Truth with Precision: Crashaw’s Revisions of A Letter

Appeared in Vol. 4 No. 3  Download PDF here

Richard Crashaw [ca. 1613-1649] was an important Catholic poet in a hostile Protestant world who himself entered the Church as a convert from Puritanism and Anglicanism during the English Civil War. In uenced by continental mysticism, Crashaw often wrote of Divine love in sensuously human terms, thereby giving rise to a common opinion that he lacked intellectual perception and was rather over-emotional in his poetic craft. Such a judgment has also been used to devalue his conversion. Nonetheless, Crashaw has won strong admirers as well as detractors, and his work remains a source of contention to the present day. In the article which follows, R. V. Young shows convincingly that Crashaw was a man of acute perception who re ected precisely in his poetry the ultimate differences between not only Catholic and Protestant pieties, but doctrines as well. In so doing, the author reveals as much about the fundamental quarrel of the Reformation as about the genius of Richard Crashaw himself.

The availability of different versions of the same poem is a great advantage to criticism. Revision provides unique evidence both of the significance of a given poem and of the poet’s own grasp of his subject and purpose. A. Alvarez remarks that Richard Crashaw “revised his poetry with considerable care and always for the better,”(1) and Kirby Neill’s discussion of the successive versions of Crashaw’s Nativity hymn furnishes a convincing demonstration of Alvarez’s generalization with regard to one particular poem. Neill argues that Crashaw’s revisions of the Nativity poem show a “growing sense of form” and a structural unity based on “the unity of its underlying theological concept.” (2) A close examination of the changes made in A Letter to the Countess of Denbigh contributes further to our appreciation for Crashaw’s oft-questioned intellectual integrity. (3)

The poem is a late one, first appearing in Carmen Deo Nostro (Paris, 1652) and subsequently in a pamphlet by itself (London, probably 1653).(4) Quite simply, it is an appeal to the poet’s patroness-nominally still an Anglican-to save her soul by converting to Catholicism (as Crashaw himself had done). Unlike most of Crashaw’s religious poems, which are devotional in character, A Letter is an argument rather than a celebration. Although the poet does not expound Catholic dogma to the Countess, the way in which he alters his expostulation in the second version reveals that Crashaw possessed a clear understanding of the theological issues which divided the Protestant Reformers from the Catholic Church. Indeed, the nature of the revision suggests that the purpose of the second version was to render a clearer metaphorical definition of the Catholic faith proffered the Countess.(5) A brief look at the controversies of the Reformation will throw Crashaw’s efforts into high relief.

FREE WILL: THE KEY REFORMATION ISSUE

According to John Calvin, in his reply to Cardinal Sadoleto, “justification by faith [is] the first and keenest subject of controversy between us.”(6) Indeed, the dichotomy of Catholic justification by works versus Protestant justification by faith is widely regarded as a definitive statement of the central theological issue of the Reformation. But the Catholic Church has never maintained a doctrine of “justification by works”, a point strongly emphasized in the “Decree Concerning Justification” of the Council of Trent. Calvin himself, in his “Antidote to the Council of Trent”, said “Amen” to its first three canons on justification, which maintain, respectively, that man cannot be justified by his own works of human nature or the law without the grace of Christ; that this grace does not merely make salvation easier, but is absolutely necessary; and that the “prevenient inspiration of the Holy Ghost” is required even for the predisposing of the soul so that “the grace of justification” may be conferred.(7) Calvin’s first objection came with Canon IV: “If any one saith, that man’s free-will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-operates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive: let him be anathema.” To this Calvin replied, “Paul declares, not that a faculty of willing is given to us, but that the will itself is formed in us, …so that from none else but God is the assent or obedience of a right will. He acts within, holds our hearts, moves our hearts, and draws us by inclination which he has produced within us.” Canons V through VII assert, respectively, that Adam’s sin did not obliterate free will; that man does evil only on his own with God’s permissive will and not his proper consenting; and that man is not utterly incapable of doing good before justification. Commenting on the last of these canons, Calvin said, “Assuredly a bad tree can only produce bad fruit. But who will be so shameless as to deny that we are bad trees until we are ingrafted in Christ?” The doctrine of total depravity necessarily implies that man is not merely incapable of saving himself, but incapable even of the least act of goodness before justification, or of willing participation in any way-negatively or positively- in the work of grace. Hence the crucial issue in the Reformation is not faith, but the freedom of the human will. (8)

