By Sanko Lewis
To confirm my understanding, I asked Pastor Maberly if he wanted me to give a sermon about Romantic poetry. “No, not a sermon,” he said, “a talk. A literary talk.” So this is what I am purposed to do this Sabbath morning: an academic talk on poetry to a Christian audience.
The assumption is that there is something from my discipline—that is literature, poetry in particular, and specifically Romantic poetry—that an audience like yourself may find of value. You may ask if there is actually something you can gain from a talk on poetry? It is probably worth being reminded that large portions of the Holy Scriptures are written in poetic diction. There are the obvious culprits: the book of Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. Apart from these, many other sections of the Bible are also poetic, for instance the very first chapter of the Bible, the Creation account, is a poem—something that may be missed by most readers of Genesis. So obviously an understanding of poetry in general could be useful when approaching the Bible's poetic texts, but is there anything to be gained by consulting extra-biblical poetry? Christians have the Bible and we are told in the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16), so that any additional non-canonical material—that is, anything from outside of the Christian Bible—is usually considered obtuse, superficial, redundant and even profane. Secular poetry, unlike the biblical psalms, is not thought of as “given by the inspiration of God,” and one would be tempted to argue therefore not “profitable.” Note, however, that Paul was speaking of Scripture specifically, not of other texts. It is not insensible to consider other texts, like poetic texts, to also be profitable, but, of course, in different ways. Secular poetry is not the Christian's first oracle of choice “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” although some poems do ponder such matters. Rather, the Christian approaches literature as one would approach other sources of instruction where the godly-minded person may perceive glimpses of the Divine, such as nature, philosophy, the sciences, and yes, also the aesthetic arrangement of language chosen for their meaningful, figurative and lyrical qualities. The latter, of course, being a simple definition of poetry.
So what is it that a Christian can learn from poetry? I hope to discuss with you two “profitable” things that we can derive from poetry in general and Romantic poetry in particular: first, a rediscovery of Mythos; and second, a reawakening to the Numinous.
Romanticism
Before I speak on these points I feel it necessary to momentarily digress and first explain what I mean by Romantic poetry as it is possible that some may misunderstand the term. Romantic poems are not poems about romantic feelings as we generally use the word “romantic” today. While Romantic poetry is in a sense quite emotional, those emotions are not limited to feelings of love or lust for a romantic partner. Romantic poetry is generally passionate, but the passion is not by default devoted to a lover; in fact, very few Romantic poems are love poems. Devotion in Romantic poetry are frequently for something other than a loved one; Romantic poetry could be in praise of a daffodil or a rose, a sheep or tiger, a star or the west wind, or virtues like truth and bravery. Romantic poetry refers to the poetry, particularly English poetry, written during the Romanticism, aka Romantic Era, that started in the 1780s and continued well into the 19th century, coinciding with the many revolutions of that period, such as the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the revolutions in the United States and elsewhere. Romanticism was in a sense also a revolution. It revolted against the obsession with the rationalization and industrialization of that period which considered human beings little more than automatons—robots. Although this was a time of wonderful scientific discovery and industrial progress, it was those in power—the aristocratic state and its supportive religions—that seemed to enjoy true benefit, while the common man continued to suffer greatly; hence the revolutions. (Hence, also, the revolutions we see in our own time.) Percy Bysshe Shelley describes the England of his time as follows:
England, 1819The leaders are “dregs,” “leech-like.” The army that should protect liberty destroys it. The Church is “Christless” and “Godless.” (Descriptions quite fitting for our day as well.) People were not merely oppressed physically—“starved and stabbed in the untilled field,” but also mentally; the Romantics would probably say spiritually as well. The poet William Blake described their minds as “manacled.”
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,--
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring,--
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,--
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,--
An army which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,--
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless, a book sealed,--
A Senate--Time's worst statute unrepealed,--
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.
