Keach and poetics (pt. 3)

Hohenschwangau, Bavaria

2. Christ is the Spring, or the Original
Of earthly beauty, and Celestial.
That beauty which in glorious Angels shine,
Or is in Creatures natural, or Divine,
It flows from him: O it is he doth grace
The mind with glorious beauty, as the face.

(The Glorious Lover, II.iii.49-54)

Following his discussion of the desirability of Christ's beauty, Keach turns his attention to its originality. 

Although there isn't any explicit reference to it, I think it's possible that Keach is interacting with Platonic thought in this passage. This comes through in several ways. In one sense, we see Plato's theory of forms in the tension Keach highlights between contingent, finite beauty we experience as humans and its relationship to its perfect, infinite “counterpart” in the character of God. Earthly beauty exists as a shadow of divine beauty, because the created by its very nature can only serve as a sort of typology for the creator. Earthly types and heavenly fulfillment is a common theme in puritan writing, as seen in Lewis Bayly's flagship text on spirituality, The Practice of Piety:

“...if thou believest that God is beauty and perfection itself, why dost not thou make him alone the chief end of all thine affections and desires? for if thou lovest beauty, he is most fair; if thou desirest riches, he is most wealthy; if thou seekest wisdom, he is most wise. Whatsoever excellency thou hast seen in any creature, it is nothing but a sparkle of that which is in infinite perfection in God...”

Keach also emphasizes way God's beauty is the origin or source of beauty as we experience it. Its function as a fountainhead for created beauty establishes its authority over the latter, as well as showcasing its role as the source which creates and empowers it. Because of this relationship, earthly beauty, at its best, is characterized by its humility. It is not something that is meant to draw attention to itself, but rather to draw the beholder's attention back to its divine origins. Yet, at the same time, this relationship also elevates earthly experiences of beauty because of their ability to connect humanity with the numinous.

I think it's also important to note that while the philosophical undertones are an interesting possibility here, it's likely that Keach is primarily focused on emphasizing orthodox trinitarian concepts like God's aseity and simplicity, and the way we bear his image in His communicable attributes. Not only is He the font from which we receive our experience of beauty or even beauty in its perfection, He is beauty. There's a sense that this portion of The Glorious Lover synthesizes New Testament discussions of God's ontology with the bride's joy in the beauty of her beloved in the Song of Solomon:

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever.” (Romans 11.36)

“The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.” (Acts 17.24-28a)

“My beloved is dazzling and ruddy,
Outstanding among ten thousand.
...And he is wholly desirable.
This is my beloved and this is my friend,
O daughters of Jerusalem.” (Song of Solomon 5.10, 16)

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Keach concludes the passage with an interesting distinction between beauty of the “mind” and beauty of the “face.” On one level, this can be understood as a comparison between inner and outer beauty. In Sonnet XV of his Amoretti cycle, Spenser devotes the first twelve lines of his poem cataloguing his beloved's appealing physical traits, but, in the turn, he declares that her most important/precious feature is her character:

“But that which fairest is, but few behold,
  her mind adornd with vertues manifold.”

However, it's crucial to recognize that this is not simply a distinction between internal and external qualities (I'm staring at you, Every Contemporary Beauty Movement), but more precisely, a focus on the relationship between beauty and intellect. In the Renaissance context, beauty was not valued only for carnal/physical considerations, but, more importantly, for its intellectual qualities. To view it as a merely material phenomenon was to debase it to an animalistic drive and turn it into lust. This is where we get all the epithets about “brutish” appetites. Beauty was pure and true when it engaged all aspects of being human; in this context, it elevated the individual. Thus we see in Shakespeare's (most?) famous sonnet language that glorifies the enduring nature of an intellectual love connection over the vanishing appeal of the senses:

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
...Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come...” (CXVI)

All in all, it's an emphasis on conceptual beauty, or, in other words, virtue gained through understanding. For Keach, this ties back to the reformed dogma that faith and knowledge necessarily go hand in hand. Hearing the Word brings about faith (i.e. the ability to see Christ's beauty), and once we have this faith, we can finally begin to know Him.