This issue was no less crucial in England than on the Continent, for the influence of Calvin on the English Reformation was immense: if the Established Church under Elizabeth resisted the “puritanism” of the returning Marian exiles, this conflict was largely over ecclesiastical order and liturgical practice.(9) This remained basically true under James I and Charles I down to the outbreak of the Civil War. The official theology of the Church of England was (and if we regard the thirty-nine “Articles of Religion” as “official”, still is) essentially Calvinist, as parts of the Lambeth Articles of 1595 indicate: “Saving grace is not given, is not communicated, is not granted to all men, by which they might be saved if they would…. It is not placed in the will or the power of every man to be saved.” (10) It is a mistake, therefore, to see in the notion of the via media a significant doctrinal compromise: the theology of the Church of England, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at least, is Reformation theology. The idea of a “High Church” or of an “Anglo-Catholic” movement in the seventeenth century is anachronistic. Moreover, the theology behind the Anglican devotional poetry of the period is also thoroughly “reformed”, despite the influence of continental Catholic meditative techniques.(11)

To be sure, the predestination elements of Calvinist theology appear to be a source of anxiety, if not a stumbling block, to many anti-Puritan Anglican poets-most notably John Donne, with his Recusant background. But Donne was not typical. The most “English” of the Anglican devotional poets, George Herbert, was fully committed to a basically Calvinist view of election and grace.(12) Among the devotional poets commonly associated with the Metaphysical school, only Crashaw made a clean break with the predestinarian implications of Reformation theology, because only Crashaw became a Catholic.

It has been frequently asserted that Crashaw would have remained an Anglican had it not been for the Puritan triumph in the Civil War.(13) This view coincides neatly with the doubts of many critics about the strength and integrity of his character and with the common image of him as a poet of irrational passion and quasi-religious sensuality. To judge the deepest motives of a man now dead more than three hundred years is a presumptuous undertaking. What we can, in some measure, determine is the extent to which he understood the differences between the church he was abandoning and the one he came finally to embrace. Because it is an argument, A Letter to the Countess of Denbigh furnishes a crucial insight into Crashaw’s grasp of the question. Arno Esch remarks that the revision of the poem reduces the erotic imagery and personal focus of the first version and clarifies the argument.(14) Still more important is the shift in the poem’s metaphorical structure. By changing the emphasis in the figurative depiction of the relation between God and man, Crashaw implicitly defines the difference between Protestant and Catholic interpretations of grace and justification, locating the center of the conflict in the question of man’s free will.

CRASHAW’S CLARIFICATION OF THE ISSUE

The first twenty-six lines of the two versions contain virtually the same material; apart from some slight, though not wholly insignificant, verbal alterations,(15) the only difference lies in the order of the lines. A comparison of the following passages (lines 7-20) shows that a series of alternating questions and exclamations in the Carmen Deo Nostro rendering of the poem, which suggest a mood of puzzled anxiety in the speaker, give way to a stern and more confident tone in the pamphlet:

1652 [Carmen Deo Nostro] Version

Say, lingering fairl why comes the birth

Of your brave soul so slowly forth?

Plead your pretences (O you strong

In weakness) why you choose so long

In labor of your selfe to ly,

Nor daring quite to live or dy?

Ah linger not, lov’d soul! a slow

And late consent was a long no,

Who grants at last, long time tryd

And did his best to have deny’d.

What magick bolts, what mystick Barres

Maintain the will in these strange warresl

What fatall, yet fantastick, bands

Keep the free Heart from it’s own hands!

In the second version Crashaw moves the general religious principle (“A slow/And late Consent…”), which begins in line thirteen of the 1652 version, up to line seven. All the questions in the rearranged passage are then bunched together, directed almost accusingly at the Countess in the light of the general command (“linger not”), whose force is strengthened by its more prominent position at the beginning of the passage. Then there is a crucial shift, not only in arrangement, but also in punctuation: lines nine through twelve in the early form of the poem are changed from a diffident question to a firm imperative. Coming at the end of a series of three questions in the 1653 version, these lines (17-20) now imply that the Countess has no answer for the questions; she can only “Plead pretences…”

The rearrangement of lines seven through twenty radically alters the tone of the striking simile of the frozen waters which follows (11. 21-26, 1652 & 1653). In the first version the image creates a mood of bewildered melancholy for the nymphs’ (and the Countess’) “sad selfe-captivity”. The only significant verbal alteration, the change of “sad” to “cold”, makes the passage more concrete and more precise, since it identifies the ice with the state of the Countess’ religious affections rather than with the speaker’s feelings about them. Instead of an expression of uncertainty, the simile is now an explanation, and the regret is tinged with disapproval. Whatever “pretences” the Countess may “plead”, the “Magick-Bolts” and “mystick Barrs” that keep her outside the “Gate of Blisse”-the Catholic Church- are lodged, in the coldness of her own heart:

So when the Year takes cold we see

Poor Waters their own Prisoners be:

Fetter’d and lock’d up fast they lie In a cold self-captivity.

