The Anathemata
Middle-sea and Lear-sea (continued)
Not again
till the splendor formarum1
when, under West-light
the Word is made stone.
And when
where, how or ever again?
. . . or again?
Not ever again?
never?
After the conflagrations
in the times of forgetting?
in the loops between?
before the prides
and after the happy falls?
David Jones notes
1 Cf. the technical term splendor formae used of Beauty in Thomist philosophy. I borrow the terminology to use it analogously and in a non-philosophical, everyday sense and in the plural, of those visible ‘forms’ of art-works, which, after all, derive their outward ‘splendour’ from the forma, i.e. the unseen informing principle, referred to in the technical language of the definition.
additional notes
‘the Word is made stone’ in the form of cathedrals (which take the form of a cross).
comments
But will this springtime rebirth of art ever happen again? There is an indirect answer to this rhetorical question in the next paragraph.
The rise and fall of a proud civilisation is another example of a Great Cycle. Also the Fall in the Garden of Eden is referred to as a ‘felix culpa’ , a ‘happy fault’ , in Catholic theology since it made possible and necessary the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus. The earliest reference to this doctrine is in the writings of St. Augustine (354–430).