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.