Volume 6 Number 4 Article 3

10-15-1979

Elements of the Idea of the City in Charles Williams' Arthurian Poetry

Mariann Russell

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Recommended Citation Russell, Mariann (1979) "Elements of the Idea of the City in Charles Williams' Arthurian Poetry," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 6 : No. 4 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol6/iss4/3

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm

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Abstract Sees Williams’s Arthurian poems as a dialectic with a pattern of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, the last related to the idea of coinherence. Examines Williams’s characteristic image of the City as it appears in the Arthurian poems.

Additional Keywords The City in Charles Williams; Coinherence in Charles Williams; Williams, Charles. Arthuriad; Williams, Charles. Arthuriad—Moral and religious aspects; Mary Janis Johnson

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol6/iss4/3 Elements Of The Idea Of The City In Charles W illiam s' Arthurian Poetry By Mariann Russell

It has been noted by Charles Moorman1 among within,Williams envisioned "a form of poetic others that a variation of the theological idea life which acts through the earlier myth of verse" of the City of God appears as a motif and image in (Poetry at Present, p. 170). He noted with approval certain novels of Charles Williams, C. S. Lewis, William Butler Yeats' use of mythology: "...he has and J. R. R. Tolkien. This same idea appears in renewed in us the sense of great interior possi­ Williams' Arthurian poetry. Before a discussion bilities by his use of the traditions of magic and of the specific embodiment of the idea in the poet­ faerie, and made his own verse tremble with their ry, a very brief discussion of Williams' idea of imagined presence" (p. 69). It is not surprising the City would be helpful. therefore that Williams selected the Arthurian myth as material for his own greatest poetic effort. The particular idea of the City used by the novelists was first and most highly developed by The Grail quest had previously been discussed Charles Williams. Williams, an essentially eclec­ in Arthur Edward W aite's The Hidden Church of the tic w riter, derived his idea chiefly from classical Holy Graal. Williams had read the book, and it is expositions of the Christian idea of the City. fairly certain that some roots of his later system While the protean idea of the City has found dif­ can be found in the doctrine of Waite and his ferent expressions in different ages, it has re­ school. It is also fairly certain that Williams' tained certain essential elements: a chosen com­ Arthurian myth owes something to Waite even though munity, the world in which the community finds the exact nature of- the debt has not been deter­ itse lf, and the relationship between the chosen mined. A detailed account of sim ilarities between community and the world. Waite's and Williams' treatments is not particular­ ly relevant here, but there are certain aspects of (In the Bible, the idea was first developed in W aite's discussion that may illuminate the scheme the Jewish idea of a chosen people and city. In of Williams' poetry.5 the Pauline sections, the Jewish Idea was continued and spiritualized in the Christian Church with its W aite's intention had been to outline a mysti­ bond of charity, while the Apocalypse provided a cal interpretation of the Grail quest: "Over the significant image of the idea. Although Augustine's threshold of the Galahad Quest we pass as if out of City Of God gave the idea cosmic significance, the worlds of enchantment, worlds of faerie, worlds medieval notion of Christendom, variously expressed of the mighty Morgan Le Fay, into realms of alle­ in such works as the German Arthurian romances and gory and dual meaning, and then--transcending D a n te 's Monarchy, tended to confine the idea to allegory--into a region more deeply unrealised..."6 particular historical embodiments.) In Waite, the meaning of the Grail is attributed easily and without particular distinction to the Charles Williams endued these classical exposi­ individual mystical quest, to the "Hidden Church" tions with his own concerns with perichoresis, of the adepts, to the Church as a whole, to humanity coinherence, substitution, and impersonal love as as a whole, to the universe, and to the principle he changed the theological idea into an archetypal idea of relationship or coinherence which he found of the universe. Waite further defines the Grail in the Trinity and in all creation. To Williams quest as a "reintegration of secret knowledge be­ fore the Fall" and as the Way which passes through these themes held a poetic intensity since these very term s--perichoresis, coinherence, and sub- illumination to sanctity to ecstasy. This kind stitution--were part of his attempt to capture and of mystical interpretation explains Waite's emphasizing such elements as the identification of communicate the moment-to-moment living of doctrine. the Grail quest with a "higher meaning of the Williams' Arthurian poetry, notably Taliessin Eucharist," the removal of the Grail more than through Logres and The Region o{ the Summer Stars, the actual Grail quest, the Castle of the Grail is one attempt to communicate the same experience at Corbenic as a "House of Souls" and the "Earthly in p o e try . Paradise," and Sarras as a city of initiation and station in the Grail quest. Sir Galahad is Charles' Williams' notion of poetry as "making almost a personification of the Grail as intruding in words" would seem to preclude any simple com­ elements of the Arthurian romance are seen stric t­ munication of religious feeling. In poetry, re­ ly in terms of the quest. Perceval, Bors, Elayne, ligion must appear as mythology: "If poetry is to and others are interpreted in terms of the quest refer to 'Scripture texts' it must make of them a as Arthur recedes to the background. Even the poetic experience; if poetry is to thrill us with Round Table becomes an adjunct to the Grail quest. Baptism, it must make Baptism part of its own W aite's treatment of the legend with his "implicits" mythology."3 In his observation of modern poetry, of spiritual realities illustrates myth or legend Charles Williams found this view confirmed; he saw used primarily for its spiritual significance.7 spiritual realities being introduced into poetry through myth--Greek, Norse, Celtic, or Christian. Charles Williams thought enough of The Hidden In speculating about the distinctive verse form of Church and The Secret Doctrine in Israel to make a world in which "all strangeness, most adventures, Waite's acquaintance and later to join his Order and in a growing sense all space, must be found of the Golden Dawn. Although Charles Williams

