The Autobiographical Tolkien - 'Leaf by Niggle'... - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

littlemanpoet · 09-02-2002, 11:36 AM

Estelyn: My mind wandered to The Divine Comedy in response to your last post's reply. I'm thinking particularly of the paradisal garden at the top of the Purgatorial mountain, through which flowed the River Lethe. That had the same feel to me, and I recall that it is where Beatrice finally comes to meet Dante. That had the feel of Faerie for me, too, but for me that feeling was lost the further into the heavens they went...

That tells me that the somewhat bodiless existence Dante describes in Paradiso lacks what the pinnacle of Purgatorio has, which is enfleshed reality. That's why I find Paul's writings at the end of his letter to the Corinthians (think of the Bass soloist toward the end of Handel's Messiah, to be so spine tinglingly wonderful. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall all be changed..." having resurrection bodies, and from John's Revelation, a New Heaven and a New Earth, not a bodiless Nirvana. What does all this hunger represent? A desire to get back to Eden, or else as close as possible to the next best thing. Whenever I can envision that, it is ecstasy. Does this make sense?

09-02-2002, 11:36 AM	#26
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	Estelyn: My mind wandered to The Divine Comedy in response to your last post's reply. I'm thinking particularly of the paradisal garden at the top of the Purgatorial mountain, through which flowed the River Lethe. That had the same feel to me, and I recall that it is where Beatrice finally comes to meet Dante. That had the feel of Faerie for me, too, but for me that feeling was lost the further into the heavens they went... That tells me that the somewhat bodiless existence Dante describes in Paradiso lacks what the pinnacle of Purgatorio has, which is enfleshed reality. That's why I find Paul's writings at the end of his letter to the Corinthians (think of the Bass soloist toward the end of Handel's Messiah, to be so spine tinglingly wonderful. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall all be changed..." having resurrection bodies, and from John's Revelation, a New Heaven and a New Earth, not a bodiless Nirvana. What does all this hunger represent? A desire to get back to Eden, or else as close as possible to the next best thing. Whenever I can envision that, it is ecstasy. Does this make sense?