards it, and as the people grow indifferent towards it, their laws grow indifferent towards it. The negligence which modern jurisprudence displays towards the arts is not like the respectful restraint it shows towards property rights; it is like the insouciance it reveals towards the choice of baby names. No modern authority finds it necessary to regulate the arts, precisely because every modern authority is certain that none of its citizens takes the arts the least bit seriously.

But the Inquisitors at Veronese's trial did most certainly take the arts seriously; I would maintain that they took the arts far more seriously than the fine arts professors or gallery owners or non-profit directors, who are so loud in their proclamations of art's importance. They took the arts seriously, insomuch as they believed the arts had a significant influence over the opinions and behaviors of the people, and it is hard to see how anyone can share this conviction, without recognizing the need for some parameters - broad and informed, no doubt - to check the abuses of this potentially momentous influence. After all, it was not only the Church which exercised such an authority over art in past ages; Augustus exiled Ovid for the poet's licentious verses; Shakespeare composed under the gaze of Elizabeth's vigilant censors. And the fact remains, that great poets like Ovid and Shakespeare flourished in ages when such regulations were in place, and that since these regulations have been removed, we have had no such great poets. I think the reason for this is simply because those masters lived in ages which took the arts seriously, and we do not.

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We're in the News!

Well, not really...and not recently, either. We're only just now finding this early-2007 article from the National Catholic Register about "several literary efforts underway aimed at supporting existing Catholic writers and fostering new ones." The Southwell Institute gets plenty of attention. Here's the Godfather:

“Catholics have kind of let the arts go,” said Baer. “The culture has gone further secular, and is even inimical to what the writer of faith is up to. As Catholics, we’re supposed to be creating art.”

We're happy to see the coverage, but it's a shame the article doesn't mention The Mahwah Literary Review -- your one-stop shop for one year-old news!

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Two Easter Sonnets

“Easter Communion,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast:
God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.
You striped in secret with breath-taking whips,
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced
To crosses meant for Jesu’s; you whom the East
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,

God shall o’er-brim the measures you have spent
With oil of gladness, for sackcloth and frieze
And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment
Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.
Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent:
Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees.

“Composed in One of the Valleys of Westmoreland, On Easter Sunday” by William Wordsworth

With each recurrence of this glorious morn
That saw the Saviour in his human frame
Rise from the dead, erewhile the Cottage-dame
Put on fresh raiment—till that hour unworn:
Domestic hands the home-bred wool had shorn,
And she who span it culled the daintiest fleece,
In thoughtful reverence to the Prince of Peace,
Whose temples bled beneath the platted thorn.
A blest estate when piety sublime
These humble props disdained not! O green dales!
Sad may I be who heard your sabbath chime
When Art’s abused inventions were unknown;
Kind Nature’s various wealth was all your own;
And benefits were weighed in Reason’s scales!

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Donaghy's Stations of the Cross

Last year we posted William Donaghy's sonnet series on the Stations of the Cross, originally published in a defunct Catholic journal called Spirit. Here they are again:

I. He Is Condemned

Pilate must heed the public pulse and poll,
As every politician quickly learns,
The multitude that smiles, as quickly spurns,
And so he shrugs his shoulders and his soul;
His fingers flutter in the brazen bowl;
The guilt is off his hands and head; he turns
To take the spotless towel; in him burns
A doubt; but Caesar's favour is his goal.

"Sub Pontio Pilato"--down the years
Before a man may truly live, reborn
Of water and the Holy Ghost, he hears
Caught in the Creed, those words of pitying scorn
For him whose heart was meagre, not malign,
Who used ironic water for a sign.

II. He Carries His Cross

No parable my heart so cruelly cleaves-
The Prodigal among the snorting hogs,
Nor Lazarus doctored by the kindly dogs,
The stranger beaten, stripped and bruised by thieves,
The thorn-torn Shepherd seeking, as he grieves,
Some lost sheep bleating in the briars and bogs-
Sadder to me than all these analogues,
The fruitless fig-tree stands with leathern leaves.

For this is all the kingly city 'gives,
A cursed fig-tree; and a tree of blood
Denuded, ribald, it no longer lives,
Bereft of branches, shorn of bark and bud;
And yet its roots are slumbering, vital still,
At Nagasaki, Tyburn, Auriesville.

III. He Falls

The crowd is thrilled to see a fighter downed,
Battered and bloody, sprawled upon the floor,
Like multitudinous surfs upon the shore
Its shout arises; so the sickening sound
Of splintering wood upon the flinty ground
Brings from this mob a swelling, bestial roar.
What though the fall renewed the wounds and tore
His flesh, and jarred His head so crudely crowned.

These worthy citizens are men of name,
Respectable, judicious, just, discreet;
I cannot bear to have them know my shame-
My brother dying in a public street-
And though I hear our mother's choking sob,
I turn and shout "My brothers!" to the mob.

