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.

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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]