Aquinas College

Writers’ Night Symposium

Proceedings

April 15th, 2015

Cover image: Marten de Vos, “Allegory of the Seven Liberal Arts”

The Writers’ Night Symposium is the culmination of the Writer’s Night Essay Contest, a

campus wide event sponsored by the Write Reason Plan.

The Write Reason Plan at Aquinas College aims to strengthen writing and logical thinking habits

among the student population. Write Reason is the effective expression of clear, organized, and

accurate ideas that are stated convincingly according to the objective standards of truth and

reality, as established in the Trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, which is the foundation of a

liberal arts education.

Habits of mind (logic) and habits of expression through language (grammar and rhetoric) are the

foundation of a college level education. Through these habits we come to know the truth and

express ourselves responsibly according to what we know of reality. The Write Reason Plan aims

not only at improving writing and critical thinking skills, it considers the whole person as an

individual, a member of society, a citizen, a future professional, and made in the image of God.

To think according to the standards of logic and objective truth and to express ourselves clearly

is the end of all education and the vocation of every human person.

The Write Reason Plan at Aquinas College presents the fifth annual

Writers’ Night Symposium

Wednesday April 15, 2015

6:00 – 8:00pm

Introductory Remarks

Dr. Aaron Urbanczyk, Write Reason Director

2015 Writers’ Night Contest Winners

James P. Evans

Stephanie Garrett

Sr. Delia Grace Haikala

Lauren A. Smith

Sr. Mary Gemma Stump

2015 Writers’ Night Nominees

Wil Bernhard

Sr. Susanna Edmunds

Michael McLean

Kelsey Christin Nipper

Sr. Mary Leo Nordmark

2015 Writers’ Night Judges

Sister Mary Dominic Pitts O.P., Professor of English

Aaron Urbanczyk, Write Reason Plan Director

and Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences

Jean Marie Moles, Write Reason Center

Table of Contents

“John Milton’s Lycidas and Puritan Justice” by James P. Evans 1

“The Raising of Lazarus” by Stephanie Garrett 10

“The Prodigality of Providence: Grace Working in The Winter’s Tale” 20

by Sr. Delia Grace Haikala, O.P.

“Civil Rights: Was John F. Kennedy Friend or Foe?” by Lauren A. Smith 34

“The Nature of Pride: Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism” 38

By Sister Mary Gemma Stump, O.P.

1

“John Milton’s Lycidas and Puritan Justice”

James P. Evans

ENG 213: English Literature I

Instructor: Dr. Haynes

John Milton’s pastoral elegy Lycidas is regarded as one of the greatest poems in English

history. Literary scholars have debated, theorized, and dissected every line, many times

contradicting each other’s theories; however, one conclusion always remains the same. John

Milton the man was every bit as complicated and rich as his works. His poetic works evolved

over his life time, but his faith in God and his sense of justice unshakably stayed. Lycidas is a

perfect example of the complicated yet predictably faithful puritan justice in which John Milton

believed.

Understanding that Milton’s England was deep in religious tension is important. On one

side there were the Laudians, or followers of Archbishop William Laud, who rejected

predestination in favor of free will. On the other were Calvinists who had been dominant in the

Church of England. Being the grandson of a Catholic and the son of an Anglican gave Milton a

unique insight into the ensuing tension and division regarding which direction the Church of

England should take. In his early years, he drifted much closer to Calvin, but according to

Deborah Shuger, he became more orthodox in his later years: “His religious outlook seems, in

fact, to have become progressively more orthodox (albeit never wholly so), his poetry more

biblical, until the final rejection of Athens for Jerusalem in Paradise Regained” (145). Though

Milton rejected the idea of predestination later in life, during the time he was writing Lycidas, he

certainly would have been a subscriber to that belief. This will become important not only in

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understanding John Milton’s Lycidas but understanding his strong sense of divine justice through

Edward Kings untimely tragic death.

Milton on the surface appears to be saddened and lost at the death of Edward King;

however, Milton is not always what he seems. His poetry is ripe with secret meanings to avoid

censorship. According to John Shawcross, the reason behind this was the nature of politics being

intertwined with religion: “A major problem in dealing with politics during this period of

Milton’s life is that it [was] entwined with the Church and religious belief” (50). This made his

heretical views all the more dangerous. Milton had seen several colleagues sent to prison or had

their ears cropped for outwardly questioning the political authority of the time as well as

criticizing the religious establishment. Among these was a doctor, John Bastwick; a clergyman,

Henry Burton; and a lawyer, William Prynne, each one charged with seditious libel, each one a

puritan like Milton. “Milton was lucky not to have become further involved at the time. Someone

who did, John Lilburne, spent most of the rest of his life in and out of prison… and was shocked

that someone could be so severely punished for expressing his religious beliefs” (Forsyth 699-

700). England was not the place to express new ideas that could threaten its current

establishment. While in prison, Lilburne wrote about his punishments in The Work of the Beast,

which helped inspire a young Milton. Lycidas is the earliest sign of this radical sympathy.

Edward King came from a prominent family, one who exerted authority, especially in

Ireland. Due to political reasons, a young aspiring Milton would have had to be particularly

careful in how to address the loss of their child. Milton would have had to be equally careful in

criticism of the current English establishment as well. According to Timothy Watt, “[Milton]

was a poet of revolution, a regicide, a political radical, a religious heretic, a theoretician of

liberty, and an artist of peerless self-estimation” (4). Milton was a man who had a strong sense of

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justice but was aware that he would have to be careful about how he shared his voice with the

world. In lines 1-5 of the poem Lycidas, one can almost see that Milton may feel he is not up to

such a difficult task:

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,

And with forced fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. (Lines 1-5)

The berries being plucked are the poetic musings from Milton, the forced finger being the hand

of fate bringing him to a moment that he feels he is not yet ready to handle. Edward King’s death

was unexpected but gave Milton the perfect opportunity to write a brilliant elegy furthering his

career and destiny as a poet. Watts explains, “Milton the epically ambitious poet is haunted by

Milton, the mere Christian. And his poetic will to greatness is haunted by the promise, if not

always the presence, of Divine Will” (6). At the time of Lycidas, Milton was a Calvinist who

knew he would be great.

Lycidas was written for a colleague of Milton, Edward King, who drowned on the Welsh

coast. King was about to enter into a church career. He was only two years younger than Milton.

What appeared to be a tragedy, a young man cut down before he could even begin God’s work,

is secretly a blessing in disguise. The first question that needs to be addressed is why the name

Lycidas? Neil Forsyth address this very question “There are as many as thirty characters called

Lycidas in Renaissance neo-Latin eclogues… The Lycidas of Virgil is also a goatherd and a

poet” (685). Milton is setting the reader up for a pastoral elegy worthy of the ranks of all the

classics before him, including Philip Sidney, who was a well known Protestant poet. This

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pastoral elegy was going to be different. It was not only going to mourn the lost life of a friend,

but also attack the English Church which had drifted (in Milton’s mind) too close to Rome. But

what does this have to do with Edward King? King was about to become part of an institution

that Milton felt was corrupt as well as corrupting, yet he died before he had a chance to be

devoured by the Church. Milton’s view on the clergy is no secret. In Lycidas, the wolves

symbolize the clergy and their habit of devouring the flock vs. feeding the flock.

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed

But swoll’n with wind, and rank mist they draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw

Daily devours apace, and nothing said. (Lines 125-129)

The Jesuits founder, Ignatius Loyola, had grey wolves on his coat of arms. “In the Puritan view,

the Roman Catholic Church exerted a pervasive influence over the corrupt Church of England”

(Forsyth 695). The Jesuits were known to commit illegal proselytizing in England, leading many

of the faithful astray. The poem does not only speak of outside threats like the wolves, but of the

rot inward being the Church of England itself; Acts of the Apostles, in chapter 20 verse 29,

speaks about the savage wolves who will come in among the faithful flock after Christ’s

departure. Milton’s view on the Church of England only makes clearer of what he thought Kings

life would have become if he had lived instead of drowning. King, like the other clergy, would

have become a wolf among the sheep, devouring the innocents instead of feeding the flock.

Milton had already written several tracts denouncing paid clergy. Forsythe writes, “Like Milton

and King, from Cambridge went into the ministry and collected a salary for doing very little”

(697). These members of the clergy would leave the parish in the hands of often uneducated or

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corrupt keepers. The name Lycidas itself means “son-of-wolf.” Certainly a Calvinist Milton

would rather see his friend die before corruption. God himself allowed King to die a righteous

man predestined for heaven rather than become a wolf damned to hell.