10 (like Yeats before him) seems to have outgrown state of coinherence. In fact, coinherence tends the "Holy School," he retained an interest in to become the true subject of the' narrative as, the occult imagination. He allowed it a "kind in retelling the Arthurian myth, Williams sees of poetic vision" and admitted the validity of in it the failure and achievement of coinherence. "a certain imagination of relation in the universe," The "vertical structure" of Williams' narrative if, as he says, "only to pass beyond it."9 is formed by the dialectical movement of good, Like Waite, Williams saw in the old tale of ad­ anti-good, and their coinherence while the "hori­ venture "im plicits" of his experience of Chris­ zontal structure" is composed of the union of tianity and used the Arthurian material "not so the secular tale of Arthur and the Christian Grail much to tell a story or describe a process as quest as a myth of the attempted reconciliation of express states or principles of experience ."10 the larger worlds which these two sets of tales He could say, therefore, in an interpretation of r e p r e s e n t . 19 The poetic definition of this attempl his Arthurian myth: ed union involves other and more specific images of union. The tale of Arthur becomes the story Well then--Logres is the world before it is of the coinherence of good and evil, of vice and in order, and Arthur is man coming in it. virtue, of persons in a community, and of com­ The establishment of the Kingdom is the munities with each other seen against the back­ establishment of man, and the Table is--or ground o f th e c o in h e re n c e o f man and God in th e are--the qualities and capacities of man. Incarnation and the original coinherence of the The Dolorous Blow is that fact--call it the Trinity. "The cycle as a whole deals with the Fall, as I should, or whatever you like-- unifying of Christianity and civilization, of which has set man in a state of contradiction spirit and flesh, of form and matter ." 19 and antagonism with himself and the universe ....The wound of Pelles is incurable until a The union of opposites can be seen in what Redeemer shall come.11 Williams called the "horizontal structure," the union of Arthurian and Grail legends:

The states or principles of experience that The argument of the series is the expecta­ Williams' poetry expresses seem therefore to be tion of the return of Our Lord by means of those of the establishment of good, of .its contra­ the Grail and of the establishment of the diction by evil, and of the reconciliation of good kingdom of Logres or Britain to this end and e v i l . by the power of the Empire and of Brocel- ia n d e . 29 This pattern of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis cannot be regarded as specifically According to W illiams' plan, the Apocalypic Christian, but in the case of Charles Williams, kingdom is to be preceded by the coming of the the pattern was, explicitly or im plicitly, so. Grail from Sarras, the land of the Trinity, to There was for him a horror in existence--objec- Byzantium, the Christian Empire. The Grail and tively in creation and subjectively in human ex­ other Hallows have already left Sarras and been perience that contradicted its good: "...I do deposited in Carbonek. The union of Arthur, not underrate the great and pure beauties which king of Logres, with the Grail king, Pelles, are presented and revealed to us, the virtue and is to effect the union of Logres, province of value of fidelity, the appearance of a new kind Byzantium and the "House of the Hallows" with of goodness where sometimes the old seems to have Carbonek, province of Sarras and "Holder of the been exhausted. Yet it is also true that a kind Hallows." The particular union of provinces of of death attends us all everywhere."12 This con­ Sarras and Byzantium is an "image" of and pre­ tradiction marking Williams' experience of life is lude to the general union of heaven and earth to illustrated in his definition of the Fall: "The be accomplished at the Second Coming. The entire contradiction in the nature of man is completely Arthurian legend is thus accommodated to.the established. He knows good, and he knows good Grail theme. as evil. These two capacities will always be present in him: his love will always be twisted In the foreground of the poetic narrative with antilove, with anger, with pride, with unfolded in Taliessin through Logres , the' main jealousy, with alien desire. Lucidity and con­ cycle of Williams' unfinished Arthurian poetry , 21 fusion are alike natural, and there is no corner is the story of the reign of Arthur, his cupidity into which antagonism to pure joy has not broken."13 resulting in civil war, and his own death. The In Christianity Williams found this contradiction "Prelude" of Taliessin outlines this narrative expressed and resolved. Common experience of a action and relates the action to Williams' larger "dreadful contradiction"--manifested in the "sorrow myth of the Fall as the story of microcosmic and obscenity of life"--become the "local and Logres is enlarged and defined by allusion to particular experience" of Christ in his Incarnation Williams' new Arthurian myth. The "Prelude" and death. Christ's Incarnation was, for Williams, outlines the three movements of the narrative the basis of any synthesis of good and evil in the plot. The first movement is that of the ordering universe and in human experience. "Our salvation of the chaos of Britain into the kingdom of Logres is precisely our reconciliation to nature and to as a preparation for the coming of the Grail: the Church, our reconciliation both to Him and to "...the word of the Emperor established a kingdom our present state both at once and both in one."11* in B r i t a i n ." 22 The Dolorous Blow and Galahad's It is on this ground that Williams can find: coming form the second movement, that of the en­ "Existence itself is Christian; Christianity it­ trance of contradiction: self is Christian. The two are one because He is, in very sense, life and life is He."1^ The dia­ Galahad quickened in the Mercy; lectical pattern then describes for Williams that but history began; The Moslems stormed core of experience where the facts of everyday life B yzantium . touch the things of God, and it is this pattern ( Taliessin, p . 1) that he celebrates in his poetry. The last movement deals with the state after con­ "The dialectical stress of opposition is hope­ tradiction has been established and Logres has ful of some new result beyond; but co-inherence subsided into Britain where: means union, and the result here and now." 19 A l­ though the state of contradiction symbolized by "lost is the light on the hills of the Fall is the poetic subject of Williams' nar­ Caucausia, glory of the Emperor, glory rative series , 17 that state is a correlate of the of substantial being." (Taliessin, p . 2) 11 In the poetic narrative itself the last state is Logres and Carbonek are smaller communities that relieved by hope of a greater union. The shape are also human images of the divine city. The of Taliessin thus emphasizes a sense of loss com­ Company, another image of the city, is particularly bining remembrance of past glory and faint but related by its very nature to the other communi­ real anticipation of recovery, as that union of ties which are images of the city; for, as Williams opposites seen in the "horizontal structure" is says, what unites all these images of the city is given sequential form in the dialectical movement "this business of 'living from each other'" of the narrative. through exchange, substitution, and coinherence (inhering in each other), and the peculiar and After having redefined the Arthurian legend outstanding characteristic - of Taliessin's house­ through the structure of his narrative and mythi­ hold is its living of coinherence. cal, historical and geographical details, Williams in Taliessin turns to the main characters . 2 3 The The household, whose organization is dis­ actions and characters of Taliessin, Merlin, cussed in "The Founding of the Company," is the Arthur, Bors, Elayne, Dindrane, Galahad, Lancelot, most fully developed image of the heavenly city. Mordred, and others further specify Williams' A community sim ilar to those of Tabenessi, Monte theme: "...W illiams moves to reinforce his con­ Cassino, and Cappadocia, the Company is distin­ ception both of the qualities inherent in the union guished from these by the sim plicity of its rule: of Camelot and Carbonek and the reason for the it is "purposed only to profess a certain point­ ing." The household's purpose is to reinforce the coinherence of the communities of which it is a member and of the universe by the deliberate practice of largesse, the daily life of coin­ h e re n c e :

and its rule as the making of man in the doctrine of largesse and its vows as the felling, the singular and mutual confession of the indwelling, of the mansion and session of each in each. (Region, p . 37) The Company's largesse is derived from the orig­ inal coinherence of the Trinity and the Incarna­ tio n :

What says the creed of the Trinity? quicunque vult; therefore its cult was the Trinity and the flesh-taking, (Region, p . 36) failure of that union. We see nothing of the This largesse is also an expression of the state quest itself, only incidents in the careers of o f c a r i t a s , for the Company begins as a "token the essential characters.... But in every case, of love" between the members of Taliessin's house­ the main themes of the cycle are reinforced and hold. The Company like Williams' heavenly city examined from varying points of view."21+ contains three degrees of sanctity which con­ stitute its three ranks. The first degree is The Taliessin poems, then, contain an image that of the least practitioners of coinherence. of Williams' idea of the City. In Taliessin , Here the simple exchange upon which civilization coinherence is structured in the narrative move­ is founded is deliberately practiced: ment, detailed in the argument, and personified by its characters. Although an image of the City ...exchange dutiful or freely debonair; pervades the Taliessin poetry in its "sense of duty so and debonair freedom mingled, many r e l a t i o n s h i p s betw een men and women woven taking and giving being the living of largesse, into unity,"28 Williams' City is treated most in less than this the kingdom having no directly in 'the poems of The Region the Summer s a v in g . (Region, p . 38) Stars, poems "incidental to the main theme just outlined." Unlike Taliessin , this book does not The Company's second mode is that of deliberate concern itself with the failure to achieve union substitution: so much as with a particular image of the heavenly city--that of the household of Arthur's poet Tal- ...it exchanged the proper self iessin--the Company. It is through this image and whenever need was drew breath daily that the events of the myth outlined in Taliessin in another's place, according to the grace a r e s e e n . of the Spirit, 'dying each other's life, living each other's The household as a community within a pro­ d e a t h . ' 28 vince of the Emperor is related to larger communi­ (Region, p . 38) ties which reflect different aspects of the divine city. It is related to the political organ­ The last stage is that in which a few souls have ization of the Roman Empire in which "human life ... so lived substitution and exchange that they had been specialized.... It depended on an exchange glimpse divine coinherence in human coinherence: of labours."26 The Company is also related to Lateran, ' the Christian community of religious Few--and that hardly--entered on the third exchange. The two communities, Church and State, station, where the full salvation of are, according to Williams' myth, united in the all souls is seen, and their coinhering, Empire established at Byzantium: as when the Trinity first made man in their image, and now restored by the one beyond history, holding history at bay, adored substitution. (Region, p . 39) it established through the themes of the Empire and condition of Christendom Only Percevale, Dindrane, Dinadan, and the Arch­ (Region, p . 2 ) 28 bishop of the nobility and "of the people--a