The emphasis of the time on rationalization and industrialization praised a stern, mechanical, and overtly rational—i.e. logical—intellectualism focussed on left-brain thinking, which was scornful of the free expression of emotions, inhibitive of passionate feelings and, restrictive of the imagination—i.e. right-brain thinking. Yes, this rational obsessiveness provided wonderful scientific advancement and industrial progress, but these would become the forge that would eventually bring us the destructive power of the great world wars. The science that brought us the engine also brought us the sweatshop, the tank, and eventually the atom bomb. The Romantics revolted with a near prophetic insight. They recognized that the human being cannot be viewed as a mere automaton, a soulless, machinery. They understood that something in our souls die in city and factory. They grasped the importance of nature and her ability to quicken our spirits. They intuited the value of the imagination and its mystical ability to rise us up above our miseries. They appreciated the value the subconscious, of the inner-man, as part of the whole person. They put their hope in some “glorious Phantom” (A rediscovery of man's connection with nature? A new Zeitgeist? A spiritual reawakening? God's divine Spirit?) that would “burst” forth and illuminate the “tempestuous” time that they lived in.
One can talk about Romanticism, but in the end it really needs to be felt to be understood.
Musical Interlude: Chopin's Prelude in E-Minor (Op. 28, No. 4)
It is with this backdrop of the Romanticism, that we will look at the two “profitable” things that I believe the Christian can gain from Romantic Poetry.
1. A Rediscovery of Mythos
The Enlightenment and resultant scientific age did a very good job at dispelling superstitious fiction and replacing it with enlightened scientific fact. That this was a good thing cannot be denied. We know today, for instance, that epilepsy is not caused by demon possession but by abnormal brain wiring or a disturbance in normal neuron activity and we can treat it with appropriate scientific treatments, not with mumbo-jumbo exorcisms. People of old knew nothing about brain wiring and neuron activity so they came up with an explanation, such as demon possession. We could say that they came up with a myth. “Myth,” in this sense, means something that is not scientific; an untruth. The assumption is that any explanation that is not scientific is not true, and therefore a myth; however, this is not necessarily the case. Let me give you an example: “The sun came up this morning.” This statement is true, but it is not scientific. You will all agree with me that the sun did come up this morning, but scientifically that is not true. Rather, the earth rotated around it's axis and our part of the planet became exposed to the sun's rays and as our position to the sun changes as the earth rotates through its 24 hour cycle we notice the sun at different positions relative to us, giving the illusion that the sun is moving across the sky.
There is therefore a type of myth that is scientifically untrue—like the sun coming up—but which is nevertheless true—the sun did come up. Raffaele Pettazzoni, in his article “The Truth of Myth” talks about “true stories” and “false stories.” The sun coming up is a story—a myth—but it is a true myth. The reason we can accept both the earth rotating on its axis and the sun coming up as true accounts of the same event is because, as Pettazzoni puts it, “. . . human thought is mythical and logical at the same time” (107).
The ancient Greeks used two words to describe these two types of knowledge: Mythos and Logos. Logos, of course, is the etymological root for our English word “logic,” referring to rational reasoning. Mythos refers to those “true stories” that Pettazzoni spoke about; stories that reveal truths that although not necessarily scientifically accurate are nevertheless true. Karen Armstrong, in her book The Case for God (2009) explains that in ancient times both Logos and Mythos were thought of as “essential and neither was considered superior to the other; they were not in conflict but complimentary” (2). She continues to explain that “Logos ('reason') was the pragmatic mode of thought that enable people to function effectively in the world. It had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality . . . But it had its limitations: it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life's struggles. For that, people turned to mythos or 'myth'” (3).
In our scientific age Logos have become the only acceptable truth. When something cannot be verified scientifically, it is regarded as an untruth. Myth, in our time is put aside as mere fiction, i.e. fantasy. This resulted in a loss of Mythos – a major resource of truths put aside and unexplored.
Today, when most people read the old myths, they read it from a scientifically indoctrinated paradigm that can tell you much about biology but little about life. All they see is fantasy, but fail to see the Mythos, the truth embedded in the fantasy. For this reason people read the old myths of gods dying and being reborn and think that the Christian story is just another one of these fictional fantasies. Because they could not see the Mythos, neither could they recognise the myth became Logos. In his essay “Truth Became Myth” C. S. Lewis explains it as follows:
Now as myth transcends thought, incarnation transcends myth. The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the dying God without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens – at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical person crucified . . . under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle.
