On ekphrasis and mythopoesis in written art.
In the evolution of poetic and narrative art, the penchant for mythmaking (or mythopoeisis) and for illuminating the plastic arts (or ekphrasis) has captured audiences. Who among us doesn’t like to see stories remade or retold in order to gain relevance as society and culture changes or to show new insights and truths? And don’t we also appreciate the way that writers can sometimes make a work of the plastic arts take on new meaning or shape when rendered in the form that artistic language and insight can give it?
In Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus we get a remarkable, transcendent mythopoesis in the retelling of the Faust story through the dark lens of baroque music, and a kind of ekphrasis through a woodcut of Albrecht Dürer called Melancholia I. Mann evokes the diabolus in musica or the Devil in Music, the tritone that was supposed to represent the Trinity but turned out to be so discordant that the Church rejected it as the work of the devil. The Melancholia contains the magic square of sixteen numbers in which any four numbers in a row add up to 32. These symbols from the mists of time work to resonate in the mind of Adrian Leverkuhn, the new wunderkind of musical composition and inform his wish to enter into a devil’s compact in the interests of becoming the world’s greatest composer in order to produce a work of art reflecting of both the glorious brilliance and the hothouse decadence of his modern age.
Previously, in that sublime work of mythopoesis called Joseph and His Brothers, Mann’s audience got a view of a sublime, transcendent myth rendered first in the luminous grammar of lunar syntax and then transmuted into the language of the sun as Joseph was forced by circumstance and his own character flaws into the wider real world of trade, court, and worldly intrigue. Another modern writer in this mythopoetic tradition, James Joyce, also gave us his Ulysses, the great modern version of Homer’s Odyssey. And Andre Gide, in turn, explored the Prometheus myth through a modern, somewhat absurd and ironic lens, in his wonderful story Prometheus Illbound.
In the arena of poetry, mythopoesis also reaches to sublime heights. We get Milton’s marvellous work, particularly that of his epic poem Paradise Lost, which presents a great, rather conflated collage of Greek myth and Christian religion represented in the seemingly endless stream of figures and allusions which populate his story. Then beyond Milton we can look at the poetry of W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden and Guy Davenport for the mythopoesis of a modern age put through the stresses of world war and a sick decline into decadence driven by the parallel decline of aristocratic elitism wishing to hang on to its cultural roots by any means possible. This is the milieu that produced the works that stand out in the arena of mythopoesis and ekphrasis, most tellingly in that of Auden.
Auden is something of an oddity here. Whereas Eliot held onto the last remnants of aristocratic pretension to the end –church, monarchy, and affectation – even while showing its decadent underbelly, Auden seems to have grown out of this pretension as he renders in poetry a wondrous plastic creativity in many forms, playing with formats, conscious of words and phrasing, honoring the past while taking us into a very difficult, complex present with all the angst, irony, and subconscious forces at play that a poet of the 20th century would look to in order to drive us through a new world – modern, enchanted by science and psychology, middle class, crass yet sensitive, mundane yet otherworldly and mythical. Thus, when Auden set out to create a new form in modern language, he never forgot the poetic roots of the past which made it possible and which inform a culture and its language as they grow. After all, in his modernist verse drama Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue, he employed the Old English verse form while using the most creatively modern idiom possible.
As for the penchant for ekphrasis, Auden’s poem “Musee des Beaux Arts” serves well to show us what a poet can do with paintings. First he sets up a theme inherent in the work of the Old Masters, that of the indifference of the peripheral world to suffering and world-changing or remarkable events. Then he gives us a look into two works by Pieter Brueghel which show this theme, first “The Census at Bethlehem” and then a nice segue into “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” The idea of the peripheral indifference to a very important birth, and then to the fall of a dreaming boy out of the sky, is reproduced masterfully as the Old Masters, through Brueghel, are rendered in the language of the poet who sees through art.
