72-) English Literature

72- ) English Literature

Richard Crashaw

 Writing and publication history

Three collections of Crashaw's poetry were published during his lifetime and one small volume posthumously—three years after his death. The posthumous collection, Carmen Del Nostro, included 33 poems.

For his first collection of poems, Crashaw turned to the epigrams composed during his schooling, assembling these efforts to form the core of his first book, Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber (trans. "A Book of Sacred Epigrams"), published in 1634. Among its well-known lines is Crashaw's observation on the miracle of turning water into wine (John 2:1–11): Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit, believed to be translated by Crashaw himself as: "The conscious water saw its God and blushed".

For instance, this quatrain, titled Dominus apud suos vilis from the collection, was based on a passage from the Gospel of Luke:

Crashaw's epigram (1634)

III.

En consanguinei! Patriis en exul in oris

Christus! et haud alibi tam peregrinus erat.

Qui socio demum pendebat sanguine latro,

O consanguineus quam fuit ille magis.

Clement Barksdale's translation (1873)

III.

See, O Kinsman, what strange thing is this!

Christ in's own country a great stranger is.

The thief which bled upon the Cross with Thee

Was more ally'd in consanguinity.

A literal translation

III.

Behold kinsmen! He who was an exile in his homeland—

The Christ, who was as a stranger there and not so elsewhere.

He, the thief who bled at the end, hanging with him—

Oh!—he was closer a blood relation.

Themes

Crashaw's work has as its focus the devotional pursuit of divine love. According to literary historian Maureen Sabine, his poems "reveal new springs of tenderness as he became absorbed in a Laudian theology of love, in the religious philanthropy practiced by his Pembroke master, Benjamin Laney, and preached by his tutor, John Tournay, and in the passionate poetic study of the Virgin Mother and Christ Child". Sabine asserts that as a result of his Marian devotion and Catholic sensibilities,

"In expressing his Christian love for all men, even the archenemy of his father and most English Protestants, Crashaw began to feel what it was like for Christ to be a stranger in his own land."

He depicts women, most notably the Virgin Mary, but also Teresa and Mary Magdalene, as the embodiment of virtue, purity and salvation. Indeed, Crashaw's three poems in honour of the Saint Teresa of Avila--"A Hymn to Sainte Teresa," "An Apologie for the fore-going Hymne," and "The Flaming Heart" are considered his most sublime works. According to Sabine,

"In his finest contemplative verse, he would reach out from the evening stillness of the sanctuary to an embattled world that was deaf to the soothing sound of Jesus, the name which, to his mind, cradled the cosmos."

According to Husain, Crashaw is not a mystic—and not by traditional definitions of mysticism—he is simply a devotee who had a mystic temperament because he "often appears to us as an ecstatic poet writing about the mystical experiences of a great saint (St. Teresa) rather than conveying the richness of his own mystical experience". Husain continued to categorise Crashaw's poems into four topic areas:

(1) poems on Christ's life and His miracles;

(2) poems on the Catholic Church and its ceremonies;

(3) poems on the saints and martyrs of the Church; and

(4) poems on several sacred themes such as the translation of the Psalms, and letters to the Countess of Denbigh, and "On Mr. George Herbert's book intituled, The Temple of Sacred Poems sent to a Gentlewoman," which contain Crashaw's reflections on the problem of conversion and on the efficacy of prayer."

While Crashaw is categorised as one of the metaphysical poets, his poetry differs from those of the other metaphysical poets by its cosmopolitan and continental influences. As a result of this eclectic mix of influences, Sabine states that Crashaw is usually "regarded as the incongruous younger brother of the Metaphysicals who weakens the 'strong line' of their verse or the prodigal son who 'took his journey into a far country', namely the Continent and Catholicism."

Lorraine M. Roberts writes Crashaw "happily set out to follow in the steps of George Herbert" with the influence of The Temple (1633), and that "confidence in God's love prevails in his poetry and marks his voice as distinctly different from that of Donne in relation to sin and death and from that of Herbert in his struggle to submit his will to that of God."

Critical reception

Much of the negative criticism of Crashaw's work stems from an anti-Catholic sentiment in English letters—especially among critics who claim that his verse suffered as a result of his religious conversion. Conversely, the Protestant poet Abraham Cowley memorialised Crashaw in an elegy, expressing a conciliatory opinion of Crashaw's Catholic character.