The Old Testament Bible as well as some of the pagan mythologies tell similar myths: the Mythos of the “dying God” that through his sacrificial death makes a way of salvation for mankind. In the Old Testament it is typified in the Levitical sacrificial system, in the prophetic words of Isaiah and Daniel, in the poetic language of the Psalms, and so on. When the Mythos became Logos, when the mythical God became a factual person, when Jesus came as the Word incarnate (John 1:14) and lived as a real man at a specific time and place, it was those that rightly recognized the Mythos that could accept him. If you understand “the sun came up this morning” it is easier to recognize “the earth is turning on its axis.” Religion is not “pure rational thinking which knows nothing of myth . . .” says Pettazzoni (107), nor is it pure myth that knows nothing of rational thinking. Mythos and Logos should not be seen as in “conflict but complimentary.” It requires a combination of both to get the whole picture: “To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths. The one is hardly more necessary than the other is,” explains C. S. Lewis.
Jesus underscored the importance of Mythos during His earthly ministry. Most of Jesus' teaching was in the telling of stories. He taught truths through Mythos. He could tell us the fact—the Logos—that God loves us, but it is the Mythos through the parable of the prodigal son that returns home and is unconditionally received, loved and forgiven by the father, that gives us a true sense of God's love towards us. Logos alone is not enough to understand religious truths.
Poetry can help us rediscover Mythos, for poetry is ultimately a 'mythical' use of language, concerned more with connotative meaning (Mythos) than denotative meaning (Logos).
To the Evening Star – William Blake
Thou fair-hair'd angel of the evening,
Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And then the lion glares through the dun forest:
The fleeces of our flocks are cover'd with
Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence!
One cannot understand this poem from a purely rationalistic paradigm. The speaker is talking to the evening star. Why would anybody want to talk to the planet Venus, the second planet from the Sun, with an atmosphere made up of mostly carbon dioxide and clouds consisting of sulphuric acid? Of course, the speaker is not talking to the planet, but to Venus, the goddess of love. Yet this is not it either: the speaker is evoking the myth of the Grecian goddess of love, but as we have discussed earlier, the myth is merely a story. Embedded in the story is the Mythos—a truth. The speaker is praying not to the planet Venus, nor to the Grecian goddess, but to the Ultimate Reality of Love. Because science fails to describe God and logic comes short, we need a myth, to reveal to us something of the Mythos, the mythical truth, of God. Mythos helps us see the God of Love that “smile upon our evening bed” and protect our loved ones from “wolf” and “lion.” These, of course, being neither just a factual wolf (canis lupus) nor just a factual lion (panthera leo), but whichever frightening and dangerous thing there may be that intends to harm our “flocks.” The poem “To the Evening Star” is a prayer to the God of love to protect our “flocks”—our loved ones, our children, our property—against the “wolfs” and “lions” of this world, particularly during the night time, those times of darkness when we are at our most vulnerable. We can sleep peacefully when we know that God's “influence” is protecting those whom we care for.
2. A Sense of the Numinous
Musical Interlude: Chopin's Funeral March (Final section: 6:56-9:33)
Not only did the obsessive rationalism, the industrial age, science's hijacking of all truth, and city-life deprive us of Mythos, it also took away from us any sense of the numinous.
In his book The Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto described the numinous experience as mysterium tremendum et fascinans, “a fearful and fascinating mystery.” A numinous occurrence is a mysterious experience leaving you in fear-and-trembling, but also in awe. When was the last time you stood in fear and trembling before anything? When last did you experienced something of awe: simultaneously awful and awesome? I remember once standing on a pier in Durban, South Africa, hundreds of meters into the ocean. Standing at the edge I looked down at the waves below me, the emerald apexes two-three-four meters above the base of the wave. I was overcome by a feeling, not merely vertigo, but a sense of awe at the fearsome power of the ocean. When you saw the footage of the recent tsunami, what emotions rose in you? Did you also stand amazed and terrified at the unimaginable force that swept away buildings, uprooted trees, flicked over trucks, extinguished lives, all in a seemingly effortless display of power? When you see satellite pictures of hurricanes big enough to cover half of a continent, what feelings are ignited in you? Living in cities few people get a chance to experience the majesty of the night sky and fewer still have ever experienced the mindbogglingly vastness of the heavens, a vastness that makes you realise how infinitely small you are by comparison.
