As we bask in the glory of the Easter Octave, celebrating the Resurrection, it is a good time to consider how themes of resurrection have been a recurrent feature of literature throughout the ages. A good place to start is to see the Resurrection in terms of eucatastrophe, a word which Tolkien invented to indicate the sudden joyous turn in a story which leads to the consolation of the happy ending. Eucatastrophe is the antithesis of catastrophe, which is the sudden devastating turn which leads to tragedy. Begging to differ with Tolkien’s use of his own invented word, we might venture to suggest that eucatastrophe is not merely a good turn, the opposite of catastrophe, which is merely eutrophe, but a “good-downturn” (eu = good; cata = down; tropos = turn). It describes the good that God, or the storyteller, brings out of evil; it is the good which could not have happened without the evil that preceded it. A eucatastrophe is the felix culpa, the blessed fault or fortunate fall, from which God brings forth unexpected blessings. Thus, the catastrophe of the Fall brought forth the eucatastrophe of the Redemption, and the catastrophe of the Crucifixion brought forth the eucatastrophe of the Resurrection. It is in this eucatastrophic sense that we can see the Resurrection of Christ, and the Redemption wrought by Christ, as the historical archetype of which literary depictions of resurrection, redemption and the restoration of life are types.

Let’s now look at some instances of resurrection in literature.

Beginning in pagan antiquity, we can see inklings of resurrection, and a prefiguring of redemption, in the conclusion to Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles. Whereas the prequel, Oedipus Rex, had been a meditation on the mystery of suffering or the problem of pain, Oedipus at Colonus suggests a resolution of the mystery in the divine blessing bestowed upon Oedipus for his humble acceptance of the suffering he endures, even though he is not responsible for it. He is an innocent victim who is rewarded by the gods at the play’s climax through his mystical assumption into their presence, without first experiencing death.

Moving into the Christian era, the Anglo-Saxon poem “The Dream of the Rood” is primarily a mystical meditation on the Passion of Christ. It tells of a dream in which the poet receives a vision of the very cross on which Christ was crucified. The imagery at the outset is, however, resplendent with the glorious mystery of the Resurrection and not, as might be expected, with the sorrowful mystery of the Passion. The cross is borne in the air and bathed in light, “a beam of brightest wood, a beacon clad in gold”. Angels surround it and gaze upon it. It is “not a felon’s gallows” but the very “signum of victory”. It is “the glory-tree”, shining out gaily and “sheathed in yellow decorous gold”.

Yet “through the masking gold” the poet perceives “what terrible sufferings were once sustained thereon”. It is then that the cross itself, “the Healer’s Tree”, begins to speak, relating its experience of the Passion of the Christ as the one ordained to bear its Maker’s weight and to share its Maker’s sufferings.

The poem ends with an allusion to St. Helena’s discovery of the true cross in terms that suggest that the cross itself, which had been buried with the two other crosses on which the thieves were crucified, shares in the glory of the Resurrection:

They felled us all,

We crashed to ground, cruel Weird,

and they delved for us a deep pit.

 

The Lord’s men learnt of it,

His friends found me…

It was they who girt me with gold and silver….

Emerging from the Early Middle Ages to the aesthetic heights of the High Middle Ages, we come to The Divine Comedy, arguably the greatest work of literature ever written. A meditation on the Sacred Triduum, Dante’s masterpiece begins on the evening of Holy Thursday in the Dark Wood, from whence Dante descends into Hell on Good Friday morning. He descends deeper into the grip of the deadly sins that crucified Our Lord and is released from Hell’s infernal grasp, through the power and mercy of the Risen Christ, at dawn on Easter Sunday.

We catch fleeting glimpses of the Resurrection in Shakespeare. It is present in Horatio’s prayer over the dead body of Hamlet that flights of angels might sing him to his death, words that are plucked from the burial service following the Requiem Mass; it is suggested in Lear’s final delirious or miraculous vision of the resurrected Cordelia; it is affirmed in Hermione’s “resurrection” in The Winter’s Tale.

We’ll conclude with hints of the resurrection to be found in The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, perhaps the greatest poem of the last century.

One of the prevailing images of The Waste Land, as its title suggests, is that of a desert bereft of life and the life-giving water necessary for life:

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water.

This imagery, which sets the scene and the tone in the first part of the poem, re-emerges in the final part:

Here is no water but only rock

Rock and no water and the sandy road

The road winding above among the mountains

Which are mountains of rock without water…

If there were water

And no rock

If there were rock

And also water…

But there is no water.

This arid atmosphere serves metaphorically to highlight the lack of life in nihilistic modern culture. The physical wasteland symbolizes the metaphysical wasteland. Both deserts need lifegiving water. It is then, amidst a ruined chapel and tumbled graves, in the presence of the dry bones of the dead, that a cock crows, signifying the dawn and the resurrection of the dead, heralding the coming of lifegiving rain:

Only a cock stood on the rooftree

Co co rico co co rico

In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust

Bringing rain.

Released from the desert, the poem springs to life. The culture of death it has depicted passes away into its own nihilistic nothingness, being replaced with spiritual revelation and sweet surrender to the peace that passeth all understanding. Seldom has the power of the eucatastrophe shone forth the power of the resurrection so vividly as in Eliot’s masterful premonition of his own conversion and resurrection from the dead which would follow five years later.

The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now

The featured image is courtesy of Pixabay.

All comments are moderated and must be civil, concise, and constructive to the conversation. Comments that are critical of an essay may be approved, but comments containing ad hominem criticism of the author will not be published. Also, comments containing web links or block quotations are unlikely to be approved. Keep in mind that essays represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Imaginative Conservative or its editor or publisher.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email