12 mechanic here, a maid there" reach this stage. it may be that this gathering of souls, that Taliessin sometimes attains a poetic vision of the king's poet's household full coinherence when he glimpses the life of shall follow in Logres and Britain the S a r r a s : spiritual roads that the son of Helayne shall trace westward through the trees a deep, strange island of granite growth (Reg ion, p . 19) thrice charged with massive light-in-change clear and golden-cream and rose tinctured,30 The Company has its function in either contin­ each in turn the Holder and the Held... gency: if parousia . comes through the achieve­ (Region, p. 39) ment of the Grail at Logres, the Company, an image of coinherence, has helped to perfect Logres; if The life of the Company can be practiced in either union fails and the Dolorous Blow is struck, the the Affirmative or Negative Ways as is illustrated Company remains as a token of the Second Coming. by Taliessin the poet who chooses the affirmation of images and Dindrane his love who chooses the rejection of images: The possibility of disintegration of. com­ munity is always present to the Company as it between city and convent, the two great is to the Empire: vocat ions. But also in the mind of the Emperor another and either no less than the other, the kind of tale lay than that of the G rail... doctrine of largesse; (Region, p. 3-) 32 (Regi on, p. 32) There exists the possibility of evil figured by Although the Company is prim arily a community P 'o-l'u where beyond the antipodean seas: of those who live the life of substitution, it has a modicum of formal organization in common . . .a headless Emperor walked allegiance to Taliessin. From Taliessin's house­ coped in a foul indecent crimson... hold, the Company had spread through Camelot and (Region, p. >+) Logres. Taliessin, regarded as the "lieutenant of God's new grace," becomes the bond of the This perversion of Pope and Emperor is attended Company and an image of its "principle and rule." by octopods "goggling with lidless eyes at the Loyalty and, in some cases, obedience to Taliessin coast of the Empire." Members of the household is thus added to the informal rule of the Company. can know P'o-l'u which has rejected all exchange The Company is, then, primarily a way of life "only by nightmare." They are, however, aware with the addition of social order through relation­ of P'o-l'u as an alternative and opposite state s h ip to T a l i e s s i n . 31 to their own.33

The Company is, however, not a static image; it develops with each phase of Williams' narrative. In Logres itself, Mordred figures a state The existence of the Company is anticipated at opposite to that of the Company. Mordred, whose the establishment of Logres, the household is a civil wars begin the actual division of Logres, particular example of the life of the Empire and is a particular image of refusal of coinherence. its smaller communities during the reign of Arthur, Mordred in Arthur's kingdom, like the headless and the Company remains as a hope and pledge of Emperor in the world, is the end of the process restored coihherence after the good of these other of the Fall. Mordred is the product of Arthur's communities has been lost. egocentricity. Arthur's self-concentration had led him to prefer himself to the community in Taliessin is present at the original estab­ his role as king and to love himself in another in lishment of the good of Logres when specific loving Morgause: preparations for the parousia . are being made. Merlin and Brisen with the help of their mother "Balin had Balan's face, and Morgause her Nimue work for the coming of the Grail by estab­ b r o t h e r ' s . lishing Carbonek and Camelot. The building of Did you not know the blow Logres is accomplished by magical invocation, and that darkened each from other's? Taliessin, watching the magical rites of Merlin and Brisen: Did you not see, by the dolorous blow's might, the contingent knowledge of the Emperor , began then to share in the doctrine of floating into sight?" (T aliessin, p . 4 0 )34 largesse that should mark in Camelot the lovers of the king's The process that led to the Dolorous Blow leads poet; (Region, p. 16) inevitably to Mordred who sees kingdom and Grail as a means to enhance his own power: He glimpses but cannot express the principle of the Company, "the entire point of thrice coin- He has left to me the power of the kingdom herent Trinity." The Company is formed simul­ and the glory. (Region, p. 17) taneously with the creation of the larger com­ munity of Logres and shares in its purpose. Instead of wishing to serve the Grail and its Taliessin receives a commission to act as poet destiny Mordred envisions the G rail's being used to the yet unnamed king: to serve him through its magical powers: "at a rubbing genii might slide into my room." Mord­ . . .until the land red 's desire for power is such that he views that of the Trinity by a sea-coming fetch to his other Empire and its ruler with admiration. He s t a i r . would, if he could, establish a similar order in (Regi on, p. 17) L o g re s : but he is commissioned also to be the founder Here, as he in the antipodean seas, of a household which: I w ill have my choice and be adored for the h a v in g ; ...if ceases the coming from the seas when my father King Arthur has fallen in the at the evil luck of a blow dolorously struck, wood of his elms.