Milton even gives Lycidas a precession. One of the most argued parts of Lycidas is the

identity of the Pilot of the Galilean Lake:

Last came, and last did go,

The pilot of the Galilean lake,

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain)

He shook his mitered locks and stern bespake. (Lines 108-112)

At first, one would argue the identity of the pilot is none other than St Peter. Even the Bible

could lead to that interpretation: “St Peter, the Galilean fisherman” (Luke 5.3). He was also the

disciple to whom Christ passed the keys. At first glance, this should be an open and shut

conversation, but Milton is a complicated man who writes even more complicated works. The

pilot of Galilee has a mitre, a symbol of the bishop. In the Anglican Bible, Christ is referred to as

a bishop, “For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and

Bishop of your souls” (1 Peter 2.25). There is no text written in the Bible that would have

convinced a Protestant Milton of any authority held by the throne of Saint Peter. The problem of

the keys is easily addressed by M.J. Edwards, who thinks “it is not said at Matthew 16:18-19 that

Christ bestowed two keys: on Peter one was of gold, and one of iron. Neither does it say that one

was designed to shut and the other to open” (608). The Papal crest has two keys: one of gold, the

other of silver. In Lycidas, the other key is that of iron. The keys given to Peter held the power to

tighten or loosen sins, not locking or unlocking doors. John Calvin’s first discussion of the keys

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in Institutes is full of satire on Rome’s usurping authority that was never duly given to the

Church. Though it could be argued that the Church could forgive and absolve sins, it did not

have the authority to open and shut the gates of hell. Christ alone holds that power, but Milton

writes “that two-handed engine at the door stands ready to smite once and smite no more” (Lines

130-131). The Pilot holds the power of the two handed engine capable of smiting the sinful.

Hinting at the last judgment, this is presumably the use for the iron key, “The rod of iron that

breaks the wicked” (Psalm 2:9). Peter does not walk on the water successfully; he falls and is

saved by Christ, certainly not the acts of a skilled Pilot of Galilee. Finally, Peter simply was the

owner of the vessel, never the Pilot. It was Christ who directed the boat on where he and the

disciples would land. Forsyth writes, “Christ was believed to have acted as a pilot in John 6:21,

when they willingly received him into the ship; and immediately the ship was at the land whither

they went” (610). Christ is the true Pilot in Milton’s Lycidas. Christ, who determines who enters

heaven and who enters hell, even states that he could have saved Lycidas, but did not, Milton

writes, “how well could I have spared for thee young swain” (Line 113). Why would Christ then

let young King drown in the Welsh coast? Predestination! As King would have soon been

entering religious orders for a corrupt church, his soul would have been corrupted as well. When

Christ allows King to die, he was assuring his predestined place in heaven. In Milton’s mind,

Edward King’s death was a just and righteous one.

This begs the paradoxical question, how can Lycidas be both an elegy lamenting the

death of King and a piece of poetry rejoicing in his passing, while attacking all that King had

dreamed of being? The answer is simple yet complicated in nature. Milton the person the poet is

sad to have lost his friend and colleague. Milton the Christian is happy that King dodged a fate

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worse than death. He even secretly reminds his fellow Puritans of King’s fate through a

encrypted verse:

Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;

Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore,

In thy large recompense, and shalt be good

To all that wander in that perilous flood. (Lines 182-185)

Milton reminds his fellow Christians that Lycidas, King, is now the genius of the shore, genius

meaning spirit or protector of a certain place, in this case protector of the ocean or water. Why

is this important to the narrative? The water around England is very well documented for its

turbulence and danger, much like the religious tension that had been plaguing the country since

Henry VIII. Lycidas is now one of the spirits guarding the faithful as they cross the perilous seas

of religion and endure false prophets of the corrupt Church. At the same time, flood is the last

word spoken by the narrator known as the “uncouth swain.” The tone of the poem changes

again, leaving behind the elegy. Forsyth writes, “He is also leaving those potential delusions

about saints at the end of time Christ will be attended by his ‘saints assembled’ at the Last

Judgment” (701). This poem is no longer about King but about Milton and the death of his

youth, as Milton himself was considering a position in the church before the death of King. As

Milton says farewell to his friend, he says farewell to his former self; he, like King, has been

saved in predestination. This is symbolically written in the last line of the Elegy, “Tomorrow to

fresh woods and pastures new.”

In King’s death, both he and Milton have been saved by Christ, the great mediator, the

Pilot of Galilee. Milton and King were saved before either became an ordained minister; Kings

remained only the son of a wolf and never became a wolf himself. Puritan justice once again

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triumphed over false prophets and the rituals of a corrupted church and predator like clergy.

Milton, the ambitious poet who understood and loved the classics, would no longer have to fear

Milton the Christian. Timothy Watt states, “The apparent discord between Christian teaching

and the many disappointments and confusions of his own life might have driven Milton

irremediably to despair… they were instead a refiner’s fire” (6). Milton had been given God’s

grace and was at peace. Lycidas is just as much about Milton as it is about King, and the power

of destiny. As the Elegy closed, so did the last drop of doubt in Milton’s life. Though Edward

King died, Milton lived through God’s Justice, alive to preach, to stand up for Republican

Ideals, and achieve his destiny of writing the world’s greatest epic.

9

Bibliography

Edwards, M J. "The Pilot and the Keys." The University of North Carolina Press (2011): 605-18.

Print.

Forsyth, Neil. "Lycidas" A Wolf in Saint's Clothing." Chicago Journals 35.3 (2009): 684-702.

Print.

Shawcross, John R. The Development of Milton's Thought Law, government, and religion.

Pittsburgh: Dusquesne University Press, 2008. 49-82. Print.

Shuger, Debora. "Milton's Religion: The Early Years." Milton Quarterly 46.3 (2012): 137-49.

Print.

Watt, Timothy. "Milton and Obedience." University of Massachusetts Amherst (2012): 15-28.

Print.

Womack, Mark. "On the Value of Lycidas." Rev. of Lycidas, by By John Milton. (2002). 119-

136. Print

10

“The Raising of Lazarus”

Stephanie Garrett

Instructor: Dr. Bulzacchelli

THE 410: The Writings of John

Physical death is separation from this earthly life. For Christians, spiritual death means

alienation from God. This sense of separation and alienation exists in archaic Babylonian and

Egyptian cultures who described the after-life as a morally neutral abode for the dead. The

ancient myths The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Descent of Innana/Ishtar depict lengthy journeys

in order to reach the realm of the dead. In both myths, the protagonists arrived to find prison-like

fortresses designed to protect both the living and the dead. In the same vein, the ancient Greek

and Roman epics The Odyssey and The Iliad depict Hades far from the land of the living,

separated by waterways and guarded by monsters. Once the Greek and Roman dead passed over

into the land of the shades, they continued on eternally in the last acts of their earthly lives. An

after-life of punishment was reserved only for those who committed treasonous acts against the

polis, which was considered the most despicable form of criminal activity. According to the

ancient Hebrews, the souls of the dead went down to Sheol, which is described as a pit far below

the earth. Here the dead are ensnared, and then retained by waves and torrents. One psalmist

described dying this way: “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on

me; I suffered distress and anguish.”1 The souls of those who died in an immoral state, meaning

they neglected to uphold Israel’s covenant with God, were consigned further within the depths of

Sheol, to a fiery pit named Gehenna. Two distinct elements are common among the beliefs of all

1 Ps 116:3, RSV.

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these ancient cultures. Death itself is not seen as an absolute end,2 and the dead must be

imprisoned far from the living.3

Living and preaching among those in the Diaspora, the Johannine writers of the fourth

Gospel would have had not only an understanding of Jewish Sheol and Gehenna, but would

most likely have been familiar with ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman myths

regarding the dead.4 It is against this backdrop that the narrative “Raising of Lazarus” provides

antithetical parallels to the archaic notions regarding death and the after-life, and demonstrates

the Johannine understanding of a realized eschatology and the theology that Jesus is light and

life. The high Christology of the Gospel of John recognizes Jesus’ Incarnation, Death, and

Resurrection as the culmination of God’s salvific plan for creation. Man should no longer await

the coming of the messiah or the end times. The end time began when God took on humanity and

entered into creation as the person of the Son, Jesus Christ.

Today’s well-catechized Christians are aware that the Creation narrative in the Book of

Genesis provided the ancient Hebrews with an antithetical parallel to the Babylonian creation

myth, the Enuma Elish. The concepts of one God, goodness, light, and love directly contrast the

polytheistic myth filled with darkness and violence. The “Prologue” in the Gospel of John

echoes the Creation narrative in Genesis. In a similar manner, the Lazarus narrative contrasts

with the archaic Babylonians’ myths about the after-life, as well as the contemporary beliefs of

2 Ratzinger, Joseph. Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1988), 76.

3 Bernstein, Alan E. The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds, (NY:

Cornell University Press, 1993). Details of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and The Descent of Innana/Ishtar are based on

chapters one through six.

4 This assertion is based on the profundity of historic and literary criticisms that point to multiplicity of Greek and

Aramaic writing found within the manuscripts. The varying, yet synthesized writing styles, combine with the in-

depth knowledge and reference to the Jewish canon, the dualistic use of darkness and light, and the intersections

with Greek philosophy found within the Gospel point to the Johannine writers being deeply entrenched in both the

Jewish and pagan milieu of their times. The rapid spread of the Gospel supports that it spoke to the multiple

cultures which influenced it.