And then there is that one-of in the history of literature, Guy Davenport. As Davenport saw it, why confine one’s poetic view of the plastic arts to simple ekphrasis? Why not incorporate as much of the history and detail of myth and art and life as possible into a form capable of carrying it to the reading and listening world? And thereby we get a breathtakingly rich canvas covering a vast panoply of detail as Davenport provides one story after another in different forms – narrative prose, prose poetry, poetry itself, and who knows what else – that draw us into other worlds of unimaginable depth, with each allusion itself an absorbing world and ultimately our own. In this sense, Davenport’s poesis can be a different and extraordinary experience.
In my case, I find myself transported by the story and the form it takes. I admire the playful ingenuity, the unparalleled mastery of vocabulary, phrasing, and allusion. But then I find that I have to make frequent stops to visit a dictionary or source in order to identify a word or an allusion in order to understand it in its place, which often turns out to be another world to fall into and absorb. But the effort always proves to be worth it.
So, in the spirit of poesis and ekphrasis, let’s take Davenport’s poem called “Resurrection in Cookham Churchyard.” The title itself recalls the title of Stanley Spencer’s 1959 painting, now on display at the Tate, titled “The Resurrection, Cookham,” a modern semi-gothic masterpiece depicting the resurrection of the dead in the churchyard cemetery of his home town of Cookham. Spencer even puts himself, naked, in the center of the painting, leaning against a gravestone, not far from his fiancee Hilda sleeping in a bed of ivy. At the top left, we see the pleasure boats of the Thames full of risen souls on a cruise to heaven. Against the churchwall, in unusual positions and attitudes, stand God and angels looking on the scene. The whole panorama has an odd surrealist look which also seems to evoke the essence of Bosch in its oddity, while it also represents a kind of realism of the mundane in its refusal to visually glorify the rising dead or their strangely formed onlookers. There is a certain mannered grotesquerie in the bodies with their stone haloes carved like Roman coins, with all manner of tombs and attendant foliage and blooms that seem to have a certain pre-Raphaelite look about them. And each body exits in its own unique way from an equally unique grave, sometimes naked, sometimes clothed.
Davenport took this graveyard and inhabited it with the dead recalled from centuries of art, mythology, music, history, philosophy, theology, math, science, and literature, with Stanley Spencer in the mix. And then God speaks, introduced by angels ’bells. He talks about the many ways he is represented in the world. He speaks to African figures and evokes himself through their art and nature, and asks them whether they thought that they would not rise again through him. He evokes for them images of resurrection and crucifixion, describing the power he has wielded in the universe of atoms and protons, and then reminding us to Herakleitos who said: “Under the noon Cycladic sun / All is other and all is one”. He goes into the conflation of time, space, and psyche, in juxtaposition with the transporting imagery of the bible: ash of gold, mist of spice, the snail and tendril plinth, the “Burned amber gum of terebinth” associated with Zacharias and sacrifice. He will take mortality from their side. Then he speaks of trombones, music and dance of different kinds and places, and the whole piece ends with a rousing hosanna amidst “The silver C sharp trumpets.”
The language is heady and sublime, carrying the reader into a new world of resurrection, itself reflective of all the worlds created in the people and the images evoked. I almost feel resurrected myself, and each line takes me visually and musically into a place of incredible artistry. It’s as though Spencer’s churchyard has become the centerpoint or axis of the world, and every human being and their world rises from the grave of nothingness, through the imagination, into eternal life. Not only that, but this is achieved through a very trite, archaic verse form, that of iambic tetrameter and rhyming couplets; but this particular meter also has a kind of mesmeric, shamanic effect on the reader; and the language and the allusions are so incredibly rendered with just the right phrasing and beauty that they also drive the verse along. Maybe this is God’s ultimate verse form, I don’t know; but it certainly works.
In an essay, Davenport paid homage to Spencer and to a Welsh poet named David Jones. After exploring Spencer and finding a world of great surprise and artistry, I am now looking forward to reading Davenport’s essay and then exploring the poetic and artistic world of Jones. It never fails to surprise me, the new roads that art can take me down. I will never tire of it.
= new reply since forum marked as read
as therapy. Its unregulated and unproven self medication which works. A whole world of poetry exists that I never knew about or looked for. The practice of studying and analyzing poetry and its forms I haven't done. I just read stuff and decide arbitrarily if I like it or not.