13 I will sit here alone in a kingdom of In the last stage, good and evil are intermingled P a r a d is e . although a final apocalyptic triumph of good had (Region, p . 49) been pledged: The two images, the infernal Empire and Mordred, ...consuls and lords within the Empire, figuring the social and psychological qualities for all the darkening of the Empire and the of the infernal city coincide in the last line loss of Logres of "The Meditation of Mordred": and the hiding of the High Prince, felt the Empire revive in the live hope of the I will sit here alone in a kingdom of Para­ Sacred City. d is e . (Region, p . 61)

In Williams' myth, these two states--one de­ Logres is lost, the Empire is obscured, but voted to mutuality and union and the other to the Company survives, and with it rests the chief solipsism and division--coexist peacefully for a hope of the "Sacred City." Taliessin dissolves time, but once the inevitable choice is made, the the exterior bonds of his Company, but the prac­ latent antagonism of the two states becomes active tice of the life of the Company continues: conflict. The "dichotomy of battle" splits the unity of Logres and spreads through Byzantium: ...We declare the Company s till fixed in the will of all who serve the ...the tale spread, Company till the governors of the themes knew it in (Region, p . 56) t h e i r own d rea m s; forsaking the Emperor, they chose among The particular loyalty owed to Taliessin is re­ themselves; stored to God .as the Company becomes the unknown (Region, p . 51) elect for whom the Pope prays in phrases reminis­ cent of Christ's prayer for his disciples at the The governors of provinces become involved in pri­ Last Supper. There is about the Company in this vate power struggles. Byzantium is attacked by final stage a rather strong suggestion of the Moslems, and the glory of ideal Christendom is Christian remnant--the household of the faith in o b s c u re d : its battle with the world, "a battle hopeless enough from a merely human point of view, and in Against the rule of the Emperor the indivisi­ which we can survive only by using the weapons ble Empire was divided; therefore the Parousia of grace.35 As Moorman has observed, to Williams suspended its coming, and abode s till in the quest outlined in the central story is a fail­ the land of the Trinity. ure. "The hope... exists in the company, the rem­ Logres was void of Grail and Crown... nant, those to whom the doctrine of Exchange has (Region, p . 55) operative validity" (p. 101). In this last stage, hope rests with the scattered household as the Not only is the political unity of Empire destroy­ city shrinks to the Company. ed, but the moral integrity of individual souls is also lost: W illiams' image of the Company thus gathers ...all gave their choice to the primal curse in all the elements of the City. The Company is' and the grave; their loves a particular image of the divine city, but it adds escaped back to the old necromantic gnosis to that image notions of the contradiction of the of separation. . . . (Region, p . 51) heavenly city by its infernal parody and of re­ solution of the contradiction between the two Society and the individual "rejected' the City, cities. The Company is a fellowship united by they made substitutes for the City." disinterested love or caritas . It is a "web"-- to use Williams' term--of various states of being This intrusion of the state of division upon personified in individuals. Its chief property the state of community is figured by the invasion is the practice of coinherence, its principle of from P'o-l'u. When magicians begin to assert existence and a quality which .it shares with the their power, the chief magus calls on the evil larger communities that it epitomizes. The ex­ power of P'o-l'u. As a result, souls of the un­ ternal characteristics resulting from the living easy dead return to their bodies and wander the of the "City" are humility, courtesy, clarity, and earth. The octopods begin to encroach on the obedience. ° The opposite city of the Perverted E m pire. Way is a union based on cupidity, a web of various degrees and kinds of egocentricity. Its chief The encroachment of the infernal Empire upon property is the desire to appropriate the images the Empire is stopped only by devotion. Galahad of creation for self-aggrandizement--chiefly and his companions achieve the Holy Grail in through power and lust. Between these two cities Sarras and this new state provides the atmosphere there is inevitable conflict. There is a kind of in which the octopods are defeated by Nimue. The elemental opposition between the two cities. Con­ evil magicians are defeated by the Pope's prayers flic t does not arise from circumstances so much and act of substitution as the bodies return to as circumstances embody a conflict whose true the graves: meaning has its roots elsewhere.