IV. He Meets His Mother

This afternoon in loud Jerusalem
They meet and part once more; no touch nor kiss
Can ease their anguish; while the mockers hiss:
"And he's the fool who thought his streaming hem
Could cure the woman. See the two of them,
The son and wife of Joseph come to this."
Two hearts cry out-abyss unto abyss,
And Jesse's flower is cut from Jesse's stem.

Perhaps she thinks of Nain-of all the land
Where wonders blossomed as He walked three years;
Of Jairus, Lazarus, the withered hand,
Of flowing mercies and of drying tears;
And still she knows her bitter place and part,
He will not heal her withered, widowed heart.

V. Simon Helps Him

Poor Simon's back was aching, and his legs
Were weary from the kicking of the plough;
And he had many worries-for his sow
Was sick; his prize hen was not laying eggs;
His crops were far behind; and floating dregs
Had spoiled the profit on his vines; and now
As he is hurrying home with heavy brow,
The soldiers seize him, though he brawls and begs.

He burns the Romans with a look of hate,
Then lends his grudging rhews to this doomed Man,
He grasps the rough-hewn beam, but feels no weight,
Though he is straining, taking all he can.
And from the Stranger, down the cross's length
There flow to Simon peace and tranquil strength.

VI. Veronica's Veil

Stout Peter struck one blow with blundering aim,
But now his futile sword abandoned lies;
Tumultuous Thomas shakes his head and sighs,
Beset with doubts and fears, and sick with shame;
The whispering Boanerges mock their name;
But in this shrilling street where valor dies,
Veronica cleans His face and wipes His eyes
And shares forever Magdalen's fragrant fame.

That screaming mob is muted; drowned in blood,
The curse has fallen on those unbent heads;
And Peter's sword has melted into mud,
The Temple veil hangs sundered into shreds;
But still her tiny veil survives, unfurled,
A banner and a bandage for the world.

VII. He Falls Again

It is too much! His watery sinews yield,
He sags and slumps; the wavering cross goes down;
Gethsemane, the night, the lash, the crown-
Could one poor heart bear these,though triple-steeled?
The hard-faced Roman legionaries wield
Their whips to drive Him out beyond the town
Where Calvary rises bushless, burned and brown;
While Judas festers in the Potter's Field.

And still no one remembers; Pharisees
And Scribes are smiling as they watch Him squirm,
Befouled and scoffed at, beaten to His knees,
Exhausted, panting, weaker than a worm.
And Jeremiah's keenings fail and fade,
Isaiah is an echo and a shade.

VIII. He Meets the Women

Last Sunday all Jerusalem had cheered,
But now the hushed hosanna's ringing note
Has soured to snarling in each fickle throat,
And all His followers have disappeared
Except these wailing women, josted, jeered,
Unwavering still, like her who sought the groat
And loyal yet, while priests and people gloat-
This is a day of shame for brawn and beard.

Jerusalem, O town of stupid men,
These tears will be your testament; the Lamb
You slaughter will not guard your doorposts when
The tearless Titus sets his battering ram;
Because this Victim vainly dies alone
There shall not be a stone upon a stone.

IX. He Falls the Third Time

They leave the city now; the blood and sweat
Are caked upon Him; and the clustering flies
Are crawling on His blackened wounds; His thighs
Are veined with lire; and now His torturers fret
Lest He may die and thwart them even yet;
For while they watch He stumbles, falls and lies,
Then heaves and struggles weakly to arise
And looks toward Calvary's somber silhouette.

Upon this very road will Godfrey spur,
Leading his knights-a charge of flaming swords-
Against the foemen of the carpenter
Who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords;
His strong voice hurling, like a catapult,
The thunder-breathing war-cry, "Deus vult."

X. He Is Stripped

Through rolling clouds no shaft of sunshine gleams,
A bitter breeze is stirring, sharp and chill,
The crowd sways in, blood-lusty for the kill,
Rough hands rip off the robe which has no seams,
And from reopened wounds the tired blood streams;
He stands among them, without word or will,
A shorn lamb, naked on this stunted hill,
While in the distance Tabor looms and dreams.

There was a man went down to Jericho-
See! parable is prophecy in part-
Here is the victim, scarred from head to toe,
Here are the thieves who have no heed nor heart;
Here are the proud who spurn a broken man,
Levite and priest-but no Samaritan.

XI. He Is Nailed to the Cross

This sound had echoed back in Nazareth,
The thudding hammer on the singing nails,
When Mary hastened off in flying veils,
With eyes like violets, and quickened breath,
Her Babe within her, to Elizabeth.
Now Mary winces, clenches hands, and pales,
Her dauntless spirit cringes, twists and quails,
And at each jolt she dies a double death.

The soldiers need not force Him for He lies
Patient beneath them; as the nails tear through,
His shining prayer is piercing inky skies,
"Forgive them; for they know not what they do."
And even now the arms which they transfix
Would guard them as a mother bird her chicks.