Finally, I find it interesting that Keach doesn't mitigate material/earthly beauty here, but rather, affirms it. The key is that it must always be tied to virtue. And so we circle back to the ubiquitous Renaissance understanding of aesthetics, of art as something intended to “delight and instruct” (Sidney). I think that we can see this as yet another instance of Keach's project of reinventing the romance genre into something fundamentally wholesome - a marriage of aesthetics and devotion.

[Part One]

[Part Two]

Keach and poetics (pt. 2)

Hofgarten, Munich

1. His Beauty is so much desirable,
No souls that see it any ways are able
For to withstand the influ’nce of the same;
They’re so enamour’d with it, they proclaim
There’s none like him in Earth, nor Heav’n above;
It draws their hearts, and makes them fall in love
Immediately, so that they cannot stay
From following him one minute of a day.
The flock is left, the Herd, and fishing Net,
As soon as e’er the Soul its Eye doth set
Upon his face, or of it takes a view,
They’ll cleave to him, whatever doth insue.

(The Glorious Lover, II.iii.37-48)

In the sections following his "prologue" to beauty, Keach outlines eight ways his revision of the epic/romance genre baptizes literary art. The beauty of Christ does not simply transcend earthly beauty; it transforms it into something like itself.

The first in the list is the desirability of Christ's beauty. Keach seems to be especially interested in connecting this trait with a broader theology of effectual calling that recurs throughout the poem. Divine calling of a sinner to salvation, in this light, is so attractive that the subject finds it irresistible. Keach goes out of his way to subtly underline the sinner's ability to even apprehend or conceive of such beauty; the credit does not lie in our capacity to recognize divine desirability, but rather in its "influence" that - though we try to "withstand" it - must necessarily overpower us. It's very reminiscent of the final talking point of Luther's Heidelberg Disputation: 

"The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it."

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Additionally, from a literary standpoint, it's interesting to see how Keach features sight as a motif in this section. One way he develops this theme is by exploring a sense of double blindness. The pre-conversion sinner is totally blind to the spiritual reality surrounding him: she cannot recognize or even see the beauty of Christ, much less appreciate it or take hold of it for herself. She is utterly disabled. However, the post-conversion Christian also experiences a type of blindness, but this time, it is toward the things of the world. This, combined with lines 40-41, suggest an allusion to Psalm 73:

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (vv. 25-26)

Just a glimpse of Christ is enough for the Christian to leave behind all secular concerns and gaze on Him - a gaze so strong that Keach considers it a kind of "cleaving." This focus on Christ effectively blinds the Christian to the doubts and material threats that accompany a relationship with God, because the Christian's eyes are "enamoured" with the greater spiritual reality now visible to her.

Keach's use of the word "enamour" here is interesting, given the Renaissance literary background The Glorious Lover emerges from in England. Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare often connect the experience of being in love with sickness and sorcery (the connection between the latter two would be familiar to readers because of the Greek term, "pharmakeia"). When Titania recovers from her love potion in A Midsummer Night's Dream, she exclaims:

My Oberon, what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamored of an ass. (IV.i.77-78)

To be "enamoured" was an inherently visual experience, as Shakespeare's Titania conceives of her love as a type of vision. Similarly, in his old Arcadia, Sidney utilizes the term in conjunction with the devious acts of Cupid (who is known for his arrows that, when striking someone, cause the victim to fall in love with the first person they see):

But whom to send for their search she knew not, when Cupid (I think for some greater mischief) offered this Plangus unto her, who from the day of her first imprisonment was so extremely enamoured of her that he had sought all means how to deliver her. (54)

Thus, to be enamoured is to be enchanted. Though he dispenses with the sinister undertones of the term present in mainstream literature, Keach remains very interested in its magical connotations. The Calvinism undergirding Keach's theology underscores the supernatural nature of conversion, and the notes of magic in his language reinforce both the spirituality as well as powerful intervention in natural affairs that is taking place.