I'm going to buy a dictionary at a yard sale to better understand some words.
Been thinking about that free flowing consciousness thing. Its very difficult for me I have to be in the right frame of mind.
Eagerly looking forward to reading Davenport now. Hope I can understand some of it.
Cookham Churchyard – ref. to Stanley Painter’s 1959 painting “Resurrection, Cookham” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Spencer#/media/File:Resurrection%28Spencer%29.jpg
Also see: http://bjws.blogspot.com/2013/03/christ-preaching-at-cookham-regatta-by.html (series)
Sir Jonas Moore – 1617-19 – Surveyor General of Ordnance; mathematician (Moores Arithmetik); patron of
astronomy; civil engineering; force behind Royal Observatory
Sarah Tubb – face for Granny Tubb in Spencer’s 1933 painting “Sarah Tubb and the Heavenly Visitors” – based on the story told to Stanley Spencer by his father. In 1910 Granny Tubb, frightened by the sunset created by the tail of Halley’s Comet, knelt by the gate of Cookham High Street to pray
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/sarah-tubb-and-the-heavenly-visitors-27355
Petronella Elphinstone -- ???
(War dead and classicists, maid servants and jurists, surveyors and prophets)
Sir Edward Coke -- 1552-1634 – English jurist – barrister, judge, politician – 13 vols. of law reports; 4 vol. book
Institutes of the Lawes of England – in Dec, 1621, imprisoned in Tower of London for 9 months because of his views on freedom of speech which K James didn’t like -- important source for the later Pound – Coke is the chief protagonist of Cantos 107–109
Michael Ventris – 1922-56 – English linguist and architect – helped decipher Linear B, a script discovered at Knossos by Alfred Evans.
Edward Lear -- 1812-88 -- English artist, illustrator, musician, author, and poet – famous for nonsense poetry and prose, limericks
Thoda Pigbone – a servant in William Byrd’s household – William Byrd (d. 1623) was an English composer who converted to Catholicism – In an old account it is written that “Ellen Byrd, as it is reported, and as her servants have confessed, hath appointed business on the Sabbath day for her servants, of purpose to keep them from Church; and hath also done her best to endeavour to seduce Thoda Pigbone, now her maid-servant, to draw her to Popery, as the maid hath confessed…”
Karl Marx
Richard Porson – 1759-1808 -- English classical scholar – discoverer of Porson’s Law – re the meter of ancient Greek tragedy and the Greek typeface Porson was based on his handwriting
drummers of Tobruk – 1941 – siege of Tobruk, a port city in Libya -- ancient Greek colony; later a Roman fortress; a waystation along the coastal caravan route
buglers at Dunkirk – Battle of Dunkirk (in France) took place in May 1940 in order to evacuate the British
Leander Hosmer – ???
Bassoon, the Regimental Band
John Ruskin – 1819 – 1900 – leading Victorian art critic, art patron, draftsman, watercolorist; prominent social thinker and philanthropist. – wrote on: geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany, political economy -- varied writing styles and literary forms – essays, treatises, poetry, lectures, travel guides, manuals, letters, and even a fairy tale. – moved from elaborate style to plainer language – emphasized the connections bet. nature, art and society. – made detailed sketches of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation. -- hugely influential in latter 19thc. and up to WWI.
In but his beard and all his sins,
From fiery mouth to spindle shins,
John Ruskin, resurrected, stood,
Resumed the gallop of his blood,
Resumed his stare, and all but spoke
When margiold and sifting smoke
His flesh became, and fell, and where
The vineyard of his ribs was bare
Sat Jerusalem in his breast
That seemed Siena from the west,
But Venice east and Sparta south,
And north, on Thames beyond Thames mouth,
O crystal fold of years and shires,
Grey Oxford with her silver spires.
Venice (east) --
Siena (west) – city in Tuscany, Italy --
Sparta (south) -- aka Lacedaemon -- founded 900’s BC; wars; annexed by Achaea in 192 BC -- Modern Sparta is the capital of the Greek regional unit of Laconia and a center for the processing of goods such as citrus and olives.