Th’astonish’d Nymphs their Floud’s strange Fate deplore,

To find themselves their own severer Shoar. (1653, 11. 21-26)

The effect of the changes in the first twenty-six lines of A Letter is to strengthen the emphasis of the poem on the problems of the Countess’ will, to clarify the contention that the decision to accept or reject grace is finally hers. These modifications at the beginning of the poem may seem somewhat subtle, even obscure, in intention, but the purpose of those that follow is quite explicit. In Carmen Deo Nostro Crashaw abruptly turns away from the Countess in line twenty-seven and addresses our Savior (as “Almighty LOVE”) directly:

Thou that alone canst thaw this cold,

And fetch the heart from it’s strong Hold;

Allmighty LOVE! end this long warr,

And of a meteor make a starr.

O fix this fair INDEFINITE.

And ‘mongst thy shafts of soveraign light

Choose out that sure decisive dart

Which has the Key of this close heart,

Knowes all the corners of t, and can controul

The self-shutt cabinet of an unsearcht soul. (1652, 11. 27-36)

Thus, in the 1652 version, God Himself is called on to solve the problem, to make the decision for the “irresolute” noblewoman. When, in the middle of a sentence, Crashaw again addresses the Countess, he uses the imagery of wounds and darts which has served him in the celebration of the mystical raptures of Saint Teresa:

Unfold at length, unfold fair flowre

And use the season of love’s showre,

Meet his well-meaning Wounds, wise heart!

And hast to drink the wholesome dart.

That healing shaft, which heavn till now

Hath in love’s quiver hid for you. (1652, 11. 43-48)

Teresa’s famous vision, recounted in her Life; of a seraph piercing her heart with a fiery spear obviously made a deep impression on Crashaw; and his adaption of Teresa’s language in the poems he wrote about her is very moving. In the earlier version of A Letter, however, Crashaw seems to have fallen into the imagery of mysticism almost out of habit; it is hardly appropriate for him to urge the raptures of mystical union on a woman who has not yet even entered the Church. After years of prayer and mortification, the experience of a Saint Teresa may aptly be described in terms of divinely erotic passion; but the Countess is yet to give the minimum affirmative response to the courtship of Christ, and the intensity of such language does not fit the Countess’ situation. Crashaw seems to have realized the incongruity, for the changes in the later version aim principally at bringing theme and image into greater harmony.

In the London pamphlet, “Love” is not apostrophized; instead the poet insistently addresses the hesitant lady, pointing out that the love which shaped the universe is everywhere manifest in it(16) and has provided ample means of salvation if she will but see and accept it:

Love, that lends haste to heaviest things,

In you alone hath lost his wings,

Look round and reade the World’s wide face,

The field of Nature or of Grace;

Where can you fix, to find Excuse

Or Pattern for the Pace you use?

Implicit in these lines is the assumption that Nature and Grace act in harmony to issue the same message concerning God who is Love; that is, if we “reade” the book of the Creation (“the World’s wide face”), then the Scriptural revelation is reiterated.(17) Hence the natural behavior of the lower creatures contrasts with the Countess’ unnatural or “unkind” lack of gratitude.(18) In view of the image of the frozen river above-an image of the Countess’ heart-the subsequent evocation of flowing waters acquires additional significance:

Both Winds and Waters urge their way,

And murmure if they meet a stay,

Mark how the curl’d Waves work and wind,

All hating to be left behind.

Each bigge with business thrusts the other,

And seems to say, Make haste, my Brother. (1653, 11. 39-44)

In place of the earlier invocation of Love (1652) then, Crashaw has substituted an account of Love’s action in the World, in Nature (11. 27-56). But for fallen man it is impossible to follow the universal pattern; as the Tridentine decree on justification maintains, man lacks the capacity to save himself in his own corrupt nature without the addition of God’s grace. Hence while all other creatures are “Suitours” to God, “Man alone is wo’ed,/Tediously wo’ed, and hardly wone…” (11. 58-59). Still, the very figure of wooing implies that the final assent lies within the human will. Therefore, instead of an invitation to irresistible rapture in the earlier version, Crashaw shames the Countess by contrasting her own hesitancy with eager, persistent love of God. To be sure, the erotic metaphors of the relation between the soul and Christ are not wholly abandoned; however, in the 1653 Letter Christ is no longer depicted as a Cupid with unerring darts-a virtual ravisher-but as a humble, oft-rejected suitor:

When love of Us call’d Him to see

If wee’d vouchsafe his company,

He left his Father’s Court, and came

Lightly as a Lambent Flame,

Leaping upon the Hills, to be

The Humble King of You and Me.