Keach is not the first devotional poet to be drawn to the spiritual sight/blindness motif. There's a parallel moment in The Temple, in which Herbert frames conversion in language of sight and restoration:

 Our eies shall see thee, which before saw dust;
       Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blinde:
       Thou shalt recover all thy goods in kinde,
Who wert disseized by usurping lust:

       All knees shall bow to thee; all wits shall rise,
       And praise him who did make and mend our eies. ("Love II")

It isn't surprising that Keach is drawn to the sight motif in order to carry his point, given his extensive work on Scriptural metaphors and the prevalence of the trope in biblical literature. In Tropologia, Keach's introduction to the segment of metaphors pertaining to the word of God includes a lengthy discussion of light and sight. He writes:

As light is Glorious because it is the most Excellent Rayes, Resplendency and Shinings forth of the Sun; so is the Gospel, because 'tis the glorious shining forth and resplendency of Jesus Christ the Sun of Righteousness.

The light of the Gospel - contained in the words of Scripture - awakens faith in the sinner, enabling her eyes to see the glory and beauty of Christ.

-----

The overall tone of this passage is one of the spiritual transcending, intervening in, or overriding the carnal. The supernatural nature of the Gospel miraculously restores spiritual sight to blind eyes while simultaneously blinding them to the distractions of the world. Conceptions of beauty and ugliness become fluid in the accompanying reversal of values. This primacy of the spiritual echoes Keach's apology for his work, in which he condemns worldly versions of the romance genre and reinvents these forms for his spiritual task:

How many do their precious time abuse
On cursed products of a wanton Muse;
On trifling Fables, and Romances vain,
The poisoned froth of some infected Brain? (43-46)

Here’s no such danger, but all pure and chast;
A Love most fit by Saints to be embrac’d:
A Love ‘bove that of Women... (51-53)

Spiritually-enlightened poetry, which demonstrates the desirability of Christ by highlighting His beauty, redeems the romance genre from its corrupt uses in the secular realm. Enlightenment is a key theme in Keach's poetry, something he reinforces by baptizing the very genre itself.

[Part One]

Comedy and the Psalms

"The Kiss of Peace and Justice," Laurent de La Hyre

Praise the Lord!
Praise, O servants of the Lord,
Praise the name of the Lord.
Blessed be the name of the Lord
From this time forth and forever.
From the rising of the sun to its setting
The name of the Lord is to be praised.
The Lord is high above all nations;
His glory is above the heavens.

Who is like the Lord our God,
Who is enthroned on high,
Who humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in heaven and in the earth?
He raises the poor from the dust
And lifts the needy from the ash heap,
To make them sit with princes,
With the princes of His people.
He makes the barren woman abide in the house
As a joyful mother of children.
Praise the Lord!

(Psalm 113)

We frequently sing this psalm in church, and - confession here - it wasn't until recently, when the tune was stuck in my head for a week, that I thought about its lyrics on any "deep" level. (Not sure if I should be proud of that sentence?) Anyways, what really stood out to me is how God's intervention in human affairs often has a topsy-turvy effect on whatever it touches. The poor sit with princes, the childless become parents, the disgraced become joyful. It is a complete disruption in the expected, conventional social order.

This phenomenon reminded me a lot of one of the major tropes you find in comedies, particularly those of the Renaissance. Upset of the existing order is present in almost any comic plot. The formula of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a perfect example. It moves from order (the city of Athens, rule of law, parental/governmental/patriarchal authority, objectivity) to disorder (the forest, rule of magic, a power struggle between Titania and Oberon, and a dreamlike escape into a world that blurs the participants' grasp of reality), and then quickly restores the old order, but with modifications (restoration, harmony, marriage, benevolent interplay between the two societies). The conclusion features justice and mercy coming together in peace.