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the ancient Greeks, Romans and Hebrews. Jesus raised Lazarus without traveling a great

distance, without disguising his divinity, and without negotiating for his return. In The Epic of

Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, and The Iliad, the heroes set out on long journeys to the land of the

dead. The center of the earth is often equated with the location of Sheol. In raising Lazarus, it

was not necessary for Jesus to make a lengthy journey. John, chapter 11, verse 18 states that

“Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away.”5 In Greek, σταδίων δεκαπέντε,

stadiōn dekapente, translates to fifteen stadia or furlongs, which is the equivalent of one and

three-quarter miles.6 It is not the distance, but rather the typology that is significant. The unit of

measure corresponds to the number of cubits found in Old Testament measurements for the

tabernacle veil. Therefore, while the distance traveled was not lengthy, it typologically prefigures

the torn veil in the tabernacle when Christ is crucified and descends to the dead.7 Additionally,

when Jesus tells Martha that her brother will rise, her reply, “I know he will rise, in the

resurrection on the last day,”8 points to her belief in a distant, final eschatology. John used the

close physical proximity of Jesus and the typology of the distance to Bethany to highlight the

realized eschatology of the Incarnate Christ and the sacramental nature of the Gospel. In Christ:

The Sacrament of the Encounter with God, Schillebeeckx explains Jesus as the fulfillment of

God’s promise of salvation as a messianic reality and a sacrament:

This messianic and redemptive purpose of the incarnation implies

that the encounter between Jesus and his contemporaries was

always on his part an offering of grace in a human form. For the

man Jesus is the human incarnation of the redeeming love of God…

5 Jn 11:18, RSV.

6 Bible Hub. (Glassport, PA: The Online Bible Project, 2007), www.BibleHub.com/text/john/11-18.htm,.All Greek

translations and transliterations used in this paper were accessed through Bible Hub. 7 Bulzacchelli, Richard. "Stephanie Garrett: THE-410 Writings of John," E-mail, May 28, 2014.

8 John 11:24, RSV.

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Because the saving acts of the man Jesus are performed by a divine

person, they have a divine power to save, but because this divine

power to save appears to us in visible form, the saving activity of

Jesus is sacramental.9

Just as sacraments are visible signs of an invisible reality, Jesus’ traveling to Bethany is a visible

sign of God, in the person of the Son, coming to free mankind from the alienation of sin and

death.

For the faithful, the Lazarus narrative provides a reminder that even when in all

appearances man seems to have been abandoned by God, he is never truly far from His saving

grace. It is real and present: man is never too far away to receive it, and God is never too late in

bestowing it. Jesus’ disciples, the sisters of Lazarus, and the Jews, those who had come to

believe Jesus was the Son of God, all felt Jesus had arrived “too late” when he reached Bethany.

Jesus had waited two days to make a thirty minute walk and upon arriving found Lazarus was

already dead and buried. The ancient rabbis believed that the soul remained near the body for the

first three days after death. By the fourth day, which is the traditional time frame for Christian

burial, there would be no hope of resuscitating Lazarus.10

The four days was also an important

element for the non-Christians who read the Gospel. The ancient Babylonians believed that three

days were critical when determining death. In The Descent of Innana/Ishtar, because the

protagonist plans to remain in the netherworld for more than three days, she must make

arrangements for the provision of “life-giving” water to keep her from becoming truly dead.11

9 Schillebeeckx, E. Christ: The Sacrament of Encounter with God, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,

1963), 14-15. It must be pointed out that Schillebeeckx’ language is implicitly Nestorian and he came under fire by

the CDF for many things, including his Christology. However, the focus here is to highlight the sacramentality of

Jesus’ activity. His actions are a visible symbol of an invisible reality. 10

Bulzacchelli, Richard. "Stephanie Garrett: THE-410 Writings of John," E-mail, May 28, 2014. , 11

Bernstein, Alan E. The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds,

(NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 6-7.

14

When Jesus arrived on the scene, by all contemporary standards, Lazarus was completely beyond

return to physical life; his body had been placed in the tomb, bodily corruption would have set

in, and his soul would have entered Sheol. Frustration and confusion at Christ’s delay was

apparent in both of Lazarus’ sisters. Mary and Martha, who believed that Jesus was the Son of

God, betrayed the weakness of their faith when they said to him, “Lord if you had been here, my

brother would not have died.”12

They believed Jesus could have healed Lazarus from illness, but

about death they were thinking in Old Testament terms. Mary and Martha considered Lazarus

“cut off from the land of the living, from dear life, banished into a noncommunication [sic] zone

where life is destroyed precisely because relationship is impossible.”13

When Jesus told Martha,

“Your brother will rise,”14

she responded that she believed her brother would be raised on the

last day. Martha was expressing her belief in “the day of the eschaton,” when a new age of

perfect justice would dawn in Israel. This day would come when God’s chosen people had

achieved perfect obedience to the Law. However, Jesus wanted Martha to know that the “last

day” had already arrived, not because of human perfection, but because of God’s divine

intervention. By using Ἀναστήσεται, anastēsetai, translated as “rise,”15

the author of the Gospel

draws attention to a realized eschatology in Jesus Christ, because John’s only other use of this

term is in reference to Jesus’ resurrection.16

The active term anastēsetai, rather than the passive

term egeirein, which is more commonly used to express resurrection, signifies the event is

happening right now. Martha would not have to wait until the “last day,” the ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ,

12

Jn 11:21, 32, RSV. 13

Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press,

1988), 80-81. 14

Jn 11:23, RSV. 15

Jn 11:23-24, RSV. 16

Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John: I-XII, (NY: Doubleday, 1996), 425.

15

eschatē hēmera17

, to see her brother resurrected; Jesus planned to call him forth right there and

then.

That Jesus “calls forth” Lazarus from the dead demonstrated his dominion over death and

the connection between physical life and spiritual life. As previously stated, the dead are cut off

from communication with the living. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Psalm 6 expresses that in Sheol,

the dead no longer remember God: “For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who

can give you praise?”18

This verse implies that in death the voice of God no longer comes to

man. If the dead could hear God, then the dead would remember God. However, Jesus gave

thanks to the Father and shouted into the tomb. Lazarus heard the Word of God and was released

from Sheol. The text literally translates, “with a voice loud he cried,” φωνῇ μεγάλῃ ἐκραύγασεν,

phōnē megalē ekraugasen.19

According to Raymond Brown, ekraugasen occurs only eight times

in the entire Greek Bible. Six of the eight instances are found in the Gospel of John, and four of

these are in reference to the crowds calling for Jesus’ crucifixion.20

While this “shouting” may be

a paradoxical foreshadowing of Jesus’ crucifixion, it also parallels John, chapter 5, verses 28 and

29: “An hour is coming in which all those in the tombs will hear his voice.21

Through the person

of Jesus, the voice of God reached into the realm of the dead and called Lazarus back into the

world of the living.22

The Word of God, the Logos, resuscitates Lazarus simply by speaking. Jesus’ power is so

complete that he does not have to negotiate with death for the return of Lazarus. In The Descent

of Innana/Ishtar, the protagonist may not leave the kingdom of the dead without providing a

17

Bible Hub. (Glassport, PA: The Online Bible Project, 2007), www.BibleHumb.com/text/john/11-24.htm. 18

Ps 6:5, RSV. 19

Bible Hub. (Glassport, PA: The Online Bible Project, 2007), www.BibleHub.com/text/john/11-43.htm. 20

Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John: I-XII, (NY: Doubleday, 1996), 427. 21

Jn 5:28-29, RSV. Emphasis mine. 22

Jn 11:41-43.

16

replacement for her soul. The ancient Hebrews were acquainted with the idea of paying a ransom

to escape death. Psalm 49, verse 15 states, “But God will ransom my soul from the power of

Sheol.”23

The Jewish people of the New Testament were waiting for their messiah who would

provide himself as ransom, a replacement or trade, to allow them to have eternal life. Jesus gives

life by simply restoring his own neshima to Lazarus’ body. Here the Lazarus narrative echoes the

prologue of the Gospel, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the

darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”24

Jesus is not bound by the normal limitations

of death. Jesus is never alienated because God is always with him. When Jesus substitutes

himself for man, the limitations of death cannot contain him because he is infinitely

unbounded.25

Jesus, the life and light of man, demonstrated his power over death in order that his

disciples and followers would believe. According to Brown, some biblical commentators believe

the redactors inserted chapter 11 as an amalgam of the Lazarus and the Mary and Martha stories

in the Gospel of Luke. However, the strong contradiction between the parable of “The Rich Man

and Lazarus” in Luke and the “Raising of Lazarus” in John weakens that notion and supports the

idea of an independent Johannine history.26

In Luke’s parable, Lazarus was not allowed to return

to warn the rich man’s brothers, because “if they did not hear Moses and the prophets, neither

will they be convinced if some one [sic] should rise from the dead.”27

In John, chapter 11, Jesus

states three times that the miracle was so that the witnesses may believe.28

The idea of an

independent history strengthens the redactor’s reasons for including the narrative and a

23

Ibid. 24

Jn 1:4-5, RSV. 25

Bulzacchelli, Richard. "Stephanie Garrett: THE-410 Writings of John," E-mail, May 28, 2014. 26

Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John: I-XI, (NY: Doubleday, 1996), XLIV. 25

Lk 16:31, RSV. 28

Jn 11:15, 40, 42, RSV.