He invoked peace on the bodies and souls of In the Arthurian poetry, Williams' idea the dead, yoked fast to him and he to them, of the City appears chiefly in the pattern of coinherent all in Adam and all in Christ coinherence which the poetry celebrates and in (Reg-con, p . 60) particular images of the city, especially that image most original with W illiams--the image of The nature of the defeat of evil by good (as the Company.3^ His poetic treatment of the idea indicated in "The Prayers of the Pope") is typical of the City illustrates the use of the City to be of Williams' mature thought. The earlier simple found in his novels and in the novels of Lewis defeat of evil by good and evil: and Tolkien. Williams' City is not a city of bricks or concrete but the old idea of the City "...let hell also confess thee, refashioned and associated with his distinctive bless thee, praise thee, and magnify thee imagery. In Region, for example, the "City" f o r e v e r ." means, in various instances, the Christian re­ (Region, p . 60) ligious community, a state of the soul, the Chris­ tendom of Byzantium, the household of Taliessin, 14 the ideal perfection of the Empire, the political 8 The history of the group to which Williams empire of Rome, the principle of exchange and belonged is complicated. Waite had taken over coinherence, and the Apocalyptic City. For the leadership of the London temple founded Williams, each meaning represents a particular by Yeats after he left it in 1904. The embodiment of the archetypal idea of the City; temple was disbanded ca. 1917, and a later for, Carbonek and Camelot, coinherence and the Order was founded by Waite. It was probably Company, are all regarded as images of the arche­ to this Order that Williams belonged. For typal idea of relationship_which he derived from details, see Anne Ridler, Introd. to Image, the traditional Christian idea of the City. pp. xxiii-xxiv. 9 "The Index of the Body," Selected Writings FOOTNOTES (London, 1961), p. 114. 1 The Precincts of Felicity (Gainesville: 10 Charles Williams as quoted by Anne Ridler, University of Florida Press, 1966). Introd. to Image, p. lxix. Cf. Hadfield, p. 113: "More and more he found himself 2 Charles Williams regarded the mere communi­ only satisfied by real experiences expressed cation of religious, political, or romantic by symbolic figures, and of these he fastened ideas in verse form as verse, not poetry. upon the stories of King Arthur." For details, see Gigrich, p. 49 et passim. 11 "Note on the Arthurian Myth," Image, p . 175. 3 Charles Williams, The English Poetic Mind (Oxford, 1932), p. 167. 12 "The Cross," Image, p . 134..

4 Charles Williams, Poetry at Present (Oxford, 13 He Came Down, p . 22. 1930), p. 60. 14 "The C r o s s ," Image, p . 138. 5 Williams mentions Chretien de Troyes, Malory, Hawker, M orris, Tennyson, Swinburne, and 15 I b i d . , p . 139. Sebastian Evans as sources in his considera­ tion of the Arthurian material. He does not, 16 "A Dialogue on Hierarchy," Image, p . 129. however, mention Waite but Anne Ridler notes that material from W aite's book on the Arthur­ 17 "It would not be impossible, if the whole ia n m a te r ia l i s found in W illia m s ' "Common­ thing were regarded as a tale of the Fall place Book." See Introd. to p . xxv. individual or universal.... It (the_Dolorous Image, Blow) is an image of the Fall; it is also an 6 Arthur Edward Waite, The Hidden Church of. the image of every individual or deliberate act Holy Grail (London, 1909), p. 476. of m alice..." "Figure of Arthur," Arthurian Torso, p . 85. 7 For a discussion of the interpretations of the Arthurian legend and its treatment as 18 Williams uses the terms "vertical structure" myth, see Moorman, pp. 20-37. and "horizontal structure" in his "Common-