XlI. He Dies

The bleeding hours drag on; His drooping head
Sinks lower; and His parched and swollen lips
Can speak no longer; now a black eclipse
Extinguishes His eyes; the buzzards tread
The air above Him, waiting to be fed.
Once more He shifts on dislocated hips,
And cries aloud; His last vein bursts and drips-
He hangs upon His wooden monstrance, dead.
This is the triumph of the Sanhedrin,
To snare Him with its little traps and tricks,
To make Him scapegoat for all human sin
And build the first immortal crucifix.
Adoring ages, while the Scribes sneer,
Reply, "O Salutaris Ifostia."

XIII. He Is Taken From the Cross

Now you may have Him, Mary, they are done,
The shepherd stricken lies; His little flock
Had fled before the crowing of the cock;
Now Caiphas is happy; he has won;
He does not heed the frightened crowds that run,
Jerusalem is shaken; shock on shock
Upheave the temple sanctum, rive the rock;
Now you may have the Thing that was your Son.

He cannot hear you, darling, He is dead-
Come, now, and we will hide Him from their sight;
He cannot feel your kisses on His head-
See-Nicodemus waits no more for night.
Look-he and John and Joseph stand in grief
And look to you for refuge and relief.

XIV. He Is Buried

The mourners slowly bring Him through the gloom,
The valiant women, and three faithful men;
Her shoulders shaking, stormy Magdalen
Is weeping as in Simon's dining room;
But she who felt Him moving in her womb,
Who wrapped and laid Him in a manger then
Is still His handmaid, ready once again
To wrap Him up and lay Him in His tomb.

Once Delphi was the navel of the earth,
But now this sepulchre, which blackly yawns,
Becomes the point and center of all worth,
The focus of all sunsets and all dawns;
Within this cavern, could the world but see,
Mythology yields place to mystery.

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In Defense of "The Loved One"

We recently came across Edmund Wilson’s review of Waugh’s The Loved One. Though Wilson liked Waugh’s early work (especially A Handful of Dust), he became annoyed with his more overtly religious work, including Brideshead Revisited. He wasn’t particularly impressed by Waugh’s send-up of California funeral homes and cemeteries, in part because he thought Waugh’s religious vision of death was just as laughable:

The Loved One is a farcical satire on those de luxe California cemeteries that attempt to render death less unpleasant by exploiting all the resources of landscape-gardening and Hollywood mummery. To the non-religious reader, however, the patrons and proprietors of Whispering Glades [the novel’s opulent funeral home] seem more sensible and less absurd than the priest-guided Evelyn Waugh. What the former are trying to do is, after all, merely gloss over physical death with smooth lawns and soothing rites; but for the Catholic, the fact of death is not to be faced at all: he is solaced with the fantasy of another world in which everyone who has died in the flesh is somehow supposed to be alive and in which it is supposed to be possible to help souls to advance themselves by buying candles to burn in churches. The trappings invented for this other world by imaginative believers in the Christian myth—since they need not meet the requirements of reality—beat anything concocted by Whispering Glades.

Obviously, there’s not enough space here to address the issue of whether Catholics—or anyone who believes in an afterlife—ignores “the fact of death,” etc. On a more basic level, Wilson’s criticism does not engage with what makes the people of Whispering Glades so ridiculous. It’s not only that they “gloss over physical death,” but that they try to project meaning onto death by appropriating religious language but divorcing it from God. Here’s the inscription on the gates of the cemetery:

Behold I dreamed a dream and I saw a New Earth sacred to HAPPINESS. There amid all that Nature and Art could offer to elevate the Soul of Man I saw the Happy Resting Place of Countless Loved Ones. And I saw the Waiting Ones who still stood on the brink of that narrow stream that now separated them from those who had gone before. Young and old, they were happy too. Happy in Beauty, Happy in the certain knowledge that their Loved Ones were very near, in Beauty and Happiness such as the earth cannot give.
I heard a voice say: ‘Do this.’
And behold I awoke and in the Light and Promise of my DREAM I made WHISPERING GLADES.
ENTER STRANGER and BE HAPPY.

The language, tone, and imagery are from Revelation. There’s even mention of a soul. But here, Heaven is a place on earth, and God isn’t there. Without Him, the Biblical language is all sound and fury. So it’s not just that the people at Whispering Glades are trying “to render death less unpleasant,” but that they’re trying to do so in religious terms without religious substance. Waugh’s central character clarifies this a bit later, when he speaks to his love interest (an employee at the Whispering Glades) about the home’s star embalmer, Mr. Joyboy: “Now your Mr. Joyboy is the incarnate spirit of Whispering Glades—the one mediating logos between Dr Kenworthy and common humanity.” The cult of the funeral home, although completely devoid of any Christian context, has developed its own trinity. As Ann Pasternak Slater says in her introduction to the Everyman edition, “The new religion is entirely secularized. It is a celebration of life alone.”