17

contemporary understanding of a realized eschatology. Jesus transcends the space between the

world of the living and the world of the dead. So that all may believe, He closes the gap between

Creator and creation, and as our high priest, is the one who unites those who are in heaven, on

earth, and in hell.29

Jesus’ divine nature is made manifest so that all who see will believe that he

is “the resurrection and the life.”30

From the start of the narrative, misunderstandings about the words of Jesus draw

attention to the importance of what is about to be made manifest. When Jesus heard that Lazarus

was ill, his response was, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the

Son of God may be glorified through it.”31

For the first century believer, death and illness,

sometimes called corruption, were closely associated with sin. In a society that described

sickness with epithets belonging to death, and death meant one was no longer in contact with

God, illness resulting in the glorification of God would seem impossible.32

Like so many of

Jesus’ parables, the believer is called to anticipate an unexpected event.33

According to Joseph

Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI,

In the activity of Jesus, God’s own action has broken into history in

the here and now… The dramatic character of Jesus’ proclamation

does not stem from a particularly intense expectation of an

imminent end, but from its claim to bring with it the presence of

God.34

This is what C.H. Dodd was talking about when he coined the phrase “realized eschatology.”

29

Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. Introduction to Christianity,(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 291. 30

Jn 11:25, RSV. 31

Jn 11: 4, RSV. 32

Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press,

1988), 81. 33

Ibid, 55. 34

Ibid.

18

As with so many of Jesus’ parables, the apostles did not understand what was happening

until they experienced Jesus’ death and resurrection.35

The “Raising of Lazarus” narrative is an

excellent example of the realized eschatology in action. Jesus does not hide his divine power; he

boldly states Ἐγώ εἰμι, Egō eimi, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me,

even if he dies, will live.”36

Including these unprecedented claims of Jesus demonstrated the

authors understanding that belief in Jesus Christ meant that “despite physical death, [belief] will

lead to eternal life.”37

The Johannine writers wanted those who heard the Good News to

understand that physical life joined with belief in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would not lead to

spiritual death.38

The antithetical parallelisms, paradoxes, and contradictions present in the

“Raising of Lazarus” narrative of John’s Gospel spoke to the author’s Jewish, Greek and pagan

contemporaries and provided an unparalleled alternative to the alienation of physical death. The

Johannine writers demonstrated an understanding that the new age had dawned, and that

resurrection to eternal life was possible through Jesus Christ, the Logos in the Prologue of the

Gospel of John.

35

Ibid, 56 36

Bible Hub. (Glassport, PA: The Online Bible Project, 2007), www.BibleHub.com/text/john. Jn 11:25, RSV.

37 Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John: I-XII, (NY: Doubleday, 1996), 425.

38 Ibid.

19

Bibliography

Bernstein, Alan E. The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early

Christian Worlds. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.

Bible Hub. Glassport, PA: The Online Bible Project, 2007. Web. www.BibleHub.com.

Brown, Raymond, trans. and ed. The Anchor Bible Series:The Gospel of John: I-XII. NewYork:

Double Day, 1996.

Bulzacchelli, Richard. "Stephanie Garrett: THE-410 Writings of John." Aquinas College E-mail.

May 28, 2014.

Holy Bible RSV,The. 2nd Catholic Edition. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006.

Ratzinger, Joseph. Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life. Edited by Aidan Nichols. Translated by

Michael Waldstein. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988.

Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. Introduction to Christianity. Translated by J.R. Foster. San

Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004.

Schillebeeckx, E. Christ: The Sacrament of Encounter with God. Edited by Sheed & Ward.

Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1968.

20

“The Prodigality of Providence: Grace Working in The Winter’s Tale”

Sr. Delia Grace Haikala, O.P.

ENG 413: Shakespeare

Instructor: Dr. Haynes

When Saint Thomas Aquinas discusses the will of God in his Summa Theologica, he

explains that every work of God manifests both his justice and his mercy (I.Q21.art.4). Thomas

also describes that God has providence over all things and that all things are subject to the

providence of God. Human beings, however, are “subject to divine providence in an especial

manner;” they participate in their own manner with their free will in the providence of God, and

God “prevents anything happening [to the just] which would impede their final salvation”

(Aquinas I.22.2).

Aquinas’s attentiveness to providence working through time is not absent in other studies

of human experience. Like Aquinas, the great observer of human nature, William Shakespeare,

as playwright, masterfully addresses the deep realities of human existence, of life and death, sin

and mercy, time, wonder, and joy. Careful observation reveals Shakespeare’s plays budding with

the richness of the Christian mystery of life and redemption, and particularly with a Catholic

worldview in the face of Shakespeare’s volatile contemporary climate. In his late play The

Winter’s Tale, particularly, Shakespeare draws attention to the goodness of God, a goodness

which is extravagant in its gift of life to His creatures, creatures who, thanks to their existence

from God, are themselves good (Aquinas 1.5.3, 1.6.2,4). In The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare

reveals in a striking way the providence of God which is seen by faith and wonder, revealed

through time, and which is a mechanism of God’s mercy in which human beings are privileged

to participate.

21

The play is formed around Leontes’s false suspicion of his wife, Hermione’s, infidelity.

Leontes, King of Sicilia, accuses Hermione and hopes to have his friend and suspected betrayer,

Polixenes, King of Bohemia, killed. Paulina cares for her friend Hermione and for the infant she

bears, but Leontes demands that the young daughter of Hermione be abandoned. Hermione falls

ill at the announcement of the death of her son, Mamillius, and Paulina announces the death of

Hermione as well. Another essential character, Camillo, a generous friend and servant of the

enraged Leontes, will eventually help Leontes to meet his abandoned daughter, Perdita, and her

beloved Florizel, son of Polixenes.

Despite Leontes’s unjust and misdirected actions, by the end of the play providence

allows the greater good of Hermione’s return to life to come from Leontes’s sin and repentance.

To accept this gift of providence, Paulina proclaims that “it is required/ You do awake your faith.

Then, all stand still” (Shakespeare 5.3.94-95). Here Paulina presents two basic qualities required

of Leontes and all the characters, and indeed of the audience and all humankind, if they are to

appreciate this manifestation of providence: they must have faith, and they must be open to

wonder. That is, they must “stand still” and wonder in gratitude at the good things God reveals

through their faith.

In the play, Shakespeare reveals the working of providence as quiet, working as it does in

the ordinary world throughout the period of sixteen years that pass during the middle of the play.

It works most especially in the heart of Leontes, preparing him to receive the gift of mercy and

new life. Throughout this period of waiting, Leontes must grow in faith that he may wonder at

the gift of providence. He learns that this stupendous gift of new life, if it is the will of God, is

not in fact too good to be true; indeed, “all things work for good for those who love God” (New

American Bible, Romans 8.28). Providence in The Winter’s Tale is especially manifest according

22

to this faith and wonder working through human participants, through the powerful grace of

redemption, and through the merciful gift of time.

Firstly, Leontes learns to have faith in the working of providence through human

instruments of divine providence, particularly Camillo and Paulina. When Leontes first suspects

Hermione and Polixenes’ treason, he bids Camillo murder his dear friend Polixenes. Camillo’s

first response is to try to help Leontes see the truth of the situation and his error in unjustly

condemning Hermione. Camillo tells Leontes, “you never spoke what did become you less/ Than

this, which to reiterate were sin/ As deep as that, though true” (Shakespeare 1.2.283-86). When

Leontes refuses to surrender to this truth, Camillo seeks cleverly to save both Polixenes and

Hermione by devising a plan. He cleverly tells Leontes that he “will fetch off Bohemia for’t,/

Provided that when he’s removed your highness/ Will take again your queen as yours at first,”

meaning not that he will kill Polixenes but rescue him (1.2.336-38). Camillo is an instrument of

providential mercy by helping Polixenes escape to his native land of Bohemia and encouraging

Leontes to mercifully receive his wife Hermione.

