Thursday, October 22, 2009

Susanna

I especially enjoyed the story of Susanna in the Bible because they used real means of proving that the elders were in the wrong. The only instance of divine intervention was God's influence in Daniel's soul for him to recognize the wrong being done. Then after that he used investigation methods instead of divine power to discover who was in the wrong.

In relation though the poem of Peter Quince at the Clavier by Wallace Stevens, is one of music. I love how he sets up the entire poem with the statement "Music is feeling, then, not sound." And all throughout the rest of the poem he uses musical terms to describe the feelings of the characters in the story of Susanna. This I felt was a beautiful way to tell any story let alone the story of Susanna. Then at the end there are these three lines:

Now in its immortality it plays
On the clear viol of her memory
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

In this way Stevens is giving credit to the beautiful story and how it shall live forever, and he does it in a way where he can relate it back to the musical terms that drove the entire poem. I don't know why but I felt that that was gorgeous.