Oxford (north)
Thomas Peacock (Thomas Love Peacock) – 1785-1866 - English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Co – close friend of Shelley – wrote satirical novels – same basic setting – characters sitting at a table discussing and criticizing the philosophical opinions of the day
Stanley Spencer – 1891-1959 -- English painter born and raised in Cookham
Henry Purcell -- 1659-1695 -- English composer noted for a uniquely English form of baroque music -- greatest
English composer until Elgar
Edward Horn – Charles Edward Horn – 1786-1849 – English composer and singer – operas and glees
Thomas Vaughan – 1621-66 – Welsh hermetic philosopher and alchemist; known for writings in the area of natural magic – Royalist clergyman; sought to apply his chemical skills to preparing medicines in the manner recommended by Paracelsus – spent years in Oxford during the English Civil War and participated in the Battle of Rowton Heath; Vaughan was unusual amongst alchemists of the time in that he worked closely with his wife Rebecca Vaughan. He was a self-described member of the "Society of Unknown Philosophers", and was responsible for translating into English in 1652 the Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis, an anonymous Rosicrucian manifesto first published in 1614 in Kassel. Quarreled in print with Henry More. He is reported as having confessed that he had 'long sought and long missed ... the philosopher's stone'. twin brother of
Henry Vaughan – 1621-66 – Welsh author, physician, and metaphysical poet – known for religious poetry contained in Silex Scintillans
Edith Sitwell – 1887-1964 – British poet and critic -- She never married, but became passionately attached to the homosexual Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew(1898-1957) and her home was always open to London's poetic circle, to whom she was unfailingly generous and helpful.
Henry Fillmore – 1881-1956 – American musician, composer, publisher, and bandleader; known for marches and screamers; he also wrote waltzes, foxtrots, hymns, novelty numbers, and overtures.
saraband -- A fast, erotic dance of the 16thc of Mexico, Spain – or the music -- A stately court dance of the 17-18thc, in slow triple time – or the music
Stan Laurel – 1890-1965 – English comic actor
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax – 1883-1953 – English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation. Bax's poetry and stories, which he wrote under the pseudonym of Dermot O’Byrne, reflect his profound affinity for Irish poet W. B. Yeats and are largely written in the tradition of the Irish Literary Revival.
Sir Thomas Urquhart – 1611-60 – of Cromarty; Scottish writer; known for translation of Rabelais
Proteus Steinmetz – Charles Proteus Steinmetz – b. Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz 1865-1923 – German-born American mathematician and electrical engineer – early on a socialist– later, more interested in technocracy -- concluded that socialism would never work in the United States, because the country lacked a "powerful, centralized government of competent men, remaining continuously in office", and because "only a small percentage of Americans accept this viewpoint today". -- A member of the original Technical Alliance, which also included Thorstein Veblen and Leland Olds, Steinmetz had great faith in the ability of machines to eliminate human toil and create abundance for all. He put it this way: "Some day we make the good things of life for everybody". -- known for his contribution in three major fields of alternating current (AC) systems theory: hysteresis, steady-state analysis, and transients.
Christina Rossetti – 1830-1894 – English poet – romantic, devotional, children’s
Ludwig Wittgenstein – 1889-1951 – Austrian-British philosopher
Søren Kierkegaard -- pron. Kierke-gore – 1813-1855 – Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic, and
religious author – first existential philosopher – wrote critical texts re: organized religion, Christendom,
morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion – deals with the art of Christian love
Pumpelly the traveller – Raphael Pumpelly – 1837-1923 – American (old New England roots) geologist and explorer – Arizona, Japan, China, Gobi desert, Mongolia, Siberia
Hugh Miller – 1802-1856 – self-taught Scottish geologist and writer, folklorist and evangical Christian
Johannes Brahms – 1833-1897 – German composer and pianist
Octave Maus – 1856-1919 - Belgian art critic, writer, and lawyer -- Maus worked with fellow writer/lawyer Edmond Picard, and they together with Victor Arnould and Eugène Robert founded the weekly L'Art moderne in 1881.In 1884 Maus was elected the secretary of the recently formed Les XX, and his responsibilities included the organization of the annual exhibitions.In 1893 Maus advocated the dissolution of Les XX. In 1894 he founded La Libre Esthétique.The composer Poldowski (daughter of Henryk Wieniawski) was a neighbour and lifelong friend of Maus's. She dedicated some of her song settings to Maus and his wife Madeleine, and her 1923 series of midday recitals at the Hyde Park Hotel in London, known as The International Concerts of La Libre Esthétique, attracted Arthur Rubinstein, Jacques Thibaud and the London String Quartet.