Later in the play, Leontes realizes his mistaken accusation. When Hermione falls ill at the

announcement of the death of their son Mamillius, Leontes repents and declares with great

solemnity, “I have too much believed mine own suspicion” (3.2.149). In this vivid moment of

Leontes’s repentance, a repentance he carries with him for the next sixteen years, Leontes

recognizes that Camillo is in fact an arbiter of providence. He is deeply grateful “that the good

mind of Camillo tardied/ My swift command” to kill Bohemia (3.2.160-61). He calls Camillo

“most humane/ And filled with honour” (3.2.163-64) and highlights “how his piety/ Does my

deeds make the blacker!” (3.2.168-69). Leontes exposes Camillo as the good administer of the

merciful providence of God when he proclaims him “a man of truth, of mercy” (3.2.155).

23

Shakespeare’s appraisal of Camillo is all the greater when it is seen in this light: St. Thomas,

when considering God’s justice and mercy, quotes from Psalm 24 that “all the ways of the Lord

are mercy and truth” (Aquinas I.21.4). Camillo shares in the mercy and truth of God as he guides

Leontes according to the merciful will of the Father.

Camillo stands as a minister of providence again later in the play, not only for Leontes,

but also for Florizel, Perdita, and Polixenes when he devises a plan for Florizel and Perdita to

escape Polixenes’ wrath by returning to Leontes in Sicilia. In this second part of the play

Polixenes’ unfounded wrath against his son Florizel’s love for Perdita mirrors that unjust wrath

Leontes had shown to Hermione and Polixenes. When Camillo devises this plan he realizes that

he may:

Save him [Florizel] from danger, do him love and honour,

Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia

And that unhappy king, my master, whom

I so much thirst to see (4.4.498-501)

When Camillo mercifully guards Florizel and Perdita from wrath in this way as he did earlier

save Polixenes, he promises that he will take care of these youths “as if/ The scene you play were

mine” (4.4.581-82). Camillo here articulates the reality that he is participating in a plan, a drama

as it were, greater than his own plan, but he is yet a dignified and free actor. This thoughtful and

free action of Camillo is vital to the final joy of the play; Camillo brings Leontes’s daughter to

him at last and reunites the disparate kings.

Just as Camillo is an instrument of providential mercy, so too his counterpart Paulina

helps to move the providential action of the play. Paulina is instrumental in moving Leontes to

repent both by her words and by her deeds. She first drastically tells Leontes that his sins are too

24

terrible to repent and that ten thousand years of winter would not be enough to earn him

forgiveness (3.2.205-12). Realizing with the prompting of a lord that this statement is not true

thanks to the mercy of God, Paulina teaches Leontes through her example how to repent. She

apologizes and says that “All faults I make, when I shall come to know them/ I do repent. Alas, I

have showed too much/ The rashness of a woman” (3.2.216-19). After revealing the truth of

Leontes’s sin and seeing his heart touched with sorrow, she shows mercy and bids him forget,

claiming that “What’s gone and what’s past help/ Should be past grief” (3.2.220-21). Leontes is

thoroughly able to receive the truth from Paulina as a helpful advisor. He tells her that “Thou

didst speak but well/ When most the truth, which I receive much better/ Than to be pitied of

thee” (3.2.230-32). Paulina is a valuable instrument of God’s grace for Leontes’s real repentance

in this scene. Sarah Beckwith, a modern critic discussing grace and forgiveness in The Winter’s

Tale, explains that “Shakespeare utterly abjures the eradication of the human in reformed

versions of grace. For it was axiomatic to reformed grace that as God-given, and to be God-

given, it must be free of all human words and deeds. It is human response that is, for him, rather

the medium of grace” (143-44). Beckwith underlines Shakespeare’s Catholic emphasis on human

participation in the working of God through grace. Such participation in grace by Paulina and

Camillo is also participation in the working of divine providence.

When Leontes is told by Paulina that his wife Hermione is also dead, he is prepared to

spend time making reparation for his sin. This penance is not for penance’s sake, however. In a

clever passage from Shakespeare, Leontes prophesies that this period of mourning will lead to a

time of great joy. He declares that there will be one grave for both his son and his wife which he

will visit daily “and tears shed there/ Shall be my recreation” (Shakespeare 3.2.237-38). Though

25

he does not realize to what extent, Leontes’s time of purification will make him ready to be

recreated and share in a new life of joy.

This reality of transforming grace during a time willed by providence is evident for

Leontes as it is for Camillo and Paulina. Paulina, who first presented the newborn Perdita to

Leontes to save its life, later loses her husband Antigonus who is killed by a bear after he

delivers the child Perdita to a wilderness “where chance may nurse or end it” (2.3.183). Camillo,

likewise, suffers the pain of leaving his homeland when he acts with mercy toward Polixenes.

Providence, however, provides for both Camillo and Paulina a happy ending after their troubles.

These two who have providentially brought Florizel and Perdita together are rewarded with a gift

from providence unbeknownst to them. At the end of the play Camillo is invited by Leontes to

take Paulina “by the hand, whose worth and honesty/ Is richly noted, and here justified”

(5.3.145-46). Camillo and Paulina, who execute the designs of providence throughout the play

especially by their mercy, are invited to participate in their own merciful reward from

providence.

In the experiences of Leontes, Camillo, and Paulina is revealed the principle that greater

good can come even from evil according to the providence of God. Shakespeare enriches his plot

with mercy shown through the redemption of mankind in which the Cross is manifest as the

source of new life for all of humanity. Richard Harp, a critic studying Shakespeare’s late plays,

provides a valuable explanation of God’s bringing good out of evil through divine providence:

Such distinctions are important in the world, and in Shakespeare's plays, not so

much in the matter of accidental meetings of servants but rather in understanding

how the evil deeds of men may lead to a good end, obviously crucial to any

doctrine of providence. To prove that the universe is not governed by chance but

26

by providence, it is necessary to show that things usually happen for the best;

again Aquinas quotes St. Augustine: ‘Almighty God would in no wise permit evil

to exist in His works, unless He were so almighty and so good as to produce good

even from evil’ (Pt.I, Q.22, Art.2), and the inequality and imperfection of things,

St. Thomas adds, is the means whereby this divine wisdom is made manifest

(Pt.I, Q.47, Art.2).

Even the great tragedy of Leontes’s free choice of unjust condemnation of Hermione provides an

opportunity for the miracle of Hermione’s restoration and Leontes’ redemption.

When Leontes first condemns Hermione, she prophesies to him that “[your fault] will

grieve you/ When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that/ You thus have published me”

(Shakespeare 2.1.98-100). Leontes does indeed mourn his sin and repent. For this reason

Cleomenes bids Leontes to “do as the heavens have done, forget your evil./ with them, forgive

yourself” (5.1.5-6). To think that good might come from this grievance is not impossible,

Shakespeare reveals. Rev. David N. Beauregard, a Catholic priest and current scholar of

Shakespeare, comments that “if we assume an order of grace governing the action, the penitential

movements we see in Leontes—his sorrowful reflections on his past sin, his sixteen-year

atonement, and his final appeal for pardon—understandably end in the reward of restoration”

(118-19). When the events of the play turn to their wonderful resolutions, one of the characters

points to the good of redemption as he recounts the joyous revelation that Perdita is in fact the

lost daughter of Leontes and Hermione. A gentleman recounts that Leontes and Camillo “looked

as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed. A notable passion of wonder appeared

in them” (Shakespeare 5.2.12-14). Even Walter S. M. Lim, who argues that Shakespeare is trying

to show the Catholic faith empty and whose arguments Beckwith’s work sharply contradicts,

27

cannot deny that “‘wonder’ appears to form the central experience of imagining what the scene

of reconciliation must have been like” (Lim 357). Throughout Leontes’s painful journey of self-

knowledge and repentance as he faces his sin, he grows into a character who is no longer ready

to pounce with rage according to his own designs but who is outfitted with the gift of wonder to

gaze at this gift from divine providence.

The temptation against faith in and wonder at providence is to think that such a gift as

Hermione’s resurrection is too good to be true. In a moment of great irony and foreshadowing,

Paulina and Leontes point to events which seem too wonderful to be possible. First, Paulina says

that it is just as “monstrous to our human reason” to think that Leontes’s lost child will be found

as it is to think that her husband Antigonus will “break his grave” (Shakespeare 5.1.41-42).

Human reason, however, sees not as far or as deeply as does the mind of God. Leontes next

comments that if he had obeyed the direction of Paulina “who hast the memory of Hermione,” he

might even now “have looked upon my queen’s full eyes,/ Have taken treasure from her lips”

(5.1.50, 53-54). Leontes who will, in reality, look into his wife’s eyes filled with new life, claims

that if he were to take another wife Hermione’s “sainted spirit” would “again possess her corpse,

and on this stage,/ Where we offenders mourn, appear soul-vexed” (5.1.57-59). In a critical

article about The Winter’s Tale, Aaron Landau demonstrates Leontes’s need for faith in the

miraculous possibility that Hermione does in fact live: “Evidently, what Leontes needs is not . . .

reasonable or pseudo-reasonable assurance . . . but rather that very sense of foundational faith

which, once lost, no argument or demonstration can retrieve. What Leontes needs, in other

words, is a direct contact with transcendental truth…through the active fulfilment of a

prophecy.” Paulina who is again minister of providence convinces Leontes not to marry another

woman without her previous permission and says that this might occur only “when your first

28

queen’s again in breath” (Shakespeare 5.1.83). Though this seems to the audience and to Leontes

as a complete impossibility, such a miracle is not, as the audience will see, too good to be true.

