Henry James in Italy & France: "Analogical Interiority"

On Reading Henry James: Collected Travel Writings: The Continent: A Little Tour in Frace / Italian Hours / Other Travels. Ed. Richard Howard. (Library of America)

Henry James' travel writings on France and Italy are a case study in fine arts perception, understanding and interpretation. He treats each new locale as a new horizon to be engaged, absorbed, and internalized through a hermeneutic of analogical interiority. Roaming within the halls and chambers of French and Italian architecture opens, through the text, new conduits for an understanding of the vast interiority that exists within the self-examining-self. James is a master at relating the space of each location with the thoughts, instincts, relational perceptions and education of the observer. Reading these texts is like engaging each site oneself and discussing with a learned and trusted friend about what one is experiencing, not just what one is seeing. The art work of Joseph Pennell is an amazing addition to these works and masterpieces on their own. Do yourself a favor and buy this book. It will be a cherished addition to your collection and a book you will pick-up time and again to walk with the "Master" through France and Italy as you discuss, reflect and remember literary events that where home to these marvels. If you happen to be planning a trip to either France or Italy, take this along to add a level of historical and cultural depth to your experience. Some of what you will read has disappeared into history, but what remains is a beautiful historical and cultural continuity with Henry James as your guide.

"to recall, to praise" - The Art of James Merrill

America has produced few artists of the formal virtuosity of
James Merrill, who has been justly called the American Mozart.
The Contemplative considers his work to be of dazzling beauty,
wit and divine play.  See for example, "A Dedication":
-----
Hans, there are moments when the whole mind
Resolves into a pair of brimming eyes, or lips
Parting to drink from the deep spring of a death
That freshness they do not yet need to understand.
These are the moments, if ever, an angel steps
Into the mind, as kings into the dress
Of a poor goatherd, for their acts of charity.
There are moments when speech is but a month pressed
Lightly and humbly against the angel's hand.
-----

The merging of the divine eros between two vulnerable people
is among the most perfect expressions of this human longing/
need that has ever been written.  Among the last poems that
James Merrill wrote is, "Christmas Tree" which gives full voice
to his illness and art.

"Christmas Tree"

by James Merrill

To be
Brought down at last
From the cold sighing mountain
Where I and the others
Had been fed, looked after, kept still,
Meant, I knew --- of course I knew ----
That it would be only a matter of weeks,
That there was nothing more to do.
Warmly they took me in, and made much of me.
I could assent to that.  For honestly,
It did help to be wound in jewels, to send
Their colors flashing forth from vents in the deep
Fragrant sables that cloaked me head to foot,
Over me then they wove a spell of shining ----
Purple and silver chains, eavesdripping tinsel,
Amulets, milagros: software of silver,
A heart, a little girl, a Model T,
Two staring eyes.  The angels, trumpets, BUD and BREA
(The children's names) in clownlike capitals,
Somewhere a music box whose tiny song
Played and replayed I ended before long
By loving.  And in shadow behind me, a primitive IV
To keep the show going.  Yes, yes, what lay ahead
Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my chemicals
Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come ----
No doubt a blessing, a harvest, but one that doesn't bear,
Now or ever, dwelling upon.  To have grown so thin.
Needles and bone.  The little boy's hands meeting
About my spine.  The mother�s voice:  Holding up wonderfully!
No dread.  No bitterness.  The end beginning.  Today's
Dusk room aglow
For the last time
With candlelight.
Faces love lit,
Gifts underfoot,
Still to be so poised, so
Receptive.  Still to recall, to praise.

1995

James Merrill, Collected Poems.  (Alfred A. Knopf: New York,
2001).  Written during the early part of the New
Year as James was dying of AIDS: d. 2/6/1995.

Commemoration of St. John of the Cross

To Commemorate the Anniversary
of St. John of the Cross -
Doctor of the universal Church.

On December 13, 1588, knowing
that his time was short, the friars
gather around St. John of the
Cross and began to recite the
prayers for the dying. He begged
them to stop, "No, read some
verses from the Song of Songs.
"As they began to read, he
exclaimed, "Oh, what precious
pearls!"

Shortly after midnight he died repeating the psalmist and the
words of our Lord, "Into your hands, O Lord, Icommend my spirit."


Timeline:
On January 22, 1675 Pope Clement X beatifies John of the Cross.
On December 27,1726 Pope Benedict XII canonizes him.
On August 24,1926 Pope Pius XI declares St. John of the
Cross a Doctor of the universal Church.
In 1952 the Spanish Ministry on National Education names
John of the Cross the patron of Spanish poets.

His masterpiece, "The Dark Night of the Soul" has been read
and appreciated by both those in and outside the Christian
community as a beautiful and penetrating exposition of the
trials, struggles and mystical triumphs of the human soul.
Simply put, he wrote some of the greatest poetry the world
has seen.

__________________________________________
T. S. Eliot & St. John of the Cross

T. S. Eliot in  Section III of T.S. Eliot's  "The Four Quartets",
'East Coker', Section III near the final lines he writes:

In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.

This is a seldom recognized quote of St. John of the Cross
in "Ascent of Mount Carmel"  Chapter 13: Section 11:

To come to the knowledge you have not
you must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
you must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
you must go by a way in which you are not.