Today, Crashaw's work is largely unknown and unread— if he is not the "most important" he is certainly one of the most distinguished of the metaphysical poets. Crashaw's poetry has inspired or directly influenced the work of many poets in his own day, and throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

According to literary scholars Lorraine Roberts and John Roberts, "those critics who expressed appreciation for Crashaw's poetry were primarily impressed not with its thought, but with its music and what they called 'tenderness and sweetness of language'"—including a roster of writers such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Amy Lowell, and A. Bronson Alcott. During and after his life, friends and poets esteemed Crashaw as a saint—Abraham Cowley called him such in his elegy "On the Death of Mr. Crashaw" (1656); and Sir John Beaumont's poem "Psyche" (1648) compares Crashaw with fourth-century poet and saint Gregory of Nazianzen. Others referred to him in comparison with George Herbert, as "the other Herbert" or "the second Herbert of our late times".

"His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might

Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right:

And I, myself, a Catholic will be,

So far at least, dear saint, to pray to thee"

Legacy

Crashaw Prize

The Crashaw prize for poetry is awarded by Salt Publishing.

Later plagiarism

Alexander Pope judged Crashaw "a worse sort of Cowley", adding that "Herbert is lower than Crashaw, Sir John Beaumont higher, and Donne, a good deal so." Pope first identified the influence of Italian poets Petrarch and Marino on Crashaw, which he criticised as yielding thoughts "oftentimes far fetch'd and strain'd", but that one could "skim off the froth" to get to Crashaw's "own natural middle-way". However, contemporary critics were quick to point out that Pope owed Crashaw a debt and in several instances, plagiarised from him. In 1785, Peregrine Philips disparaged those who borrowed from and imitated Crashaw without giving proper acknowledgement—singling out Pope, John Milton, Young, and Gray—saying that they "dress themselves in his borrowed robes" Early 20th-century literary critic Austin Warren identified that Pope's The Rape of the Lock borrowed heavily from Crashaw's style and translation of Sospetto d'Herode.

In a 1751 edition of in The Rambler, critic Samuel Johnson called attention to a direct example of Pope's plagiaristic borrowing from Crashaw:

Crashaw's verse:

—This plain floor,

Believe me, reader, can say more

Than many a braver marble can,

Here lies a truly honest man

Pope's plagiarized verse:

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,

May truly say, Here lies an honest man.

Musical settings

Crashaw's verse has been set by or inspired musical compositions. Elliott Carter (1908–2012) was inspired by Crashaw's Latin poem "Bulla" ("Bubble") to compose his three-movement orchestral work Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei (1993–1996). The festival anthem Lo, the full, final sacrifice, Op. 26, composed in 1946 by British composer Gerald Finzi (1901–1956) is a setting of two Crashaw poems, "Adoro Te" and "Lauda Sion Salvatorem"—translations by Crashaw of two Latin hymns by Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274). "Come and let us live", a translation by Crashaw of a poem by Roman poet Catullus (84–54 BC), was set to music as a four-part choral glee by Samuel Webbe, Jr. (1770–1843). Crashaw's "Come Love, Come Lord" was set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Excerpts from "In the Holy Nativity of our Lord" were set by American composer Alf Houkom (b. 1935) as part of his "A Christmas Meditation" (1986, rev. 2018) for SATB choir, synthesizer and piano. "A Hymn of the Nativity" was set as "Shepherd's Hymn" by American composer Timothy Hoekman in his 1992 set of three songs entitled The Nativity for soprano and orchestra.

Works

1634: Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber (trans. "A Book of Sacred Epigrams")

1646: Steps to the Temple. Sacred Poems, With other Delights of the Muses

1648: Steps to the Temple, Sacred Poems. With The Delights of the Muses (an expanded second edition)

1652: Carmen Deo Nostro (trans. "Hymns to Our Lord", published posthumously)

1653: A Letter from Mr. Crashaw to the Countess of Denbigh Against Irresolution and Delay in matters of Religion

1670: Richardi Crashawi Poemata et Epigrammata (trans. "Poems and Epigrams of Richard Crashaw")

Modern editions

The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, edited by Alexander B. Grosart, two volumes (London: printed for private circulation by Robson and Sons, 1872 & 1873).

The Poems, English, Latin, and Greek, of Richard Crashaw edited by L. C. Martin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927); second edition, revised, 1957).

The Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw edited by George Walton Williams (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).