(Black) Roger Casement – 1864-1916 – executed for treason and stripped of knighthood – Anglo-Irish diplomat for the UK – humanitarian activist, Irish nationalist, and a poet – described as the father of 20thc. human rights investigations – but his achievements were overshadowed by his efforts during WWI to gain German collaboration for a 1916 armed uprising in Ireland to gain its independence. – the government circulated excerpts from his private journals, known as the Black Diaries, which detailed homosexual activities, which undermined any support for clemency – interpretations differ as to their meaning in his life. – met Conrad in the Congo – both learned to abhor the idea of European colonization – Peru, journalism on abuses and atrocities – back in Britain, anti-slavery – knighted for his efforts among the Amazonian Indians – moved on to the cause of Irish independence – something of a loose cannon, not trusted by Irish Republicans – arrested, tried, convicted of treason – Arthur Conan Doyle, WB Yeats, and GB Shaw spoke on his behalf. Conrad could not forgive him for his attitude towards Britain. The US Senate appealed against the death sentence, but was rejected. On day of death, received into Catholic church.
Alan Turing – 1912-1954 – British pioneering computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, mathematical biologist, and marathon and ultra distance runner. – formalized the concepts of algorithm and computation in the Turing Machine. – father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. – WWII – Bletchley Park, working on decoding ciphers → Enigma Machine. – in 1952, prosecuted for homosexual acts – estrogen treatment – In 1954, died of cyanide poisoning.
Admiral Sir Frederick Jane -- ???
Christopher Smart – 1722-1771 – English poet – mental asylum; debtors prison – left alone with cat Jeoffrey, which he wrote about in a poem called “Jubilate Agno”
John Martin -- “and his Roman hat” -- ???
Boole – George Boole – 1815-1864 – English mathematician, philosopher, and logician – differential equations,
algebraic logic; book The Laws of Thought
Babbage – Charles Babbage – 1791-1871 – English polymath – mathematician, philosopher, inventor, and
mechanical engineer – originated the concept of a programmable computer
Bishop Hall – Joseph Hall – 1574-1656 -- English bishop, satirist, and moralist
Mrs. Heelis – Beatrix Potter’s married name – she also wrote “The Tale of Mrs. William Heelis”
Charles Doughty – 1843-1926 – English poet, writer, and traveler
Hooke the witch – ?? – maybe ref. to a passage in The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut;1647-1697
http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/spirit/w19.html
The examination of Elizabeth Godman, May 12th, 1653.
Elizabeth Godman made complainte of Mr. Goodyeare, Mris. Goodyeare, Mr. Hooke, Mris. Hooke, Mris. Bishop, Mris. Atwater, Hanah &Elizabeth Lamberton, and Mary Miles, Mris. Atwaters maide, that they haue suspected her for a witch; she was now asked what she had against Mr. Hooke and Mris. Hooke; she said she heard they had something against her aboute their soone. Mr. Hooke said hee was not wthout feares, and hee had reasons for it; first he said it wrought suspition in his minde because shee was shut out at Mr. Atwaters vpon suspition, and hee was troubled in his sleepe aboute witches when his boye, was sicke, wch was in a verey strang manner, and hee looked vpon her as a mallitious one, and prepared to that mischiefe, and she would be often speaking aboute witches and rather justifye them then condemne them; she said why doe they provoake them, why doe they not let them come into the church. Another time she was speaking of witches wthout any occasion giuen her, and said if they accused her for a witch she would haue them to the gouernor, she would trounce them. Another time she was saying she had some thoughts, what if the Devill should come to sucke her, and she resolued he should not sucke her....