At other times in the play, Shakespeare points to this overabundant blessing from

providence which flows even from misfortune. In one instance, Camillo claims that “prosperity’s

the very bond of love,/ Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together/ Affliction alters”

(4.4.561-63). In response to this Perdita, with the vigor of youth, presents the truth: “One of

these is true./ I think affliction may subdue the cheek/ But not take in the mind” (563-65). Perdita

understands that love may yet triumph over affliction. Again this temptation—to see things

without the mind of providence which can bring good from everything—is present in the mind of

Florizel, who when faced with difficulty in his love for Perdita, claims that fortune is their visible

enemy (5.1.215). Nevertheless Florizel triumphs in the knowledge that even if fortune is against

them this cannot change their love (5.1.215-217).

The irony of all things working for the good is present also in a conversation between the

clown and the old shepherd about Autolycus. The clown claims to be “blessed in this man,” this

thief Autolycus, who causes the shepherd’s family so much trouble (5.1.797). Though Autolycus

harms the family by his dishonesty, his trickery also wins the triumph of the truth of Perdita’s

birth to the royal families. As Harp explains, “the ‘imperfection’ of an Autolycus is one of the

means by which the great reunions of the end of the play are achieved.” In each of these

instances the gaze of faith and wonder can reveal in the play’s events the hand of providence

which can bring good from difficulty and even evil.

The grace of redemption is visualized when Perdita presents to Polixenes rosemary and

rue which “keep/ Seeming and savour all the winter long” and which represent the “grace and

remembrance” that she offers to Polixenes and Camillo (Shakespeare 4.4.74-76). In the second

29

half of the play when times have changed, Perdita, a veritable blossom who “fit[s] our ages/ With

flowers of winter,” offers the characters the opportunity to remember and repent in a new time of

grace (4.4.78-79). Time ushers in spring as a season of mercy and new life. Autolycus sets the

scene in spring when he sings of daffodils in the “sweet o’the year” (4.3.3). In this season

opportunity for reconciliation is ripe, and Perdita notes even amidst turmoil that “the selfsame

sun shines” on the rich and the poor (4.4.432). All are in need of these rays of mercy. When

Leontes has repented and has forgiven Polixenes, he welcomes Florizel to his palace saying that

he is “welcome hither,/ As is the spring to th’earth!” (5.1.150-151). Here mercy and welcome are

associated with the new life of spring which is brought by the good hand of providence.

Providence ushers in spring by the hand of Time, who Shakespeare has made a character

in The Winter’s Tale. Time takes the stage and addresses the audience; Shakespeare helps the

viewer to understand, through this characterization, that the graces which follow are made

possible by the passing of Time. This second half of the play which brims with promise and

fulfillment of life is made possible by Time’s taking the audience not only on a journey of

sixteen years but on a journey from winter’s suffering, sin, and repentance to spring’s

forgiveness, grace, and new life. Time, providence’s instrument, draws the audience from

Leontes’s repentance to the new matter of Perdita and Florizel, asking the audience to allow this

transition “if ever you have spent time worse ere now” (4.1.30). Time seems to suggest that the

audience, like these characters, relies on the working of providence through time to heal its past

failures. Since the audience has probably experienced this grace of time, it should allow this

grace for the play’s characters. The character of Time also speaks to those who have never spent

time in an ill manner and “wishes earnestly you never may” (4.1.32). Time is here shown to be a

30

mechanism of providence and mercy, which allows for this grace of repentance to flower into

new life and opportunity.

The critic Stanton B. Garner, Jr. explains in his examination of time in The Winter’s Tale

that “audience attention centers on the logic of events, which unfold with a neatness both

providential and artistic; time, ‘that makes and unfolds error,’ begins to right the situation, and

the audience is allowed the omniscience to appreciate its workings” (200). As time changes,

“anticipation runs high, looking forward to a reconciliation that will redeem the present from the

apparent irrevocability of the past, awaiting the wonder on the part of the characters when the

apparently miraculous is disclosed” (Garner 200). Seen with faith the audience may wonder at

the marvels wrought by providence with the assistance of time. As Beauregard remarks, “in this

religious setting, the theme of providential fulfillment also supports the sense of wonder” (120).

Garner marvelously expresses the role of time at the resurrection scene by capturing:

In place of the ironic superiority over character that audiences usually enjoy

during such dramatic reconciliations, Shakespeare creates a theatrical experience

that we have no word for, an experience that constitutes the opposite of irony, for

in this instant, as the statue becomes that which it has commemorated, the present

is suddenly vastly more than we thought—fuller and richer, freed from irony’s

frameworks . . . The final discovery of The Winter’s Tale, then, lies in a surrender

to the moment; and for the audience, this involves surrender to the stage moment,

a moment in which the most riveting activity is pure gesture, outlined, almost

pictorially, within the stage’s stillness, and to which the most appropriate

response is rapt attention and ‘wonder.’ (202)

31

The present moment of the stage serves this climactic moment brought by the gift of Time, and

all “stand still” in wonder (Shakespeare 5.3.95).

Time then, as a mechanism of this redemption in which human characters are privileged

to participate, ushers in the miracle of the new life of Hermione who yet bears the marks of time.

Paulina who has revealed Hermione is invited by Leontes at the end of the play to lead the

characters away that they may “each one demand and answer to his part/ Performed in this wide

gap of time since first/ We were dissevered” (5.3.154-56). The Winter’s Tale ends with new life

and unity. When Leontes first realizes his fault, he claims that Hermione “will recover”

(3.2.148). After sixteen years she does indeed fulfill this hope of Leontes. His repentance is not

only his recreation but also hers. The years gone by were necessary to prepare Leontes for this

gift. When Leontes at last meets his daughter Perdita, his faith is awakened, the faith that is

needed to see and believe Hermione’s resurrection.

When Paulina is about to reveal Hermione’s restored life, she gives Leontes the choice to

“either forbear,/ Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you/ For more amazement” (5.3.85-87). If

Leontes “can behold it,” he will realize that Hermione lives (5.3.87). Paulina then requires faith

and invites all those who do not approve of the upcoming miracle to depart (5.3.97).

Shakespeare, through Paulina, invites all who have faith to believe in the extravagant goodness

of providence and to witness the miracle that new life and goodness can proceed, by the grace of

God, even from darkness and sin. Spring buds from the repentance of winter, and all who have

faith may enjoy. The Winter’s Tale ends with the joy of “a world ransomed” and invites the

audience to wonder at this unsparing grace.

32

Works Cited

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ed. Revised ed. 2008. New

Advent. Web. 11 April 2014.

Beauregard, David N. “Nature and Grace in The Winter’s Tale.” Catholic Theology in

Shakespeare’s Plays. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2008. 109-23. Print.

Beckwith, Sarah. “Shakespeare’s Resurrections: The Winter’s Tale.” Shakespeare and the

Grammar of Forgiveness. Ithica: Cornell U P, 2011. 127-146. Print.

Garner, Stanton B., Jr. “Time and Presence in The Winter’s Tale.” Modern Language Quarterly

46.4 (December 1985): 347-67. Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 100.

Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2007. 195-204. Print.

Harp, Richard. “The Consolation of Romance: Providence in Shakespeare’s Late Plays.”

Shakespeare’s Late Plays: Essays in Literature and Politics. Ed. Stephen W. Smith and

Travis Curtright. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2002: 17-34. Literature Resource

Center. Gale. Web. 13 April 2014.

Landau, Aaron. “’No settled senses of the world can match the pleasure of that madness: The

Politics of Unreason in The Winter’s Tale.” Cahier Elisabethians 64 (Autumn 2003): 29-

42. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Web. 14 April 2014.

Lim, Walter S. H. “Knowledge and Belief in The Winter’s Tale.” Studies in English Literature,

1500-1900 41.2 (Spring 2001): 317-34. Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Lynn M. Zott. Vol.

68. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2002. 352-361. Print.

New American Bible. Revised Edition. Confraternity of Christian Doctrine: Washington, D.C.,

2010. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Web. 12 April 2014.

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Shakespeare, William. The Winter’s Tale. Norton Shakespeare. Gen Ed. Greenblatt, Stephen.

New York: WW Norton, 2008. 2892-2961. Print.

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“Civil Rights: Was John F. Kennedy Friend or Foe?”