15 place Book," a record of twenty years' going into specific details, that this meditation on the Arthurian m aterial, dis­ arrangement is intended to show, among other cussed by Anne Ridler in her Introd. to things, the interconnection between matter Image.. According to Mrs. Ridler, the book, and sp irit that Williams regarded as one type as such a record could not fail to do, con­ of coinherence. Since this theme tends to tains many suggestions that were later dis­ become independent, its consideration is carded and slights some details that were omitted in this abridged discussion of later included in Williams' poetry. It would Williams' Arthurian poetry. For Williams' seem, however, that Williams retained the explanation of the body as an epitome of notion of the horizontal and vertical struc­ spiritual realities and its place in his sys­ tures. The horizontal structure he evidently tem, see "The Index of the Body," Selected. left unchanged; the tripartite vertical struc­ Writings, pp. 113-122. Anne Ridler, in ture with its dialectical movement he retained Introd. to Image, p. xxv, expresses a belief although he changed the contents of that that the emphasis placed on sex' in the de­ arrangement. See Image, p . l i x . velopment of this theme can be traced to W aite's influence rather than to the rela­ 19 Moorman, p. 83. In Cornelius Crowley's un­ tively common Golden Dawn doctrine of the published dissertation, "A Study of the interconnection of matter and spirit. The Meaning and Symbolism of the Arthurian Poetry frontispiece to W aite's The Secret Doctrine of Charles W illiams' (University of Michigan, of Israel (1913) shows a diagram of the 1952), Williams' poetry is interpreted on sephirotic tree laid out upon the figure three levels: (1) literally as a "tale" o f a man. (2) mystically as a kind of allegory of the Way and (3) mythically as a symbol of the 24 Moorman, pp. 66-67. spiritual history of mankind. "The whole tale thus becomes symbolic of the Fall of the 25 "Image," Image, p . 92. race through Original Sin, the fall of in­ dividuals through personal sin, and the Christo­ 26 "The Way o f E x c h a n g e ," Selected Writings, centric means by which both are redeemed" p . 125. (p. 87). Moorman, in his consideration of Williams' use of myth, sees no such consistent 27 Lateran, the Pope's residence or church. allegory although he recognizes the deliberate use of allusion to enlarge meaning. . To 28 Byzantium is chosen as the embodiment of the Moorman, W illiams' theme is "the battle’ be­ ideal of Christendom because Byzantium sug­ tween order and Chaos, charity and cupidity, gested to Williams a mathematical precision love and pride, Exchange and possession. which reflects the mathematics of the Trinity. Such a theme is, of course, universal" See Lewis, Arthurian Torso, pp. 104-106 . (p. 84). Moorman's appraisal is, I believe, the more accurate. 29 "The quotation from Heracleitus was taken from Mr. Yeats' book, A V ision ." Taliessin, 20 Charles Williams, The Region of the Summer p. 95. The same quotation is repeated here. Stars (London, 1950), p. vii. 30 This is an example of Williams' most char­ 21 Anne Ridler points out that Williams' Arthur­ acteristic imagery. To Williams, the rose ian cycle was never completed. There is, for and the gold symbolized the union of the instance, no single poem dealing with the divine and human, and of spirit and m atter, Dolorous Blow, a high point of the narrative. gold signifying the divine and rose the Whether the finished product would have been hum an. very different from the surviving poetry is debatable since, although Williams undoubtedly 31 Anne Ridler in Introd. to Image, p . x x v , intended further poems in the cycle, he him­ has pointed out the sim ilarity between self has said that the Taliessin poems out­ W illiams’ Company and W aite's Hidden Church. line the main cycle and, as Anne Ridler has It can be noted that both societies are sup­ herself pointed out, some important details posed to be living fully the essential are not dealt with in the poetry: "...while Christian doctrine only partially known by the tightening of the form in the new version the masses. was all to the good, the poet came to pre­ 32 The Emperor is an image of "operative Pro­ suppose a certain knowledge in the reader v id e n c e . " which has nowhere been conveyed, and to leave out some necessary links in the story, simply 33 See R egion, p. 40, conversation between Dina- because he had given them once" (Image, dan and Taliessin. p. lxix). Williams' prose commentaries on the Arthurian m aterial and his own reworkings 34 Moorman discusses Arthur's sin of cupidity, a especially in "Malory and the Grail Legend," particularization of "Gomorrah," p. 61. Of Dublin Review, CCSIV (1944), 144-153, "Figure this sin Lewis has said in An.thun.lan Toteo, of Arthur," Arthurian Toros , "Charles Williams p. 130: "It is a physiological image of that on 'Taliessin through Logres,'" Poetry Reilew, far more abominable incest which—calling it XXXII (1941), 77-81, supplement the narrative, Gomorrah—Williams studies in Descent Into but these commentaries are, of course, extra- Hell : the final rejection of all exchange poetic. (The most nearly complete collection whereby the heart turns to the succubus it of W illiams' prose commentaries can be found has itself engendered." in Image, pp. 179-194.) 35 Versfeld, p. 115.

22 Charles Williams, Taliessin through Logres 36 In Williams' usage the "City" may refer to the (London, 1938), p. 1. life of the city—coinherence or exchange or the bearing of burdens--or to an actual image 23 Williams uses even his geography as a vehicle of the City as in All Hallows ' Eve (s e e for his ideas. Appended to Taliessin i s a p. 119 ff.). Williams frequently uses the idea of map of the Empire in which the physical bound­ the "City" without specifically civic imagery; aries of the Empire are superimposed on the he almost never uses the imagery without the figure of a woman. It can be said, without accompanying idea of the City. 16 Founder's Focus Academia: Friend Or Foe? Glen H. GooKnight