Henri Rousseau – 1844-1910 – French Post-impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive tradition. – called Le Douanier (the Customs Officer), a humorous description of his occupation as a toll collector. His father was a plumber.
Theodore Rousseau – Etienne Pierre Theodore Rousseau -- 1812-1867 – French painter of the Barbizon school, painted trees -- no blood relation to Henri – but they both had an affinity to nature and painted trees
Camille Bombois – 1883-1970 – French naïve painter noted for circus scenes.
Jacques Teyssot – Jacques Joseph Tissot – 1836-1902 -- French painter and illustrator
Baron Ensor of Ostend – James Sidney Edouard – 1860-1949 – Belgian painter and printmaker; imp. influence on expressionism and surrealism; associated with group Les XX.
John Clare – 1793-1864 – English poet, son of a farm laborer; now considered a great poet, wrote in his Northhamptonshire dialect; went insane
Sillima -- ??
Hautrives – commune in SE France
St. Apollinare – in Ravenna there is a basilica of St. Apolinare
Burghclere – Sandham Memorial Chapel - https://www.google.com/search?q=stanley+spencer+burghclere+paintings&num=50&newwindow=1&safe=active&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CB4QsARqFQoTCJTDvvGLhMcCFRUWkgod954D0A&biw=1046&bih=581#imgrc=ZEHZt3sKS66MUM%3A
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/inside-first-world-war/part-four/10480599/war-artist-stanley-spencer.html
insisted he show “God in the bare real things, in a limber wagon, in ravines, in fouling mule lines”.
Assisi – dome of St. Francis of Assisi in Prague
Sofia – domed Hagia Sofia
Hadschra Maktuba – book by Hugo Obermeier and Leo Frobenius, study of engravings and paintings in the Saharan Atlas
Bethel – city in Hebrew bible, site of Jacob’s dream
Highgate – area in London
Tobit – book of Tobit is in the Apocrypha – visited by angel Raphael
Cana's sudden wine -- ref. to Christ turning water into wine for the wedding feast
Diktynna – aka Britomartis – Minoan goddess of mountains and hunting – mountain nymph – features of Gorgon, gripping divine snakes, with double-axes of power -- The goddess appeared on coins of Cretan cities, as herself or as Diktynna, the goddess of Mount Dikte, Zeus' birthplace. As Diktynna, winged and represented with a human face, she stood on her ancient mountain, and grasped an animal in each hand, the Potnia Theron, the mistress of animals. Archaic representations of winged Artemis show that she may have evolved from Potnia Theron. -- Lady of the Nets
Ruth at Boaz' feet -- ref. to the story of Ruth in the bible
Senlis -- a commune in N. France renowned for its gothic Senlis Cathedral
Séraphine – 1864-1942 -- Séraphine Louis, a French painter in the Naïve style. – Self-taught – inspired by religious art, stained-glass windows -- The intensity of her images, both in colour and in replicative designs, are sometimes interpreted as a reflection of her own psyche, walking a tightrope between ecstasy and mental illness. Note the beauty of this work, The Tree of Life --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9raphine_Louis#/media/File:Senlis_%2860%29,_mus%C3%A9e_d%27art_et_d%27arch%C3%A9ologie,_S%C3%A9raphine_Louis,_L%27arbre_de_vie_%281928%29.jpg
Hosios Loukas – a historic walled monastery in Greece – monument of middle Byzantine architecture and art
Tertrahedons Arachne spun -- a mortal woman and talented weaver who challenged Athena, goddess of wisdom and crafts, and was transformed into a spider. Spiders are called "arachnids" after Arachne. – a tetrahedron is a kind of pyramid made of three triangles with a triangular base.
Tassili cow -- Tassili n'Ajjer is a mountain range in the Algerian section of the Sahara desert, known for its prehistoric rock art and archaeological sites – the art depicts herds of cattle, large wild animals including crocodiles, and human activities such as hunting and dancing.