Waugh also critiques the celebration of life alone with Kaiser’s Stoneless Peaches, whose radio spots declare that “no other peach now marketed is perfect and completely stoneless. When you buy Kaiser’s Stoneless Peach you are buying full weight of succulent peach flesh and nothing else...” Pasternak Slater claims that this product symbolizes the eradication of “the little difficulties that give life its sharpness.” It does that, and more: without the seed inside of the pit, no part of the fruit endures; it is a physical presence with no meaning beyond itself, a human body without a soul.

The working stiffs at Whispering Glades share this superficial vision of life and death, and they promote it with equally vapid language--language from which they removed the core of religious meaning and relevance.

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“We Do Not Know What that One is With Whom (or with which) He is Now at One.”

We’re working on a long-ish post about death (Hey, it’s Lent!) for later in the week. In the meantime, here's Graham Greene's very funny parody of a New Age funeral in Brighton Rock. It speaks for itself—and for a lot of real-life clergy:

‘Our belief in heaven,’ the clergyman went on, ‘is not qualified by our disbelief in the old medieval hell. We believe,’ he said, glancing swiftly along the smooth polished slipway towards the New Art doors through which the coffin would be launched into the flames, ‘we believe that this our brother is already at one with the One.’ He stamped his words like little pats of butter with this personal mark. ‘He has attained unity. We do not know what that One is with whom (or with which) he is now at one. We do not retain the old medieval beliefs in glassy seas and golden crowns. Truth is beauty and there is more beauty for us, a truth-loving generation, in the certainty that our brother is at this moment reabsorbed in the universal spirit.’ He touched a little buzzer, the New Art doors opened, the flames flapped and the coffin slid smoothly down into the fiery sea. The doors closed, the nurse rose and made for the door, the clergyman smiled gently from behind the slipway, like a conjurer who has produced his nine hundred and fortieth rabbit without a hitch.

When Greene wrote that, in 1938, it may have been an exaggeration of shallow belief; it isn't now. We especially like that the clergyman strikes at the medieval beliefs for their absurdity and tries to replace them with modern certainty and truth--but he's uncertain what this truth actually is, who “that One is with whom (or with which) he is now at one.”

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Christopher Hitchens Finds God!

Last weekend, political pundit, literary critic, and evangelical atheist Christopher Hitchens announced that he now believes in God. Well, not quite, but he implied as much on Real Time with Bill Maher. During a typically slanted panel discussion about religion, the guests wondered why divorce rates for Evangelicals are so high. Hitchens explains (about 2.40 into this clip):

The reason for Evangelical hypocrisy is simple.…It's the same as Larry Craig. It's the Craig Factor. Those who condemn things mightily, and go on hammering the pulpit about them, have a secret share in the desire for them.

Hitchens, author of God is Not Great and editor of The Portable Atheist, condemns religion mightily, and hammers on the pulpit about it—so according to the Craig Factor, he must have a secret desire for religion! Good for him. We've taken issue with Hitchens in the past, but we'd like to be the first to congratulate him on his conversion.

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Staging Shakespeare, Part II: The Good

The American Shakespeare Center offers a nice remedy to the ubiquitous performances of Fakespeare. Located in the heart of Shakespeare country (Staunton, VA—where else?) the company resists the trend toward phony modernized versions. That means not only staying true to the original language, but also using spare sets (elaborate sets didn’t come into play (pun not intended, but welcomed) until the Restoration) and keeping on the house lights (Renaissance theater had universal lighting). This second makes a big difference: universal lighting seriously diminishes the barrier between actors and audience (as does the fact that about eight audience members sit on the side of the stage). The head of the ASC explains his rationale here.

We enjoyed two plays at the ASC last week: Macbeth (Saturday night) and Ben Jonson’s Volpone (Sunday afternoon—what we literary types like to call a “matinee,” French for “cheaper tickets.”). Of course the plays were remarkable, and so was the acting. The same actors performed in both, which a) says a lot about the range of their acting ability, as they moved from dark tragedy to not-so-dark (“light” isn’t the right word) comedy; and b) made the experience even more personal for those who’d been there the night before. And the venue, Blackfriars Playhouse, is striking despite its simplicity. The virtual tour on this page gives you a good idea, but they’ve since adorned the balcony with a great marble façade. (We liked it, anyway; one of our uncouth companions preferred the more basic wood.)

Having said all that, we should say all this. If you make the trip to see Shakespeare in the Shenandoah, don’t expect to feel like you’ve traveled back into the Renaissance. For one thing, the ASC apparently does not have a large budget for costumes. During Macbeth, some characters wore approximations of ancient Scottish clothes, while others were dressed as gangsters. In Volpone, Sir Politic Would-be wore a bright yellow zoot suit that he might have stolen from Flavor Flav. But the effect of all this is more slap-dash or impressionistic than embarrassingly pretentious. Similarly, the actors play songs before the play and during intermissions, all of which were modern but appropriate to the plots. Before Macbeth they played “Leave Your Lights On” by Everlast & Santana. Never one of my favorites, but it worked. And again, they’d only do this before the play and during intermissions, so it was never distracting.