Lauren A. Smith

IDS 106: College Learning in the Dominican Tradition

Instructor: Dr. Vince Ryan

Many have speculated that John F. Kennedy was not as proactive in passing legislation

concerning the Civil Rights Movement as his contemporaries would have preferred. Both Alan Brinkley

and Robert Dallek make compelling arguments when it comes to Kennedy and the quandary he faced

when trying to appease both civil rights leaders and segregationists. Both authors acknowledge that

Kennedy was slow to act in taking legislation before Congress to pass; however, this is where the

similarities between the authors’ views end. When Brinkley mentions civil rights in his book John F.

Kennedy, he spends most of the chapter discussing what Kennedy did wrong, presenting the president in

an unfavorable light until the final paragraph; noted historian and professor Robert Dallek presents a more

favorable view of Kennedy’s domestic quandary, using specific instances to suggest that his lack of action

had more to do with outside influences, instead of his own lack of confidence.

“Kennedy also made civil rights part of his first, and most important, televised debate in

September 1960” (Brinkley 95). Although Alan Brinkley does credit Kennedy with mentioning civil

rights during one of the televised debates, he follows up the first statement with an almost backhanded

compliment, “He offered no path to solving these problems, but at least he made reference to them” (95).

These two sentences set the tone for the segment that Brinkley allocates his attention to in regard to

President Kennedy and his lack of confidence when it came to placing a bill in front of Congress to pass.

Brinkley makes it clear on several occasions that Kennedy would rather focus his attention on foreign

affairs and policy. Kennedy personally chose two White House aides to focus on the civil rights issue.

They tried to propose new ideas about moving forward with legislation, but “Kennedy backed away”

(95). However, Brinkley does give Kennedy some credit and mentions that he took baby steps. The

President made sure that “African Americans had jobs within the White House and in the rest of the

federal government – and unlike earlier presidents, he placed black men and women in positions

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unconnected to race or civil rights” (95). Brinkley makes reference to one of the campaign promises

Kennedy made in 1960 regarding an order to ban housing discrimination, but in 1962, Kennedy still had

not signed such an order.

Was Alan Brinkley’s review of Kennedy’s lack of action in the Civil Rights Movement fair,

discriminatory, or both? Alan Brinkley does highlight some of Kennedy’s successes, and alludes to the

fact that perhaps Kennedy was slow to act because he was afraid of failure. Congress would fight any

legislation put forth regarding equal rights for African Americans; this was no secret. If a bill failed to

pass into law, the country could be split into two sectors: those for civil rights and those who oppose any

change. The Freedom Riders and riots in Birmingham were certainly casting a negative light on the

efforts of the activists to bring about change. The president expressed “little support for the Freedom

Riders,” going so far as to make a statement meant to dissuade anyone from partaking in such a way that

could potentially provoke further outbreaks of violence (101). Brinkley concedes that John and Bobby

Kennedy realized that the Civil Rights Movement would continue to grow with increasing momentum,

and although the president was “slow to accept the movement for a time,” he finally began to act with a

“cool, pragmatic caution” (102). Kennedy began to slowly ingratiate himself with the movement, and

launched a program called “Plans for Progress” that would encourage leaders in the business world to hire

African American workers. This move backfired on Kennedy; most leaders of the Civil Rights Movement

criticized the plan for its modesty and made accusations that it was “more publicity than progress” (102).

Meanwhile, the violence against activists was escalating. On Jun 11, 1963, Kennedy gave a televised

speech imploring the American people to look towards their moral compass and end the violence against

those fighting for the freedoms that others took for granted. The same evening that the President gave his

speech, Medgar Evers, a prominent civil rights leader, was murdered in his driveway. On September 15,

1963, a bomb exploded in an Alabama African American church, killing four young girls present for a

Sunday school class (110). Sadly, President Kennedy would not see the passing of any civil rights bill

during his lifetime. After his assassination on November 22, 1963, the task of any movement of

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legislation would fall to the next president in line, Lyndon B. Johnson. In his final paragraph, Brinkley

did reiterate that Kennedy might have been “somewhat timid about embracing civil rights for much of his

time in office. But at the end of his life, he had committed himself to both the political and moral

necessity of ending segregation” (111).

In his article, Robert Dallek points out in the opening paragraph that civil rights was one of the

most pressing and intimidating issues that President Kennedy would face during his tenure in office. He

states, “in the two years after he became president, John F. Kennedy faced no more daunting domestic

issue than the tension between African Americans demanding equal treatment under the Constitution and

segregationists refusing to end the South system of apartheid” (Dallek 36). Much like Brinkley, Dallek

notes that Kennedy chose to focus on the power of executive action rather than presenting a bill in

Congress. Kennedy’s main concern with taking the issue before the House and Senate would isolate

various demographics, and “a combination of Southern Democrats and conservative Republicans would

defeat any such measure and jeopardize the rest of his legislative agenda” (36). Kennedy inherently knew

that an “end to racial strife in the South was essential to America’s international standing” (36). Kennedy

also feared that Southern cities would respond with explosions of violence during the summer months,

and the “prospect of race wars across the South convinced him that he had to take bolder action” (36).

On June 19, 1963, President Kennedy “requested the enactment of the most far-reaching civil

rights bill in the country’s history. He presented it against the backdrop of the murder of Medgar Evers, a

leading black activist and veteran of the D-Day invasion” (36). The new law would grant several civil

liberties to African Americans, including allowing those with at least a sixth grade education the right to

vote (36). This law would maintain consistency with both the 14th and 15

th Amendment as well, banning

discrimination in restaurants, hotels, and even amusement parks (36). The law also had a clause that

would give explicit power to the Attorney General, allowing this office to enforce court ordered

desegregation of schools. This bill was strategically introduced; both Bobby and John Kennedy knew that

if they kept dragging their feet and only relying on executive orders, America would be a laughingstock

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on the world stage, and the African American community would lose hope. Both scenarios jeopardized a

bid for re-election for Kennedy (36). Kennedy did manage to get a bill passed in the Judiciary Committee

with a 20 to 14 vote, but he still had to contend with Howard Smith, a passionate segregationist from

Virginia, who was determined not to see the bill make it to the House floor in the 1963 session (36). Larry

O’Brian and Ted Sorenson asked the president how he would get Smith to agree to the bill for a

Congressional vote, but Kennedy never provided an answer, instead putting off the question until he

returned from a trip to Dallas in November 1963 (36). On November 23, 1963, the problem would fall to

Lyndon B. Johnson.

The authors Alan Brinkley and Robert Dallek leave the audience questioning if John Kennedy

was a friend or foe of the Civil Rights Movement. Both men presented compelling arguments regarding

President Kennedy and his ability to handle the civil rights issue with grace. Brinkley focused more on

the mistakes Kennedy made where opportunity had presented itself for the introduction of legislation to

end the issue before his first term was over. Dallek focused more in his article about the steps Kennedy

did take to work on such a bill that would have granted several rights to African American citizens. Both

men did reach the same conclusion in each literary work. If Kennedy had not been assassinated, would

such a bill have passed during his first term as president? This question could not be answered effectively;

however, Lyndon B. Johnson did pick up where Kennedy left off and managed to get the Civil Rights Act

of 1964 passed and enacted.

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“The Nature of Pride: Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism”

Sr. Mary Gemma Stump, O.P.

ENG 213: English Literature

Instructor: Dr. Haynes

In his first major poem, Alexander Pope does not merely give advice on how to be a good

literary critic but on how to be a good person. In fact, for Pope, the two qualities go hand-in-

hand. One example of this advice is on the problem of pride. Ancient poets, such as Aristotle,

upheld a certain morality in their literature, and Pope bases much of his advice to critics on the

standard of the ancients. However, while pride will cloud the judgment of the ancient critic, it is

also one of the seven deadly sins for Christians, and so Pope gives a definite Christian

interpretation of the ancient critics’ values. When Pope presents pride as one of the chief

downfalls of the critic, it is a Christian understanding of this vice to which he adheres.

Pope begins part two of his Essay on Criticism with this claim:

Of all the causes which conspire to blind

Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind,

What the weak head with strongest bias rules,

Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools. (201-4)

If all critics are partial to their own judgments, though, Pope has need of some standard on which

to base his claim and his description of pride, otherwise the young poet risks the accusation of

being prideful and biased himself. Pope, therefore, refers his audience to the tradition handed

down from the ancient poets: From Homer, Aristotle, and Horace, to name a few. To the ancient

poets, Pope gives high praise in the Essay, holding them up as an example par excellence. A

religious reverence is even bestowed upon them, as he recommends to the student of Homer’s

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works that he should “read them by day, and meditate by night” (125). The ancients are reliable

sources because they know how to imitate Nature, which provides a “just standard” (69). What is

in accord with Nature, and particularly with man’s nature, is proper and good. Christians believe

in a Natural Law implanted in each person’s soul, and Pope himself speaks of “Nature’s kindly

law” in his Essay on Man (2.6.275). This law is ignored by the proud, yet “the general Order,

since the whole began / is kept in Nature and is kept in Man” (1.5.171-2). Man possesses this law

of order within him, and it enlightens the simple soul who is willing to learn. The ancients

discovered this law and translated it into precepts for art and poetry. Pope’s admiration for

Homer in particular comes from the fact that “Nature and Homer were, he found, the same”

(Criticism 135). Homer possessed great insight into the human soul and was able to express this

masterfully in his poetry. It is this insight into Nature that Pope especially praises in the ancients,

and this same insight leads both the ancients and Pope to uphold the moral virtues in literature

and to condemn vices such as pride.

