Catholicism and Poetry #7 Dante

"Midway on our life's journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost."


Thus, simply,  begins Robert Pinsky's translation of the Inferno by Dante, or beautifully in Italian, "selva oscura".  As a writer on the arts, I have such great limitations and yet I believe that I have insight into the first Canto of the Inferno, which has always moved me, both before and after the middle of my life.  Perhaps it is because I have often found myself alone, lost in what is dark and grouping for a turning point. 

This is the genius of where Dante begins.   He begins with a confession.  His confession, brief though it is, is as complete as that of Augustine.  But it is the confession of a poet.   He says that
"To tell
About those woods is hard"


For Dante the woods will always be dark.  The experience of sin, loss, confusion, even upon our reflection, does not become light.  It isn't our goal.  The goal is at the end of the right road.  So a poet, speaking honestly, can never turn what is dark into light.  He has to rely on God.  His descriptions will be as obscure as his experience is.   And it is quite painful for:


"—so tangled and rough

And savage that thinking of it now, I feel
The old fear stirring: death is hardly more bitter." 

For Dante, as a true Christian, sin and alienation from God is as bitter as death.  It is the water of bitterness, Mariah, from Exodus.  There two was a journey from sin towards God.  And every time the Hebrews complained and alienated themselves from God, they gave themselves bitter water to drink.  So Dante is unhappy, but he does not despair for he says

"And yet, to treat the good I found there as well

I'll tell what I saw,"

The good is always present for Dante.  If we are being honest we can speak of the good as well as the evil.  

Evil is a mystery for Dante. Sin obscures it's origin. 

" though how I came to enter
I cannot well say, being so full of sleep
Whatever moment it was I began to blunder

Off the true path. "

Now he describes, literally, the morning star, but that is obviously not the real meaning of these lines.

"But when I came to stop
Below a hill that marked one end of the valley
That had piereced my heart with terror, I looked up

Toward the crest and saw its shoulders already
Mantled in rays of that bright planet that shows
The road to everyone, whatever our journey."

Dante is really talking about how God's light reaches us, no matter what path in life we are on. 

The Italian below:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita. (3)

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura! (6)

Tant’è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,
dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ho scorte. (9)

Io non so ben ridir com’i’ v’intrai,
tant’era pien di sonno a quel punto
che la verace via abbandonai. (12)

Ma poi ch’i’ fui al piè d’un colle giunto,
là dove terminava quella valle
che m’avea di paura il cor compunto,

guardai in alto, e vidi le sue spalle
vestite già de’ raggi del pianeta
che mena dritto altrui per ogne calle.

More of the first Canto at:

http://www.csupomona.edu/~jelerma/dante/index.html

More on the Inferno at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)

And for biography of Dante:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri

The Mystery of Man

Bruggeman On The Poets

Folk Hymns vs Folk Hymns

It's been a matter of some controversy in the Catholic church, post the "Folk Mass Era" of the 70's and early 80's to compare the old church music to the new church 'folk" hymns.  It was the subject of a book, advocating a conservative music liturgy,  called "Why Catholic's Can't Sing" which claimed that the new church hymns are unsingable and this is why you don't here a lot of pew accompaniment to the choir.  It's author said that the old high church hymns were very singable and in the old days everyone sang.

An interesting memory.  He suffered from false memory syndrome.  Don't get me wrong, as an old choir boy I loved the old church hymns.  And I, folk music lover that I am, I hate many of the new guitar strumbable "folk hymns".  But I hate them because they are fake folk hymns, not grown organically from the people's musical tradition.

The Catholic church would do well to adopt and adapt many of the old  Southern spirituals Black and white.  They grew up out of a fusion of African and European folk signing, a signing school tradition that started in New England and went South, a form of music called shape note singing that actually owes it's roots ultimately to the Gregorian chant, and the English Methodist practice of putting sacred lyrics on popular tunes, even bar tunes.  Why should the devil have all the good music it was asked.

Catholics will learn how to sing when the church adopts the old folk tradition of singing schools, when decent song books of old high church songs and true folk songs are provided with easy to follow notation and lyrics, and when song picks bear in mind carefully the beautiful and true.  We only sing when we want to sing, when we are encouraged to sing and when we have the resources.

A Visual Arts Blog

I can recommend highly to any readers I actually have, my friend Christen Mattix's blog, Traveling Light.  Besides a comment here and there on arts and politics she posts her wonderful work, and provides a link to her website that has her great short films on it.  She is clearly inspired by the great Russian contemplative film maker, Andrei Tarkovsky.  Give her blog a look see.
http://christenmattix.blogspot.com/