My only complaint about the ASC is that they sell bumper stickers that say something like, “The American Shakespeare Company does it with the lights on.” Those jokes were never especially funny, just like their cousins, the “Co-ed Naked” sports t-shirts from the nineties. But most of them at least make sense to the average observer. You don’t need to know a coal miner to understand the humor behind “coalminers do it in the dark.” But if you saw the ASC’s bumper sticker on a Prius or Jetta you’d have to ask the driver what it meant. The goateed young man or lip-pierced young woman would then go into a 15-minute rant about universal lighting, bastardized versions of Shakespeare (perhaps even using some lame term like “Fakespeare”), and remind you why you never hung out with the theater crowd in high school.

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Staging Shakespeare, Part I: The Bad

If you’ve seen a Shakespeare play recently, you know exactly where this Onion headline is coming from: “Unconventional Director Sets Shakespeare Play In Time, Place Shakespeare Intended.” Modern directors seem to assume that what audiences find most difficult about Shakespeare’s plays isn’t their language, but the socio-political relevance of their settings. So directors displace the plots, characters, and even the language into what they estimate is a modern equivalent of the original place and time.

A few months ago, we saw a staging of The Taming of the Shrew that maintained the play’s original language, but combined plot lines, altered scenes, and took place in a trailer park in some un-named and stereotypical part of the Deep South. To be fair, the set was impressive, complete with a dirty kiddy pool, a picnic table, and even a trailer with a porch and an old refrigerator outside. But this set underscored the absurdity of the director’s adaption: why set a play in so different a time and place without also changing the language? Presumably because the language is impossible to improve upon. But transferring Shakespeare's language into a totally different setting makes both the language and the setting seem…ridiculous. Neither is realistic, neither is credible. Of course, the director of this version of The Taming of the Shrew had a political point to make. That play troubles modern audiences, so he wanted to emphasize the cruelty Kate experiences. At the same time, as he explained in the playbill, he set it in the present to show that the situation of women really hasn’t made much progress since Shakespeare’s day, and are still treated like cattle. (He actually used the metaphor. Who should be insulted by this remark, the women in the audience or the men?)

In 2005 we saw a performance of Julius Caesar that, while less excessive, was still very frustrating because it was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon. This production was set in some vague recent time, which we could tell because for the first three acts, the actors wore suits rather than togas. That adaptation doesn’t require much of an imaginative leap, because we have an easy time imagining that today’s politicians don’t differ much from Roman ones. Things became less convincing at Act IV, when the politicians traded their suits for camouflage uniforms and semi-automatic machine guns. Today’s politicians declare wars; they don’t actually fight in them. The people we had been imagining as politicians suddenly seemed like grown men running around in plastic toys. We were embarrassed for them. The director’s decision actually highlighted the differences between Caesar’s time and ours, which we suspect was the opposite of what he wanted.

Perhaps directors make such decisions in part to show how relevant Shakespeare still is. We can appreciate that, because we agree. But displacing the time and place of the original plays without adapting the language—without writing a new script, basically—is a clunky device that makes both the director and Shakespeare seem foolish and irrelevant. (And it’s also a bit condescending to the audience, as if we couldn’t identify the play’s relevance to modern times without the director’s heavy-handed help.) If we wanted modern versions of Shakespeare’s plays, we’d rent The West Side Story, 10 Things I Hate About You, or Scotland, PA . The language wouldn’t be as beautiful, but at least we wouldn't get the sense that it was being yoked onto totally different. (And in the case of Scotland, PA, we’d get to enjoy some Bad Company all movie long!)

But the news isn’t all bad. We’ll continue post a heartening sequel to this missive over the weekend.

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Small Consolation from A.E. Housman

In memory of Ryan Shay.
"To An Athlete Dying Young"

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

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It's Been a While But We're Back in Style...

We apologize for our extended absence. We’ve been very busy over the past few months: some of us have expanded their family and taken the LSATs, while others have relocated to a secure location deep in the mountains. All the while we’ve been hoarding material and subject matter to post. For example…

The Spring/Summer issue of Arion has a fairly surprising piece by Camille Paglia arguing for the central role of religion in a revitalization of arts in America. Paglia reminds us that she’s “a professed atheist and a pro-choice libertarian Democrat”; nonetheless, she contends that “a renaissance of the American fine arts lies through religion.” In either a totally deft or tone-deaf rhetorical move, she targets both the left and the right for the divorce of art and faith:

For the fine arts to revive, they must recover their spiritual center. Profaning the iconography of other people's faiths is boring and adolescent….To fully appreciate world art, one must learn how to respond to religious expression in all its forms. Art began as religion in prehistory. It does not require belief to be moved by a sacred shrine, icon, or scripture. Hence art lovers, even when as citizens they stoutly defend democratic institutions against religious intrusion, should always speak with respect of religion. Conservatives, on the other hand, need to expand their parched and narrow view of culture. Every vibrant civilization welcomes and nurtures the arts.