Although I used a Renaissance play to illustrate my point, ancient culture is full of the same trope. The Athenian comedies feature women unexpectedly ruling their husbands, while the Roman holiday of Saturnalia included a day in which masters served their slaves. In this light, I think it can be a helpful way to read the psalm as reminiscent of the phenomenon of deep comedy. God's work in our lives often functions as an upset in what we expect, but that is not a bad thing.

Interestingly, the psalmist reinforces this effect of God in human affairs by also meditating on its theological context first. The works of creation, providence, and salvation are all intrinsically acts of condescension on God's part. God's "glory is above the heavens" but He "humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth." In Christ's work of redemption, we witness Him leave the throne room of heaven to become "lower than the angels" (Hebrews 2.9) by living a difficult human life and experiencing a horrific death. But this is followed by His resurrection, ascension, and - everybody leaves this one out - session at the right hand of the Father. The order is restored, but there is now peace between God and man. Righteousness and mercy kiss (Psalm 85.10).

Ironically, in this context, the chaos becomes a comfort. It is a reminder that the children of God receive in their salvation something that fallen creatures would never deserve - twisted criminals are now heirs. It is a meditation on the merciful and humble nature of God, who was willing to exchange glory for shame. It is the reassurance that God is not absent, but rather at work - the presence of chaos (the middle portion of the cycle), necessarily implies the return of order and harmony (the restoration in the conclusion).

Keach and poetics

The gardens of Canterbury Cathedral

If beauty, wealth or honour thou dost prize,
I do present one now before thine Eyes,
That is the Object, this alone is he;
None, none like him did ever mortals see,
He is all fair, in him’s not one ill feature,
Ten thousand times more fair than any Creature
That lives, or ever lived on the Earth,
His Beauty so amazingly shines forth;
Angelick Nature is enamour’d so,
They love him dearly, and admire him too,
His Head is like unto the purest Gold,
His curled Tresses lovely to behold,
And such a brightness sparkles from his Eyes,
As when Aurora gilds the Morning Skies.
And tho’ so bright, yet lovely like the Doves,
Charming all hearts, where rests diviner Loves,
Look on his beauteous Cheeks, and thou’lt espy
The Rose of Sharon deckt in Royalty.
His smiling lips, his speech, and words so sweet
That all delights and joy in them do meet;
Which tends at once to ravish ear and sight,
And to a kiss all heavenly Souls invite.
The Image of his Father’s in his face;
His inward parts excel, he’s full of grace.
If Heaven and Earth can make a rare Complexion,
Without a spot, or the least imperfection;
Here, here it is, it in this Prince doth shine,
He’s altogether lovely, all Divine.

(The Glorious Lover, II.iii.9-36)

Between studying for my MA exam, graduating, getting married, working, and moving across several states, my work on Benjamin Keach has been relegated to the back burner for the past couple years. Lately, though, I've found time to resume my transcription project on his "epic" poem, The Glorious Lover. There's material in here for a doctoral dissertation (wink wink), but for now, I'm especially interested in this passage I came across yesterday, in which Keach turns his attention to a prolonged discussion of the beauty of Christ. The excerpt above is merely the prologue to his eight-item exposition on the topic. There's several things going on here that are worthy of consideration.

First, on a contextual level, Keach is obviously taking part in the ongoing Renaissance discussion of the relationship between beauty/aesthetics/poetic art and morality/didacticism/spirituality. Writers understood art and poetry to be more than ornamental forces; they were, more importantly, vehicles of communication. Sir Philip Sidney, whose Apologie for Poetrie has come to be the best-known Renaissance case for poetic art, explained it thus:

Poesie therefore is an arte of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in this word Mimesis, that is to say, a representing, counterfetting, or figuring foorth: to speake metaphorically, a speaking picture: with this end, to teach and delight... (p. 12)

Sidney goes on to pinpoint the "chiefe both in antiquitie & excellencie" of all poetic forms to be those that explicitly point their readers to the spiritual world by "imitat[ing] the inconceivable excellencies of GOD" (ibid.). He then goes on to list the major biblical and classical poets who produced devotional lyrics. Thus, in the world from which Keach emerged, the best poetry was that which encouraged its readers to be better (=godlier) people, and furthermore, the best type of this poetry was the kind which drew directly from Scripture itself.