What h as academ ia to do w ith a p erson re a d in g transmit information for the benefit of the great­ and enjoying a favorite book? To quote from The est number of people, both now and for the future. Hobbit: "lots and none a t al l . " The answer can be either, or something in between, for each indiv­ This may seem abhorrent to some members whose idual . But what I wish to discuss is what the ans­ experience with the Society's interests has been wer should be for all of us together, as the Society. only through isolated individual contact or through the ephemeral adventure of "fan" groups. Such To start with, we need to define academia. The groups, tending to dislike what is considered the Oxford English Dictionary defines academy. a s f i r s t dampening influence of dispassionate method and "a name of a garden near Athens where Plato taught," approach, usually choose enthusiasm as the prime hence "a place where the arts and sciences are mover. But enthusiasm, in distinction to values, taught; an institution of higher learning" and thus is an emotion, and like other emotions tends to on to the modern understanding as "a Society or in­ dissipate with the passage of time. Do not misun­ stitution for the cultivation and promotion of lit­ derstand; emotions are extremely vital to our erature, of arts and sciences, or of some partic­ lives, and I in no way advocate dismissing their ular art or science." importance. But as for me, the Society's inter­ ests have not only caught my emotions, but have Like nearly all institutional establishments permeated even more deeply to quieter regions of such as business, government, and health care, the my being where they abide as well. In the over educational or academic establishment is suspect twelve years of experience with the Society I today. There tends to be a popular feeling that it have seen wave after wave of enthusiasm wash over is entrenched and concerned far more with its own various sectors of the Society, only to subside survival and aggrandizement than serving the gener­ after a relatively short period of time. Our cor­ al good. In addition, since we tend to be maverick porate interests certainly deserve and evoke en­ individualists who "want what we want, when we want thusiasm, but they also deserve a better founda­ it", many of us have experienced presently or in tion for constancy. Enthusiasm is like adrenalin, the past, the feeling of being forced to abide by necessary and desired at certain times, but not seemingly artitrary regulations in our formal educ­ evocable at all times. a t io n , s e t down by a se em in g ly a lo o f h ie r a r c h y . This feeling apparently extends from high school Some, I fear, do not make the distinction be­ students on through university graduate students tween the tools that academia has to offer and the even to those who have a profession in less than the overly formal and impersonal aspects of it that most very highest levels of academia. of us have experienced negatively. Tools are neu­ tral. It is those who wield the tools that deter­ Why should this be of any concern to members of mine their effect for good or ill. In my opinion, The Mythopoeic Society? After a ll, the Society the Society has not been able completely to real­ offers no degrees, requires no tests, nor grades ize its full potential in the past, in part be­ people on their level of literary knowledge. We are cause of a division of opinion within its members n o t in intent or structure anything like academia. on this and other related issues. Some seem to Membership, open to all interested, reflects a broad have taken the attitude that they have achieved a spectrum of educational levels, ages, and attitudes. high level of expertise, and if academia wants to The relevant question is this: in our enthusiasm know of it, then academia must seek them out! for the interests of the Society, are we as con­ This seems to me to be a less than mature a ttit­ cerned with the further sharing of the things we ude, much like a researcher who has found a poss­ know and wish to know, as we are with our own pres­ ible cure of cancer but smugly waits for the med­ ent enjoyment of them? If we are, then academia is ical world to come calling at his doorstep for the best single way (I do n o t suggest the only way) the information! to disseminate and engender them further. I propose we keep our spirits free, our gifts Why? Because academia has the best structure of individual personality and insight intact, and and tools for this purpose. It provides a general­ be open to all the tools and resources available ized way to approach subject matter that transcends to us, the better to share those things we love individual attitudes and tastes, thus better to that have brought us joy.

37 The plays of Charles Williams show much the 38 Williams' habit of regarding poetic images same movement towards the use of symbolical and even structural design as "images" or figures to embody meaning as does his poetry embodiments of a higher reality has been dis­ in its development from Heroes and Kings, cussed by Dorothy Sayers in Further Papers (1930 ) to Rag-con. Since the plays parallel on Dante (New Y ork, 1 9 5 7 ), pp. 183-204. roughly the poetic development and since Miss Sayers points out that Williams, like there is none solely concerned with the City, Dante, is a poet of the Image: that both the plays will be omitted from this discussion belong to a philosophical and mystical tradi­ although they, in some ways, anticipate tion of the Affirmation of Images. Poets Williams' later poetic efforts. See Anne working in this tradition' express their Ridler, Introd. to The Seed o f Adam f o r an meaning in images and produce poetry character­ account of the development of W illiams' ized by "the gathering of all images into d ram a. the basic image" (p. 190). "There is not-- 17 C o n t'd o n p . 18 Lines

Upon Mistress Ellwood's Guage Of Poetry For Scribblers Aspiring To Publication In The Pages Of Mythlore

Our Editrix doesn't like contractions-- t h e y give her the fidgets o r w orse reactions;

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Owen Barfield is to be a distinguished-scholar- Cont'd from p. 17 in-residence at California State University at Fullerton February 26-28, 1980. On Tuesday, the or at any rate there need not be--any overt, 26th, he w ill give a major public address on The rationalized statement about the reality which Evolution of Consciousness at 8:00 P.M. On Thurs­ the image is there to convey. There is day the 28th he w ill give a public presentation on simply the showing of a picture, or the the Inklings, to be followed by a reception. For telling of a story, in which the truth is further information contact Prof. Bruce Weber in shown in action, and the universal structure the Department of Chemistry, (714) 773-3621. of reality is laid bare" (p. 193). 18