Basundi thighs– Basundi is an Indian dessert mostly in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Karnataka -- It is a sweetened dense milk made by boiling milk on low heat until the milk is reduced by half
Solutrian myrtle leaf – the Solutrean is an ancient Paleolithic site located in the Solutré in E. central France near Mâcon, known for its flint tools
Zophar and Bildad – in the Book of Job, two of the three friends of Job
burning tiger’s architect – looks like a ref. to Blake’s poem “The Tyger” – “What immortal hand or eye / Could frame they fearful symmetry?”
– and with the word architect, it might also allude to Anne Bradstreet’s poem “Upon the Burning of Our House” –
Thou hast an house on high erect
Fram'd by that mighty Architect,
With glory richly furnished,
Stands permanent tho' this bee fled.
It's purchased, and paid for too
By him who hath enough to doe.
Quaternion -- another word for Quaternary -- The Quaternary Period is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present. The Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs: the Pleistocene (2.588 million years ago to 11.7 thousand years ago) and the Holocene (11.7 thousand years ago to today). The informal term "Late Quaternary" refers to the past 0.5–1.0 million years.
The Quaternary period is typically defined by the cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets driven by Milankovitch cycles and the associated climate and environmental changes that occurred.
a group or set of four persons or things -- In mathematics, the quaternions are a number system that extends the complex numbers. They were first described by Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1843 and applied to mechanics in three-dimensional space. A feature of quaternions is that multiplication of two quaternions is noncommutative. Hamilton defined a quaternion as the quotient of two directed lines in a three-dimensional space or equivalently as the quotient of two vectors
Entuthon Benython; Golgonooza; Jerusalem as wife – see William Blake’s poem “In Deadly Fear” – here are the first
two stanzas:
And Los beheld the mild Emanation, Jerusalem, eastward bending
Her revolutions toward the Starry Wheels in maternal anguish,
Like a pale cloud, arising from the arms of Beulah's Daughters
In Entuthon Benython's deep Vales beneath Golgonooza.
And Hand and Hyle rooted into Jerusalem by a fibre
Of strong revenge, and Skofeld Vegetated by Reuben's Gate
In every Nation of the Earth, till the Twelve Sons of Albion
Enrooted into every nation, a mighty Polypus growing
From Albion over the whole Earth: such is my awful Vision.
Atoma mundi – atom of the world (prob. a takeoff of Spiritus Mundi or Anima Mundi
Herakleitos -- 535-475 BCE – pre-Socratic Greek philosopher – “No man ever steps in the same river twice.” – probably better rendered as: Upon those who step into the same rivers flow other and yet other waters. – the unity of opposites in the world: “the path up and down are one and the same.” -- characterized all existing entities by pairs of contrary properties, whereby no entity may ever occupy a single state at a single time. This, along with his cryptic utterance that "all entities come to be in accordance with this Logos (literally, "word", "reason", or "account"
has been the subject of numerous interpretations.
Cycladic -- art and culture of the early Bronze Age, Greece from c. 3200 BCE to c. 2000 BCE, well before Herakleitos -- The significant Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Cycladic culture is best known for its schematic flat female idols carved out of the islands' pure white marble centuries before the great Middle Bronze Age ("Minoan"
culture arose in Crete, to the south.
In Davenport’s poem, God says:
Did not my Herakleitos say
Under the noon Cycladic sun
All is other and all is one?
Now finished time becomes a place.
Time, time was psyche unto space,
And space was time within my hand.
(Me: This seems to be a reflection of Herakleitos’ view of time and space, which appears to coincide with that of God.)
Zacharias – biblical and quranic figure, father of John the Baptist, a priest of the sons of Aaron, a prophet in Luke,
husband of Elizabeth; minister at the altar of incense
terebinth – the terbinth is a tree often mentioned in the bible
Gabriel's shofar -- a shofar is a musical instrument of ancient origin, made of a horn, traditionally that of a ram, used for Jewish religious purposes.
"Hosanna! Adoremus O/ The silver C sharp trumpets blow" -- these lines end the poem -- just as the poem began with O
Beginning of poem:
The Cookham dead began to rise
When God with April in his eyes
Ended in O its midst the night.
There seems to be a nod to Chaucer and Eliot here too.