Second, in grounding what follows in his discussion on the beauty of Christ, Keach is also taking part in the ubiquitous Western trope of courtly love (just a few examples include Dante, Spenser, and Herbert). In other words, by following the rules of the romance genre, he's connecting his work with that of his poetic predecessors (we know that Keach was familiar with the work of Herbert, for example). Interestingly, though, while he commits himself to following the generic romance conventions, he's also very invested in bending or outright flouting them. Whereas in Dante and Spenser, the beloved lady is a source of inspiration, the Soul of the Glorious Lover is a "vile wretched Creature" (I.i.208). Many times, there's more Hosea than Song of Solomon going on here. Keach is reinventing the genre, at once making it darker and yet simultaneously more wholesome.

Finally, speaking of the Song of Solomon, everything above comes together in the biblical book that inspired Keach to write his poem. Elizabeth Clarke reveals how significant the romance, or "mystical marriage" trope, is in Keach's thought by turning to his landmark guide to biblical metaphors, Tropologia. Describing what Keach called "the most pleasant metaphor of all...[the] Espousals," she observes that Keach gives this trope the most airtime of all, even concluding his exegesis with a marital poem on Christ and the Church ("The Glorious Lover," Baptist Quarterly 43.8, 458). In Keach's mind, the romance between Christ and the Church is the meta-theme that unites all of Scripture together. With this in mind, it's incredibly significant that, in The Glorious Lover, he combines the most prestigious form of literature - the epic - with the most important of biblical metaphors, using form and content to reinforce the legendary nature of its subject matter. Just as Milton wrote Paradise Lost as the great theodicy of Christian literature, Keach is setting forth the great romance of the Bible.

So those are just a few of the reasons I find The Glorious Lover fascinating. There is a lot of ambition on Keach's part. He, a puritan, is writing in the worldliest of genres, reinventing them, and using the product to "mythologize" the Christian narrative.

The beauty of impassibility

James Dolezal:

God need not experience changes of relation in order to meaningfully relate Himself to His creatures. He need only ordain a change in the revelation of His unchanging being in accordance with His wisdom and the needs and requirements or the creature in time. In this way, it is not God who changes but rather the manifestations of God, which are perfectly suited to the needs and circumstances of His creatures - whether according to wrath or according to mercy - at any given moment of their lives. It seems audacious to conclude that this unique manner of God's care for His creatures is somehow impersonal and lacking vibrancy. Why must God be personal and related to others in the same way as finite persons are? Why must He undergo change in order for His love or opposition to sin to be regarded as genuine? Indeed, it would seem that the One who is unchanging, simple, and purely actual in all that He is - which is exactly what classical theism claims about God - is the One who is most profoundly vibrant and powerful in relating Himself to others. Such a God may appear strange and unlike us in many significant respects. Nevertheless, one thing is clear: classical theism is not in need of a replacement model, as all other models must fall short of the true confession of God's infinite fullness of being - the confession that all that is in God is God. 

(All That Is in God, pp. 136-137)

Charity

This passage from C.S. Lewis' masterpiece “Weight of Glory” has become a guide for how I hope to approach 2019. Any further explanation feels like it takes away from the beauty of Lewis' text.

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in the society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

(“Weight of Glory,” pp. 45-46)

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Today marks a decade of blogging. I’m thankful to have such a significant segment of my life preserved in writing, and only wish I had figured out a name for my blog sooner. Crazy to think that I started writing as a highschool freshman, and now I find myself married and holding a graduate degree, with so many new people, experiences, and places that have shaped my life in these past ten years. Hopefully I've grown since I've started (I always think back to this post around the turn of the new year). Here's to both the year ahead and my second decade of blogging!