Every Advent since coming to Virginia

Every Advent since coming to Virginia, we re-read a little Dryden. This custom is not one of design but of discovery. The Piedmont, the perpendicular strip of rolling land which faces the littoral slope of the Blue Ridge, is a bucolic enough terrain for most seasons, but in the longest, desolate nights of December the ground can show its hard-bitten and infamous meagreness.


"Too strong," in Marcia Davenport's phrase, "for fantasy" in most of its guises, the landscape buckles beneath Advent's demand for jubilation; and unless one is the kind to seek one's comfort in stores and restaurants, hunger and chill turn for delectation to deeper legacies. We have a Winter to get through. Plus, there are the Occasions to observe. And what are they all about, if not the existence of something fine.


How widespread, I'm astounded to find in the blogs, resort is taken to one's favourite reading lists at such times, whether on the solace of other chairs, other gardens, other kitchens or other romances. Many of these proferred Lists are of interest, both for their common testament to an aspiration for something fine, and for the depth of reward they undoubtedly afford. 

But, what is notable about these Lists is their offering of Society in a common undertaking - the structuring act of a sound mental life, the preceptorial in the readings of a week in college. An hour of rowing responsively in a professor's study, with peers. Orally, aurally.

I discover what I love with exertion and with concentration. There is no doubt that this feels like play, because at the end of the day, love is active; it is sociable or it is stillborn. Look to your left, look to your right. Does Terestchenko really blog, to throw away his photographs? 

Is Tassos really not embarked upon a Socratic escapade? Will David Johns not keep looking? 


I keep several versions of the poem whose theme is this exercise. The Fitzerald and the Fagles translations alternate movingly in their beauty, a new one by Sarah Ruden is an education in its spareness. But Advent is for pulling out the stops, and letting the great thing take hold, for achieving poetry's reach to stretch demand within it far. Jubilation. The game, all-out.






Far in the Sea, against the foaming Shoar,
There stands a rock; the raging Billows roar
Above his head in Storms; but when 'tis clear,
Uncurl their ridgy Backs, and at his foot appear.
In peace below the gentle Waters run;
The Cormorants above, lye Basking in the Sun.

On this the Heroe fix’d an Oak in sight

The mark to guide the Mariners aright.

To bear with this, the Seamen stretch their Oars;

Then round the rock they steer, and seek the former Shoars..

With shouts the Sailors rend the starry Skys,

Lash'd with their Oars, the smoaky Billows rise;

Sparkles the briny Main, and vex'd the Ocean fries.

Virgil
The Aeneid
  Book Five: The Argument
John Dryden, translation
1698
Frederick M. Keener, editor
Penguin Group, 1997©


Georg Frideric Händel
Alexander's Feast
  The many rend the skies
Ode by John Dryden
  for St Cecilia's Day, 1697
  Oratorio adaptation, 1736
Harry Christophers
The Sixteen
The Symphony of Harmony and Invention
The Sixteen Productions, Ltd., 2005©