Something that the Romantic poets realized was that the modern era with its scientific explanations that negates all mystery and living so removed from nature, causes one to lose a sense of the numinous. Without a sense of the numinous it is difficult to have a sense of the majesty of God, which is greater still than the oceans and the heavens. To the Romantic poets, mystery is a key element to being truly human. For this reason they put emphasis on the creative act, on the subconscious, on dreams, on the imagination, even on death: the mysterious things. But it is in nature where they feel that special ingredient—where the mysterious seem to touch the soul, where the numinous can be felt.
William Blake's poem “The Tyger” is considered one of the most anthologised poems in English. I think part of what makes it so popular is that it gives a sense of the numinous:
The Tyger – William BlakeThe speaker describes a tiger—a ferocious magnificent beast. The black stripes on its orange hide creates the image of tongues of fire, making the animal seem to be burning. It's eyes glows like coals. It's muscles and sinews seem to be forged from steal. An adult tiger can weigh 300 kg (660 pounds), be three meters in length (around 11ft), with canines of about 10 centimetres (four inches) long. They can reach a speed of over 60 km per hour (nearly 40 miles an hour) and can jump horizontally nearly 10 meters. Imagine you find yourself sitting right next to this ferocious predator while it is asleep. It may wake up at any second and find you there within striking distance of its giant, scalpel-sharp claws. A strike with a tiger's paw is strong enough to fracture your skull or break your back. Dread, fantastic dread, is the emotion that comes to mind. The tiger is at once mysterium tremendum and mysterium fascinans—mysteriously fearful and fascinating. But even greater than the tiger, is the Creator of the tiger, the mythical blacksmith in the poem that forged the tiger, using mythical blacksmith's tools, a “hammer,” an “anvil,” a “furnace,” with which to make the fearsome predator. The blacksmith retrieved the fire from which the tiger's eyes are made from some mythical far-off place, “distant deeps or skies.” The blacksmith twisted the sinews of the tiger's heart like one would twist wires; he moulded the tiger's brain in a furnace. And when the ferocious beast began to live, when its “heart began to beat,” the blacksmith feared it not. The poem introduces us to a being even more fearful than the tiger. In this poem we are confronted with the numinous.
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
...ooOoo...
We live in a time of “myth busting.” The skies are so polluted that stars cannot inspire us. These days it sadly requires tragic natural disasters to instil in us a sense of the numinous. The poets, particularly the Romantic poets, reminds us of both Mythos and the numinous. From Mythos we learn truth that science cannot articulate. C. S. Lewis was of the opinion that “men have sometimes derived more spiritual sustenance from myths they did not believe than from the religion they professed.” From the numinous we are reminded of that which is wholly other and greater than us. We are reminded of how awfully awesome God is.
Like the accomplished photographer that helps us see better the beauty or tragedy that is all around us, poetry's purpose is to remind us to look at the world with a reawakened sense of the great themes of life. I finish my talk with the hope that you feel inspired to rediscover both the mythical and the numinous. While the Romantic poets are concerned with both, they are not the only place—or maybe not even the best place—to be exposed to either Mythos or the numinous. If we were to ask the Romantic poets where to find Mythos or the numinous, I think they would tell us to get out of the cities and into nature. Good advice. And Shelley would probably admonish us that our religion should not be “Christless, Godless,” and with “a book sealed,” so let us search for the mythical-factual Christ, for the Numinous God and let us open the Book. We return to the Scriptures “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” but we can also find in the Scriptures great examples of both Mythos and the numinous. Read the poetic books and the prophecies for Mythos, the Torah or the final chapters of the book of Job for a sense of the numinous and go to the Gospels to see their culmination. In the life, death and resurrection of Christ we see Mythos become Logos, myth become fact. Before the empty tomb we are confronted with a mythical, numinous, nevertheless factual Being that is killed, yet conquers death and lives again, and whom invites us to share in His triumph.
Amen
