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The following passage from a National Gallery introduction to an exhibition of impressionist painting is the starting point for my sermon (as yet unwritten) this Sunday. To what extent is this view of art a helpful way into theology?
‘The impressionist vocabulary includes without a doubt the direct, living ‘impression’ of a moment, which is often reproduced in what seems a chance detail of a whole event. These are scenes and figures of modern everyday life as opposed to depictions from classical or mythological stories, such as formed the stock-in-trade of traditional art until the end of the nineteenth century. Workers and prostitutes, passers-by in the street or guests in the café – the impressionists were the first to regard such people as art worthy…’
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| | Services this Week
Tuesdays & Thursdays
12.15pm Lunchtime Eucharist
Sunday 7th June Trinity 1
10.30am Choral Eucharist
Preacher: Canon Brian Mountford
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Forthcoming Events
In Numbers Poetry Series - 7pm 10th June: Poetry Panel: Maths and Artchitecture
Bible study for students Continues on Tuesday, 9th June, at 8pm in the Vaults.
Student Ecumenical Picnic 2pm, 6th June, University Parks |
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Forthcoming Concerts The City of Oxford Choir, 13th June, 7.30pm Schubert, Mozart, Haydn Tickets £12/£10/£8 available from Tickets Oxford or on the door.
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| | Wednesday, May 10th: The final panel discussion in our 'In Numbers' series promises to be a really interesting one. Architect Hugh Conway Morris has been in measuring all round the University Church to see what maths is in play, and to think about how medieval craftsmen - who were themselves often illiterate - would have related to the geometry they were employing in a practical way. The discussion - with the mathematician Jamshid Derakhshan - promises to shed new and intriguing light on the beautiful University Church. Free, all welcome. 7-8pm in the nave. |
| | Tomorrow, 7.30pm -- Bernard O'Donoghue, Tough Times
How is anger described in a literary context? For hundreds of years poets have written about anger, war and violence as combatants, as victims or anguished witnesses. In this
session, noted Irish poet and academic, Bernard O’Donoghue will discuss what poetshave to say about this emotion as well as poetry’s place in times of history ruled by
anger.
Bernard O’Donoghue is an Emeritus Fellow in English at Wadham College, Oxford where he taught Medieval English and Modern Irish Poetry for many years
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| | | | | Poetry corner
THERE sat a Lady
all on the ground,
Rays of the morning
circled her round,
Save thee, and hail to thee,
Gracious and Fair,
In the chill twilight
what wouldst thou there?
"Here I sit desolate,"
sweetly said she,
"Though I'm a queen,
and my name is Marie:
Robbers have rifled
my garden and store,
Foes they have stolen
my heir from my bower.
"They said they could keep Him
far better than I,
In a palace all His,
planted deep and raised high.
'Twas a palace of ice,
hard and cold as were they,
And when summer came,
it all melted away.
"Next would they barter Him,
Him the Supreme,
For the spice of the desert,
and gold of the stream;
And me they bid wander
in weeds and alone,
In this green merry land
which once was my own."
The Oratory, 1849.
This poem, by the former Vicar of the University Church, John Henry Newman, is intended to be heard as a hymn. I've been thinking this week about the relationship between poetry and music ahead of our workshop on lyric poetry on Wednesday 3rd, and wondering where the two depart. It is hard to read the above poem as straight verse, nowadays: the rhythm is too regular, the rhyme too neat.
It strongly reminds me of the anonymous Middle English poem “Maiden in the Mor Lay”, in which the Virgin is imagined in a bounteous landscape of primroses, violets, roses, lilies and clear, cold water. Newman’s poem has a sort of discourse with this ancient verse, though their methods are very different: where Newman is all order and regularity, the older poem is mysteriously interrupted, almost gnomic in its limited choice of rhyme-words.
Maiden in the Mor Lay
Maiden in the mor lay--
in the mor lay--
Seuenyst fulle, seuenist fulle.
Maiden in the mor lay--
in the mor lay--
Seuenistes fulle ant a day.
Welle was hire mete.
wat was hire mete?
The primerole ant the--
the primerole ant the--
Welle was hire mete.
Wat was hire mete?
The primerole ant the violet.
Welle was hire dring.
wat was hire dring?
The chelde water of the--
the chelde water of the--
Welle was hire dring.
Wat was hire dring?
The chelde water of the welle-spring.
Welle was hire bour.
wat was hire bour?
The rede rose an the--
The rede rose an the--
Welle was hire bour.
wat was hire bour?
The rede rose an the lilie flour.
A rather clunking translation: “A maiden lay in the moor for seven nights full and a day. Good was her meat – the primrose and the violet. Good was her drink – the cold water of the well-spring. Good was her bower – the red rose and the lily-flower.”
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