Nor can the cares of his whole Crown

(When one poor Sigh sends for him down)

Detain him, but he leaves behind

The late wings of the lazy Wind,

Spurns the tame Laws of Time and Place,

And Breaks through all ten Heav’ns to our embrace. (1653, 11.67-68)

THE EXPERIENCE OF CONVERSION

We ordinarily think of John Donne as an Anglican poet with strong ties to Continental Catholicism, given the Recusancy of his family and his own interest in Catholic meditation techniques.(19) Even so, there is a striking contrast between Crashaw’s A Letter to the Countess of Denbigh and Holy Sonnet 10, which treats of salvation in the same metaphoric terms-the yielding of a fort and erotic union. Donne insists that his heart be battered, that-like “an usurpt towne”-he must be overthrown and conquered. There will be no consummation of the marriage with the divine Spouse “except you ravish mee.” As Richard Strier points out, “Crashaw’s God only knocks, breathes and shines, does not ravish but waits for `the awful daring of a moment’s surrender’ to bestow the ultimate gift.”(20) The Countess will not be “ravished”, will not be taken by storm; her salvation is, finally, in her own hands. The strength and merit are Christ’s, but hers is the decision:

Yield to his Siege, wise Soul, and see

Your Triumph in his Victory.

Disband dull Feares, give Faith the day:

To save your Life, kill your Delay. ‘Tis Cowardise that keeps this Field; And want of Courage not to Yield.

Yield then, 0 yield, that Love may win The Fort at last, and let Life in.

Yield quickly, lest perhaps you prove

Death’s Prey, before the Prize of Love.

This Fort of your Fair Self if’t be not wone,

He is repuls’d indeed, buf You’r undone. (1653, 11. 79-90)

Insofar as Crashaw’s mature sacred poems resemble the work of the Anglican poets of his time, the similarity is often fortuitous: when Crashaw uses a metaphor of erotic rapture to describe the relation between a soul and God, he is speaking of mystical union-a glimpse of the beatific vision in this life, granted to none but a few devout contemplatives. But in the holy sonnet, Donne uses the figure to describe the experience of grace necessary for salvation. This is an expression of the Protestant view of justification which defines faith as precisely the subjective experience of saving grace-as the confidence that one has been chosen irrevocably by God. According to the Reformation theology, all the elect are, here and now, saints. There are no degrees among Christians, and all the elect undergo a conversion experience which is described in terms often reminiscent of the language of mysticism.(21) Hence Crashaw’s removal of such language from A Letter to the Countess of Denbigh may be interpreted as a deliberate rejection of the Protestant view, and an acknowledgement that the Countess, still not in communion with the true Church, was nowhere near the special state of mystical union to which the erotic analogy is appropriate within the framework of Catholic theology.

The figure developed in the revision of the poem, of a Christ who woos tirelessly, but does not carry off, is more in accord with Catholic theology, and it has parallels in the Catholic poetry of the Continent. Lope de Vega’s Rimas sacras (1614) furnishes a good example:

What have I, that you seek my love? What benefit results for you, Jesus mine, That at my door covered with dew You spend the dark nights of winter?

Oh how hard were my bowels,

Since I did not open up to you! What strange madness,

If the icy cold of my ingratitude

Withered the wounds in the soles of your pure feetl How often the Angel said to me:

“Soul, lean out the window now,

And you will see how lovingly He persists in callingl” And how often, sovereign beauty,

“Tomorrow I will open to him,”

I replied, only to reply the same tomorrow.(22)

We are, of course, also reminded of Crashaw’s Charitas Nimia, a
poem which similarly celebrates divine patience rather than divine
power. All three poems are essentially Catholic in their insistence
that man’s will is free to accept or reject God’s freely offered grace.
Crashaw himself having converted before the composition of even the first version of his poetic exhortation to the Countess of Denbigh, the second version does not represent a change in his belief about free will. What it does indicate is the poet’s ability to criticize and improve his own work in the light of continued meditation on the faith he meant for it to serve. The revision of A Letter to the Countess of Denbigh is better organized, and hence the argument is clearer. More important, its metaphorical strategy corresponds more closely to the Catholic understanding of conversion which is, finally, the theme of the poem. This tighter coherence of figure and idea makes the revision more vivid and compelling, and more mature-in every way a better poem.(23) To improve what is already an interesting and impressive poem is not the work of naive emotion, but of skilled intelligence, which Crashaw possessed in a degree for which he is too rarely given full credit.