Midwinter-blogging,
essay 5 of 12 blog entries on
“In the Bleak
Midwinter,” a poem by Christina Rossetti
The Paradoxes
Mosaic mural depicting the Nativity by Manuel Perez Paredes in the
Nuestro Señor del Veneno Temple on
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
|
Christina Rossetti establishes the bleak setting in the
first stanza of “In the Bleak Midwinter.” The next three stanzas all play
with a central paradox that obviously delights Rossetti:
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.
Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.
Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
“In the Bleak
Midwinter,” stanzas 2-4
Christina
Rossetti
Each of these stanzas contrasts the infinity of heaven with
the cramped poverty of a stable. More to the point, they contrast the incomprehensible
vastness of the nature of God with the tiny newborn baby. This is
Rossetti’s favorite paradox: the Lord God Almighty—omnipotent and
omniscient—compacted into a fragile child.
Many poets have explored this Christian paradox. My
favorite is John Donne, the 16th century English metaphysical poet perhaps
best known for his famous sermon line, “No man is an island…” Donne loved
paradoxes and frequently worked his poems around them. He wrote a
21-sonnet series called “La Corona” which includes a sonnet focused on this
particular paradox inherent in the nativity.
Immensity cloistered in thy dear
womb,
Now leaves his welbelov'd
imprisonment,
There he hath made himself to his
intent
Weak enough, now into our world to
come;
But Oh, for thee, for him, hath
th'Inne no roome?
Yet lay him in this stall, and from
the Orient,
Stars, and wisemen will travel to
prevent
Th'effect of Herod's jealous
general doom;
Seest thou, my Soul, with thy
faith's eyes, how he
Which fills all place, yet none
holds him, doth lie?
Was not his pity towards thee
wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied
by thee?
Kiss him, and with him into Egypt goe,
With his kind mother, who partakes
thy woe.
“Nativity”
John
Donne
While Rossetti is content to contrast the infinite nature of
God with the stable, Donne goes even further by starting with the infinite
inside the womb. Once Jesus is in the stable, Donne continues to stress
God’s nature “Which fills all place…” This is the exact same paradox that
Rossetti embraces when she envisions a God so great that even “Heaven cannot
hold him.”
To use a modern metaphor that would have been completely
alien to both Donne and Rossetti, the baby is like the image of an unimaginably
compacted universe in the instant before the big bang. The power within
is infinite. The size infinitesimal.
Detail of "Crucifixion, Nativity, Annunciation," unknown artist, possibly made in Padua, Italy, circa 1320-30, from the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. |
The Music Room
Norwegian a capella group The Funka sing “In the Bleak
Midwinter,” including Norwegian lyrics…
Reference Sources
Poems of Christina
Rossetti, edited by William M. Rossetti
Selected Poems of
Christina Rossetti, edited by Marya Zaturenska
Christina Rossetti: A
Writer’s Life by Jan Marsh
The Achievement of
Christina Rossetti, edited by David A. Kent
Christina Rossetti
(Bloom’s Major Poets), edited by Harold Bloom
Christina Rossetti’s
Faithful Imagination by Dinah Roe
Christina Rossetti:
Faith, Gender and Time by Diane D’Amico
Genius by Harold
Bloom
The Man Who Invented
Christmas by Les Standiford
The Pre-Raphaelites
by Andrea Rose
Victorian Painting
by Christopher Wood
... and an occasional sneak glance at Wikipedia entries (but
always double-checking everything!)
© 2011 Lee Price
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