Progressives must start recognizing the spiritual poverty of contemporary secular humanism and reexamine the way that liberalism too often now automatically defines human aspiration and human happiness in reductively economic terms. If conservatives are serious about educational standards, they must support the teaching of art history in primary school—which means conservatives have to get over their phobia about the nude, which has been a symbol of Western art and Western individualism and freedom since the Greeks invented democracy. Without compromise, we are heading for a soulless future. But when set against the vast historical panorama, religion and art—whether in marriage or divorce—can reinvigorate American culture.

Though we here at Mahwah obviously agree with her general argument, we find it a bit condescending. Her tone is a sort of pat on the back, reassuring religion that even though it’s wrong, it sure is a nice, “complex symbol system,” and darn it, people like it! That said, we much prefer this approach to the alternative offered by evangelical atheists like Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, et al.

What makes it hardest to stand by her argument is this embarrassing mischaracterization of world music:

In popular music, the spasmodic undulations and ecstatic cries of camp-meeting worshippers were borrowed by performers like Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and the late, great James Brown, whose career began in gospel and who became the “godfather of soul” as well as of funk, reggae, and rap. Gospel music, passionate and histrionic, with its electrifying dynamics, is America 's grand opera. The omnipresence of gospel here partly explains the weakness of rock music composed in other nations—except where there has been direct influence by American rhythm and blues, as in Great Britain and Australia.

Umm, Ms. Paglia—haven’t you ever heard of Sweden? You know, the nation that gave us ABBA? The Cardigans? Roxette? Ace of Base? The Hives? Scorpions?

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A Prediction

Posting will be even more sparse than usual for the rest of the month and probably into early August. We're moving and we're traveling. Bide your time by reading Andre Dubus's "Miranda Over the Valley," about which we plan on writing when we get the chance.

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Richard Wilbur's Religious Poetry

We haven’t been posting lately because sinister forces, scandalized by The Crytogram of Caravaggio, have silenced us. But we have escaped their deadly grasp…for now.

In other news...the other day I was flipping through the Library of America’s American Religious Poems, an anthology whose title is a bit misleading, since many of the poems are actually anti-religious...sort of like including Hitchens in a collection of great religious thinkers. But there are good poems in it, including several by Richard Wilbur. Here’s “The Proof”:

Shall I love God for causing me to be?
I was mere utterance; shall these words love me?

Yet when I caused his work to jar and stammer,
And one free subject loosened all his grammar,

I love him that he did not in a rage
Once and forever rule me off the page,

But, thinking I might come to please him yet,
Crossed out delete and wrote his patient stet.

In the fantastic collection of interviews Fourteen on Form, Dr. Baer talks to Wilbur about the role of religion in his poetry. Baer notes that much of Wilbur’s work--including “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” (one of my all-time favorites—Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry!), “A Christmas Hymn,” “Matthew VIII, 28ff.,” “Peter,” “A Wedding Toast”--has “the sense of a part of the world that goes beyond just the material.” Wilbur responds:

Probably I can, in a loose way, be classified as a religious poet. It’s harder nowadays to write poetry that lies comfortably and coherently within the boundaries of some particular faith, than it used to be. There is nothing limited about George Herbert’s poetry, but it is poetry which cheerfully accepts the whole vocabulary and vision of Anglicanism. I’m an Anglican, I guess, but because I’m three centuries after George Herbert, I don’t write in an Anglican vocabulary, or always with a governed vision that specifically belongs to any one faith. (13-14).

That remark says so much about how religion has faded in the public sphere and the creative mind. His reference to “the vocabulary” of a religion is particularly interesting to me, because it suggests that we just don’t know how to talk or write about what we believe, that we’ve lost a shared way of communicating about these things. That said, Wilbur manages pretty well for somebody without a “whole vocabulary.”

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The Cryptogram of Caravaggio

Since Wednesday's post, we've heard from many readers who've been eager and anxious to view the manuscript fragment retrieved by Randal Bufton and sent to us. We want to warn you once again, though, that its contents are very controversial, and are liable to offend, provoke, and otherwise shock many of your most deeply-held beliefs. But we believe that beliefs are most believable when their very believability face unbelievable doubts.

A final prefatory note before the feature presentation. Mr. Bufton notes that in the manuscript's margins, the un-known author has written: "Insert this during scene in museum, while Lincoln and Marie are in London." That we do not have the rest of the novel, or even the scene, is a great loss that calls to mind the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.

And so, if you are ready to forget all you know...and all you think you know, click below.


From The Cryptogram of Caravaggio:

For several moments they stared at the painting before them. Finally, Lincoln’s voice broke the silence.

“Truly remarkable,” he said.

“What is it?” Marie’s voice rose as if she were excited to know the answer to her question.