Admiration for the ancients is characteristic of Pope’s poetry, yet there are some who

argue that Pope became disenchanted with them later in his career, mainly because of their

immorality. Howard Weinbrot discusses the different interpretations of Pope’s relation to the

ancients. Earlier scholarship dubbed Pope “neoclassical” and “Augustan” to describe his

imitation of the Greek and Roman classics, and although his indebtedness to these sources is still

acknowledged, more recently he has been seen as “skeptical regarding many of their values and

selective in what he chose to respect” (Weinbrot 76), such as their sexual ethics. Pope’s

education might provide an explanation for such a development in his understanding of the

ancients. Simon Alderson cites the work of biographers such as Joseph Spence and Maynard

Mack, who describe Pope as largely self-educated, with his early studies being somewhat

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haphazard. It was still near the beginning of his career, though, that Pope returned and began

systematically filling in the gaps in his knowledge and refining his art as a poet. It was during

this time period that he wrote Essay on Criticism (Alderson 25), and Pope does not question the

values of the ancients this particular poem. His translation of The Iliad is also given as a major

example of Pope’s criticism of ancient values, yet this was also one of his earlier works. Pope,

therefore, was already discerning of the ancients at the beginning of his career, recognizing their

talent and insight as well as their shortcomings.

In his examination of Pope and the ancients, the claim is also made by Weinbrot that the

evolution of Pope’s views on them began with “admiration, imitation, and translation . . . [but]

along the way, Pope recognize[d] the competing strengths of British literature” (77). If this

balanced taste of Pope’s developed over time, it is not absent at the outset of his career. In his

Essay on Criticism, he chides: “Some foreign writers, some our own despise; / The ancients only,

or the moderns prize” (394-5). The ancients are tried and true; their advice influenced great

poetry for thousands of years, and they are still studied today. Clearly, though, this early

masterpiece of Pope’s does not favor the ancients to the exclusion of all else. Virtue ever lies in

the middle.

While the advice of the ancients like Aristotle and Horace helped both poetry and

criticism to flourish, this was not yet the pinnacle. They were not perfect and even Homer had

his shortcomings. Referencing several of Pope’s notes on his translation of The Iliad, Weinbrot

explains Pope’s view that “Homer’s age . . . was morally inferior to the Christian world and

Christian virtues” (78). Indeed, idolatry, fornication, and other similar examples all go against

the Christian religion and a Christian culture such as Pope’s, but this does not mean that

everything from classical antiquity must be thrown out. The ancients did possess a deep

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understanding both of human nature and of its expression through different forms of poetry. The

Christian religion is known for taking native cultures and assimilating what is perceived as true,

good, and beautiful into the Christian culture. Thus, Christian moral values were synthesized into

the practice of literary criticism.

Latent Christian values can also be found in antiquity. As demonstrated in his treatise On

Poetics, Aristotle possessed a thorough understanding both of the art of poetry and of the human

person. He makes references to virtue and vice when he speaks of “sound men” who are the

epitome of the virtue of justice. His recommendation is that such eminently virtuous persons

should not be shown “changing from good to bad fortune (for this is . . . loathsome)” (Aristotle,

Poetics 13.1452b35). While he did not have the Christian religion and its lofty moral teachings,

Aristotle did understand positive moral values based on his observation of human nature. Justice

is a virtue, and people instinctively realize that the just man deserves honor rather than

misfortune as his reward. Pride also relates the virtue of justice as it pertains to the honor a man

does or does not deserve. Honor belongs to the truly noble person, and Aristotle acclaims Homer

as one of the august poets who are “imitators of beautiful and noble actions and men of the sort

that do them” (4.1448b25-27). In spite of any shortcomings Pope may have seen in this poet’s

work, the beautiful and the noble are important values both to Christianity and to literary

criticism. This nobility, and its connection to Aristotle’s understanding of pride, is dealt with

more fully in Nicomachean Ethics, which will briefly be explored.

What Aristotle meant by pride must be clarified, since it can have different connotations.

Often, pride is used to refer to the first of the seven capital sins, which is comparable to

Aristotle’s description of the vain man. This type of pride might cause a man to be boastful and

disdainful of others. For Aristotle, “a man who thinks he deserves great things but does not

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deserve them is vain, though not everybody who overestimates himself is vain” (Ethics

IV.3.1123b8-9). Some people innocently overestimate their own abilities without necessarily

desiring to make themselves seem better than they are or to disdain others. The vain man,

however, is the one guilty of the sin of pride. Pope also at times uses the term “vain,” such as

when he speaks of “vain ambition” (65). This is the person who cannot be satisfied with what he

has already gained, and thus overreaches himself in his attempt to win more power and prestige.

Aristotle calls such a person “a fool” (Ethics IV.3.1123b4). Similarly, Pope describes pride as

“the never-failing vice of fools” (204). Pride and vanity might be used interchangeably in this

case to refer to the person who is not content with the truth about himself and his limits, but must

foolishly puff himself up to feel important.

On the other hand, a man can and should think well of himself for just causes, such as his

accomplishments or those of his family or country. Aristotle describes such a man as high-

minded or magnanimous. A high-minded person has true greatness; he “thinks he deserves great

things and actually deserves them” (Aristotle, Ethics IV.3.1123b3). This is the justly proud man

who knows that he has great accomplishments or capabilities. Aristotle concludes that “a truly

high-minded man must be good” and that he must excel in every virtue (IV.3.1123b29-31).

Many famous people of great accomplishments could be high-minded but fail to be so simply

because they lack other virtues. Even a gifted literary critic might be clouded in his judgments if

he is too caught up in his own talents. Those who possess power, wealth, or other gifts of fortune

may seem to possess greatness, but, “their good fortune notwithstanding, such people become

haughty and arrogant, for without virtue it is not easy to bear the gifts of fortune gracefully”

(IV.3.1124a29-31). Aristotle and the Christian theologian both understand that the virtues

flourish together and that a truly good man possesses all the virtues and not merely a facsimile of

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them. The description given by Aristotle of the virtue of high-mindedness strikes a mean

between the two vices of vanity and of low-mindedness, or underestimation of oneself.

The difference between the sinfully proud and the virtuously self-respecting man lies in

what is true, as Pope also attests. He claims that “if once right reason drives that cloud [of pride]

away, / Truth breaks upon us with resistless day” (Pope 211-12). The proud man may look

grandiose but really he is empty. He is a fool because he cannot support his claim to greatness

and must eventually be revealed as a fake. Like Aristotle, Pope believes that virtue lies in the

middle. He warns the critic to “avoid extremes…That always shows great pride, or little sense”

(384-6). Pride is the first cause Pope gives for faulty judgments, and it is the sin that caused

Satan himself to fall from grace (Sinha 58). Humility then, which depends upon self-knowledge

and knowledge of the truth, is a key virtue for the critic. Pope believes that virtue pertains to

common sense: It should be natural, the obvious choice. Pride makes a man unnatural (Sinha 57).

Pride is described as a remedy for the lack created by Nature’s withholding of other, worthier

gifts, a way to fill the vacuum that Nature abhors, for “pride, where wit fails, steps in to our

defens959

Works Cited

Alderson, Simon. “Alexander Pope and the Nature of Language.” The Review of English Studies,

New Series 47.185 (1996): 23-34. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Martin Ostwald. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1999.

Print.

---. On Poetics. Trans. Seth Benardete and Michael Davis. South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press,

2002. Print.

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Henke, Christoph. “Before the Aesthetic Turn: The Common Sense Union of Ethics and

Aesthetics in Shaftesbury and Pope.” Anglia-Zeitschrift Für Englische Philologie.

129.1/2 (2011): 58-78. Humanities Source. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.

Pope, Alexander. “An Essay on Criticism.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th

ed.

Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. Vol. C. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 2669-2685.

Print.

---. “An Essay on Man.” Alexander Pope: Selected Poetry and Prose. Ed. William K. Wimsatt,

Jr. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967. 127-167. Print.

Sinha, M.P. Alexander Pope: A Critical Study of His Major Poems. New Delhi: Atlantic

Publishers & Distributors Ltd., 2011. Print.

Walls, Kathryn. “Pope’s Essay on Criticism, LL. 205-6: A Source in the Moriae Encomium of

Erasmus.” Notes & Queries 253.3 (2008): 315-516. Humanities Source. Web. 19 Nov.

2014.

Weinbrot, Howard D. “Pope and the Classics.” The Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope.

Ed. Pat Rogers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 76-88. Print.