Beatrice, Oh Beatrice...

Here is a thought, a theme even, that has stayed with me for some time. I find it profound, though it is the type of profundity that isn't all that unique. It is the pre-romantic profound (downloadable link for The Shin's Saint Simon, start playing now!).

I am intrigued by the tradition in Christian poetry and literature of representing divine grace, beauty, truth, goodness, in the figure of a female. We have Beatrice, who Dante fell in love with at a glimpse, and who soon died in youth. Beatrice thus becomes a transcendent love object who Dante desires. She is the woman who prompts his rescue when he is lost to the sin of sloth, and later she is the woman who guides him in Paradise. The beautiful idea in Beatrice is that, though she is one woman, Dante's love for her orients him to the love of God, which is reflected in a real state in her. Thus, the particular, the earthy, has an analogical element of God (the Universal) in it.

We see this tradition extended in Petrarch, who has given the sonnet form his name. He loved another woman, Laura. It is said, that though Petrarch was a Catholic author, his version of the desired one demonstrates a deep shift in European thinking. How? Laura doesn't die, and thus, the love of Laura is the love of the immanent. Dante united the immanent and transcendent in Beatrice, whereas Petrarch put the focus on the good that is here and has no "telos", no final end (some would call this a superficial good, or a flat good). The new science is born, empiricism, naturalism, materialism, and its earliest kernel is found in literature.

In English literature we find this tradition in William Lamgland's Piers Plowman. In the prologue the protagonist is overcome by a beautiful woman: "A lady, lovely of looks · in linen clothed, / Came down from a castle · and called me fairly..". Let's just say he listens well, and soon discloses his object of affection as the Church.

Then had I wonder in my wit · what woman it were
That such wise words · of Holy Writ showed,
And asked her in the high name · ere she thence went,
Who indeed she was · that taught me so fairly?

`Holy Church I am,' quoth she · 'thou oughtest me to know.
I received thee first · and taught thee the faith,
And thou broughtest me sponsors · my bidding to fulfil
And to love me loyally · while thy life lasteth.'

Then I fell on my knees · and cried of her grace,
And prayed her piteously · to pray for my sins,
And to teach me kindly · on Christ to believe,
That I might work his will · that made of me man.
`Show me no treasure · but tell me this only --
How may I save my soul · thou that holy art held?'

Few non-Catholics would depict the church this way now, though the image is there in the New Testament. We rather look to the empirical church, and loose focus on the bride of Christ. This does seem to be an androcentric image of desire (one that is still reflected in our films). But the vision of the divine/beatific woman, be she lady wisdom or Venus, is usually a form of universal beauty, attractive to all. The beauty is almost supra-sexual, so high that one stands in awe, rather then erection.

Certainly Shakespeare plays with the two pronged image of a woman. We have the Juliet on high, in the balcony scene. And then we have the sacrificed Juliet, who has no resurrection. Interestingly, the desire for Juliet falters at death - Dante would have nothing to do with this idea (The death of the two would only signify their eternal bliss in heaven - that is if they died of natural causes. Certainly their suicides complicate the issue. Dante would have them in hell.). This reflects how distant the afterlife was to some in the British Renaissance. If we could add a third prong it would be Katherine from The Taming of the Shrew. She is the image of whit and wisdom in England.

Goethe is also playing with desire for a woman he can't have in The Sorrows of the Young Werther. Lotte is her name, and she is betrothed to another man.

You can find this theme throughout European literature. Lately, I have been interested in its 20th century transformations. I think that one of the most iconic images of Beatrice in the 20th C is Ann Darrow of King Kong. Here Dante is turned into an ape, the image of a proto Adam/proto Christ from the natural world. In Peter Jackson's version we see King Kong's desire very plainly. Clearly he is working in the analogical realm here, comparing man to ape. Man and ape are oriented to the higher good (at the sunset scene) the transcendental beauty, which is incarnate in Ann Darrow (a somewhat messianic figure).

We also have an image of Beatrice in Graham Greene's The Quiet American, as the Vietnamese woman Phuong, who Fowler and Pyle both desire. There is much to mine in this text (cultural travel, how transcendence is evoked, death - of Pyle and not Phuong, secular longing), but now is not the time. Though I will note that perhaps Sarah of The End of the Affair is Greene's true version of Beatrice, and Phuong is his Laura (one suspects Greene had many Lauras).

Two more quick examples before I eat. I'm starving. The band, The Shins, in their song "Saint Simon", speak of a secular search for truth. The protagonist is tired of all the Fairy Tales of his youth, decides to allow himself no further "mock defence(s)" and steps into the night..I think of Zizek/Hegel's "Night of the World" the step beyond the symbolic into the real - which for Zizek is very distrubing, chaotic and violent (ontology of violence). Anyhow, the protagonist doesn't find chaos. We as listeners are swept away into a melodic, parts sung tune, which sounds rather cathedral like. And who do we meet in the night? Lady Mercy:

Mercy's eyes are blue
When she places them in front of you
Nothing holds a roman candle to
The solemn warmth you feel inside

There's no measuring of it
As nothing else is love

I absolutely love it. If you read this and don't know the song please listen to it here.

Last, but certainly not least is Kar Wai Wong's film 2049. There is much to go into here. It will suffice to say that Wong's Dante makes his Laura suffer, on behalf of his Beatrice, who has left him longing. He leaves his Laura, so that he can become her Beatrice, which is also the creative force of all writing. When we get to the end we realize that Beatrice is a fiction in the first place, a trick our minds play on us because of nostalgia, yet a trick we cannot do without. The principle which moves the world, the artist, is a fiction of some prior, unmatchable love.

Needless to say, I do not share Wong's view. However, I do find the film very good. I would say that it is Wong's best work on desire. And now I must eat!

I want to look at Nabokov's Lolita in this light in the future...