“I don’t know how I’ve overlooked this.”

She asked again, “What?” Her anticipation came through in the way she spoke.

“What I’ve observed is quite interesting!”

“I can’t wait to find out what it is.” If you could have heard her, you would be able to tell that she was very excited, and you would have believed it when she said, “I can’t wait to find out what it is.”

Lincoln directed her attention to the center of the canvas, on which Caravaggio had placed variously hued paints in a deliberate manner.

“Do you notice anything peculiar about the hands of Jesus?”

Marie observed the painting more carefully. Though this was her first time seeing this painting, it looked like many others by Caravaggio. She’d adored Caravaggio’s work since she was a little girl, when her grandfather, who—she would be shocked to learn much later—was also the father of one of her own parents, used to show her around the art museums of the remarkable European city in which she grew up. Even as a child she knew that Caravaggio had literally given birth to paintings that, metaphorically-speaking, amazed people to this day. You’d recognize many of these works, even if his name doesn’t ring a bell. He’s sort of like that band Three Dog Night—when you mention their name, everyone’s like, “who’s that?” Then you say, “You know,” and start singing “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!” and “Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the music!” and “Momma told me not to come!” and “American Woman!” Then the person’ll say, “oh yeah, I know them! They’re awesome!” But you’d be wrong, because the Guess Who does “American Woman,” but they’re another band like that. In fact, the Guess Who’s a better example, because Three Dog Night didn’t write their own songs, but the Guess Who did, and Caravaggio painted his own stuff.

He was very successful in his own lifetime, but one day he killed a person and had to flee Rome. He spent the rest of his life on the lamb, which was a strange form of transportation even then. Still, the Italian continued to paint nice things until he died suddenly of very mysterious causes, joining Keats, Dickinson, and Cobain in the pantheon of visionaries too soon lost to this world.

She’d memorized every detail of the painter’s greatest works. So she was delighted to be staring at an un-discovered masterpiece, but frustrated that she was unable to answer Lincoln’s quiz. No matter how much she squinted her eyes or blurred her vision, no image hidden in the background gradually appeared in the forefront. It remained a typical Caravaggio, with a single light source, dramatic action, and an event that was probably based on some book, maybe a play by Shakespeare or Chaucer or someone like that.

“I can’t see what you’re talking about,” she articulated. Her voice was now sad, almost unhappy. “Everything looks fine to me.”

Though they’d only spent a few hours together, Marie had the impression that she knew Professor Rupert Lincoln fairly well. As soon as she met him, Marie sensed that Lincoln was about six feet tall and had an athletic build, rare among scholars of his stature. She could tell that he liked to wear a sports coat, cotton Dockers, a checkered dress shirt and a solid tie. With his charming demeanor and full head of hair, peppered with salt-colored gray streaks, she knew he had no trouble attracting women. As a professor, he was popular among his students; as a scholar, revered by his peers; as an author of popular-yet-respected art history books suitable for the classroom and coffee-table, successful.

Perhaps she knew him so well because their hours together were exceptionally exciting: first the discovery of the body in that strange place; then the phone call at an odd hour; a couple of people whom neither of them trusted very much; that one person who she trusted but he didn’t, and whom she shouldn’t have and he was right not to; the woman he trusted and she didn’t, and once again he was right because it turns out that woman was only speaking Portuguese, not in anagrams as Marie had suspected.

“Are you sure?” he asked. This was in response to her statement that everything about the painting looked just fine; she’d said that just a moment ago; it only feels like longer.

“Yes. It looks just like any other Caravaggio. What do you see?”

“Let me put it this way: I’d love to give you a hand.” Then he pointed at the canvas, directly at the hands of Jesus.

“They’re closed,” she said. “So what?”

“Remember the painting we saw in Rome early this morning?”

Of course she did. Its image was seared in her consciousness like a strong memory. “He was pointing right at St. Matthew,” she said.

“Yes, he was. The position of his hand gesture was based on Michelangelo’s painting of the creation on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. There both God and Adam are gesturing that way.”

“Then it’s quite appropriate,” she ventured, “that Caravaggio would have Jesus pose that way, since the Sistine Chapel is such a masterpiece.”

Lincoln shook his head ruefully. “If only it were that simple, Marie. If only.” She could tell by the way that his second sentence repeated a key phrase from his first that this regret was sincere.

“This is not a matter of mere art history,” he continued. “No, I’m afraid it’s much more than that. This painting may change everything we ever thought about Caravaggio, and even Christianity.”

He paused for several seconds.

“My interest is piqued,” she said.

“As you probably know, the world used to be a crazy place, thanks in no small part to the invention of the printing press in 1492 or thereabouts. Before the printing press, very few people could read. Those few who could read were easy to identify even when they weren’t reading. You see, people who read a lot become reliant on visual gestures for communication. Hearing is no longer enough; they must also see the information they want. Because before the printing press very few people could read, hand gestures were a mark of refinement and education. Just as you can now identify a person’s personality by the car they drive and the clothes they wear, before the printing press the extent of their gesturing was a fair barometer of wealth.”

