Tea at Trianon: An Example Of Christian Imagination

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, January 14, 2011

An Example Of Christian Imagination

The great Tolkien. In the words of writer Jennifer Pierce:

Tolkien is an ideal example of the Catholic imagination. People mistake Catholic or even Christian art with directly representing Christian content. It can do that, as in the paintings of Michelangelo, but as we’ve seen in the work of Waugh or O’Connor or Shakespeare, it can infuse the work like herbs infuse hot water. A woman taking a baby down to a river doesn’t have to have the word Moses or Jesus, or the words baptism or renewal, attached to them. It’s all in there. Locked in, like the secrets of Tolkien’s Middle English words.

Tolkien explains the Catholic infusion in his work for us: “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion,’ to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”

Brian Miles said...: The genius of Tolkien is that his stories make visible and physical the otherwise abstract realities of sin and grace.

Sin:

-Orcs are actually twisted Elves.

-The shard from the Morgal blade left in Frodo's shoulder will actually bore its way through his body until it pieces his heart transforming him forever into a wraith.

Grace:

-The pity of Bilbo saves the world.

-Frodo's prayer in Shelob's lair--Aiya Earedil Elenion Encalima! (Hail Earendil, brightest of Stars!)--calls forth the power of the phial, a relic which contains the light of a blessed being who has been set in the sky as Star to watch over Middle Earth.

And on and on it goes...

If you've never ready Tolkien's poem Mythopoeia, please do:

http://mercury.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html

He first wrote it for C.S. Lewis while Lewis was yet a hardened atheist--a gift which Lewis acknowledged did much to soften his heart. It is one of the most hauntingly beautiful things I've ever read.; January 14, 2011 at 5:35:00 PM EST
elena maria vidal said...: Magnificent! Thank you for the recommendation!; January 14, 2011 at 6:00:00 PM EST