“Only an idiot would not find this fascinating,” said Marie.

“I know. But with the advent of the printing press, more people read; as more people read, more people gestured. Soon it was like a popular dance move: everyone was doing it. Chubby Checkers would’ve written a song about it. So by the time Caravaggio was born, gestures were not an upper-class symbol, but a lower-class one. Consequently, to represent their distance from the masses, the rich began to gesture less.”

“I think I can see why representations of Christ would be so significant. But please explain to make sure I’m right.”

“Of course. It was important for painters of the time be as theologically accurate as possible, so when gesturing became a mark of poverty, the Vatican insisted that paintings represent Jesus as a gesturer, like the poor people he served. That explains Caravaggio’s painting of St. Matthew. And do you remember the one we saw in the millionaire’s mansion in Paris this morning?”

“Yes! He was raising Lazarus from the dead with the same gesture.”

“Precisely. And the postcards in the airport in Egypt this afternoon?”

“He was blessing the bread with the same gesture. He does it again in the later version of the painting we saw in Beijing just before dinner!”

“Yes. And in some of the works, saints make the same gesture. Like the one of St. Thomas hanging in Reykjavik we saw during desert.”

“And the one of St. Andrew in Cairo.”

“Precisely.”

“And when St. Peter denies Jesus, he makes the opposite gesture—he points inward!”

“Let’s not get carried away. The point is that Caravaggio’s paintings conveyed the party line of the Vatican. And thanks to his paintings, Christians continue to believe that Jesus was a poor man; and as a result, Italians still gesture emphatically when they speak!”
But around this time arose an underground, heretical sect called the Society Not of Belief. Basing their opinions on ancient scrolls and apocryphal texts, the SNOBs argued that Jesus was, in fact, rich. Not only had Mary’s parents been loaded, but Joseph’s carpentry business didn’t do so bad for itself. When Joseph died, Jesus inherited the family fortune.”

“So that’s why the Bible doesn’t even mention that Joseph died!”

“Precisely. With that money, Jesus retired early and traveled the Middle East before getting mugged at Calvary.”

The truth dawned on Marie, casting its light on her mind the way the sun casts light on the horizon at the end of the day. “So if the Society of Not Belief is right, then much of the Bible is just wrong, right? All that talk about the poor inheriting the earth?”

“Rubbish.”

“That last shall be first, the first shall be last?”

“Not so much.”

“What about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than the rich to enter Heaven?”

“That one just doesn’t even make any sense!”

“And you’re suggesting that this painting means that…”

Suddenly a door slammed upstairs. They stayed as still as possible. They could recognize the heavy footsteps of the murderous nun with the acne problem.

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The Cryptogram of Caravaggio: Preface

Several years ago, The Da Vinci Code radically altered the way we think about the Catholic Church and how we use the English language ("Monet literally gave birth to the Impressionist Movement"). Now a mysterious new novel promises to pick up where Dan Brown left off, and that's bad news for Catholics everywhere.

A reader named Randal Bufton, whom I don't know but who is apparently pretty smart because he likes this site, sent us a very strange, very troubling manuscript. After reading the document myself, I've decided that it's so important it merits a double-post. Today I'll post his explanation for how he got hold of what he sent us. Later this week I'll post the amazing text itself.

Without further ado, here's Mr. Bufton's preface:

"I was at my neighborhood franchise of a national chain of coffee shops last week, reading the Times and listening to the incredible new Paul McCartney album (fyi, it really is as good as his Wings material!) when I was distracted by the commotion at a nearby table. Two men were having a quite heated exchange. One of them looked like a student, the other was a priest (I'm basing this on his attire -- he was wearing a habit or whatever you call it) in his middle ages. The priest was saying, 'You don't realize what this means! This could do irreparable harm to everything we know!' The student was shaking his head vigorously and waving sheets of paper, saying, 'No Father, I DO know what it means, which is why I'm writing it -- the truth must be told!'

"At that, the priest reached over the table to grab the manuscript, but was only able to seize a few pages before his adversary drew them out of reach and ran out the door. Rather than giving chase, the priest cursed in frustration, then crumpled the papers and stuffed them into his half-finished grande latte. He sat there and shook his for a few minutes before leaving, and once he was gone a mob of patrons and baristas rushed to his table to see the document that had so upset him. I managed to get there first to retrieve the cup and its controversial contents.

"After shaking the excess coffee and cream from the sheets, I saw no no name attached to the document, nor was there a date. It was handwritten in black ink on looseleaf paper, apparently college-ruled.

"Though I'm not Catholic, I found the fragments quite shocking, and it indeed did upend all that I knew about Christianity. Knowing that yours is one of the most [important] and [interesting] websites around, I thought you'd be interested in reading and posting this."

Indeed we are. Stay tuned for the manuscript itself...

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