 Hello fellow followers of Christ and welcome to the show that introduces you to the men and women behind history's greatest works of literature. Come along every week as we explore these renowned authors, the times and genre in which they wrote, why scholars praise their writing and how we as Catholics should read and understand their works. I'm Joseph Pierce and this is The Authority. Hello and welcome to The Authority. I'm Joseph Pierce and this week we are going to be looking at one of the great metaphysical poets Richard Cresshaw. Let me say a few things about the metaphysical poets. As their name suggests, they work on the level of metaphysics, so it's usually religious poetry. The best-known metaphysical poets are probably George Herbert and John Dunn and Richard Cresshaw and some Robert Sutherl who we've already featured here amongst the greatest of the metaphysical poets. One thing about metaphysical poetry is the use of the conceit which is very similar to what we might call a Chestertonian paradox where you bring together two images that don't seem to belong together that appear to be an apparent contradiction or an apparent conflict that points to a deeper truth or a deeper resolution. So that's one of the devices in metaphysical poetry which we will look at when we come to look at Richard Cresshaw's poetry. So there's an unusual connection or perhaps unexpected connection between Shakespeare and Richard Cresshaw. I say unexpected because Richard Cresshaw was not born until 1613 which is about the time that Shakespeare definitively retired from writing his plays and returned to Stratford-upon-Avon where he would die three years later in 1616. So Richard Cresshaw was only three years old when Shakespeare died and so clearly there's no direct connection between the two men per se. However there is a connection between Richard Cresshaw and William Shakespeare in the form of William Cresshaw. William Cresshaw was Richard Cresshaw's father. Now as we can see there's an irony here a deep irony because Richard Cresshaw would actually become a convert to Catholicism and more about that in a moment but his father was a very vehement and even virulent and we might even say venomous Puritan preacher who even tempted to say he ranted against Catholicism and also against the theater. So and this was during the time of when Shakespeare was writing his plays and indeed it is due to Puritan preachers such as William Cresshaw and others that Shakespeare was probably prompted to actually retire early when things were getting he was being connected with the Jesuits and being attacked publicly as the Jesuit and his poet and so that Shakespeare probably thought that you know he wanted to get away from the heat and that's probably prompted his early retirement because he retired certainly very much still at the height of his powers when he retired and was apparently seemingly in reasonably good health. So this is what William Cresshaw said in a sermon delivered at St. Paul's Cross in London in 1608 again right at the time Shakespeare's writing his plays and quote the ungodly plays and interludes so rife in this nation what are they but a bastard of Babylon and we should say here that about Babylon is a Puritan euphemism for Rome. Puritanical Bible speak if you like that that the the church is the whore of Babylon so the ungodly plays and interludes so rife in this nation what are they but a bastard of Babylon a daughter of error and confusion a hellish device the devil's own recreation to mock at holy things buy him delivered to the heathen and buy them to the papus and from them to us. Wow. Apart from its relevance to Shakespeare this attack on papus plays by the Puritanical Cresshaw is noteworthy as being one of the pithiest put-downs of Western culture ever made in one terse bombastic sentence the entire legacy of the West is dismissed as being a being a contagious disease passed from the devil to the Greeks and then to the Romans and the Catholics until finally via Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights it had contaminated modern England. Two years later in February 1610 again Shakespeare still writing his plays at this time Cresshaw was again equating Shakespeare and his ilk to the devil and a sermon he preached to the Lord Governor of Virginia. On this occasion he formulated that the greatest threat to the newly founded colony was to be found in Catholicism culture and other satanic manifestations quote we confess this action have three great enemies but who be they even the devil papists and players so Satan Catholics and playwrights and those who go to the theater drama. Considering William Cresshaw's shrill attack on Catholic poets such as Shakespeare it is ironic that his own son Richard one of the greatest of the metaphysical poets would convert to Catholicism dying and lonely exiled in Italy in consequence so I want to say a little bit about Richard Cresshaw's life so I said he's born in 1613 his father was this Puritan preacher and yet he far from following his father's footsteps he would convert to Catholicism at around the time of the rise of the Puritans to power when during following the English Civil War from a 1642 to 1645 it's a bit messy as the time when it starts and ends but during the period of the 1640s the Puritans come to power by defeating the king in the Civil War so the royalists on one side King Charles the first and his allies and the Puritans Parliament the parliamentarians sometimes known as the roundheads led by Oliver Cromwell on the other Cromwell was a brilliant military strategist and it was largely due to his genius that the Parliamentary forces one and the King would eventually in 1648 be executed setting up a short-lived Republic in England sometimes called the Commonwealth but was in fact an actual fact a Puritanical totalitarian tyranny where the theaters were closed obviously Catholics were ruthlessly persecuted where Christmas itself was banned for a while and indeed the character of Father Christmas emerged in English culture from the earlier beginnings in medieval mystery plays as the figure of the resistance of Mary England of Catholic Christian England to this Puritanical tyranny so with great courage Richard Cresciard becomes a Catholic at this time and is forced into lonely exile living in poverty for a very short while ending up at Loretto the marine shrine in Italy where he dies tragically young at the age of 36 and 1649 probably as a direct consequence of his exile and the poverty it caused so I want to spend the remainder of of this looking at a book I compiled anthology of poems every Catholic should know for 10 books and there's a selection of Richard Cresciard's poetry in here I'd like to actually to read from and unfortunately I've got to find it for here we are and you'll see actually the thing about Richard Cresciard he is very much the spirit of the Catholic Reformation or the Catholic Baroque the spirit of Catholic what's sometimes called the count the Catholic counter reformation of the 17th century the 1600s he was hugely inspired by Saint Therese of Avila and Saint John of the Cross and John of the Cross is another great poet who we should probably at some point think about including in the authority another likes of Robert Southal and Saint John Newman a poet who's also a saint well the figure of Saint Therese of Avila in particular Saint John of the Cross as well these great saints who reformed the Carmelite movement in the 16th century were inspirational to Richard Cresciard in the 17th century and he wrote two wonderful poems about Saint Therese of Avila one is somewhat too long to to enjoy here but we'll read the shorter one or maybe we're parts of him to the name and honor of the admirable Saint Therese and what I would like to invite you to do because it seems to me that the Richard Cresciard's poetry is has a kinship of spirit with Benini's famous sculpture of Saint Therese of Avila which one of the most famous sculptures and not in the whole of Western civilization. So take a look at that and you'll see that Richard Cresciard is doing in words what Benini does in sculpting marble. So him to the name and honor of the admirable Saint Therese and this is a long poem one of the great poems I'm just going to read some extracts from it since there's not to be had at home she'll travel for a martyrdom no home for her confesses she but where she may a martyr be she'll to the moors and trade with them for this unrivaled diadem she offers them her dearest breath with Christ's name in it in change for death she'll bargain with them and will give them God and teach them how to live in him or if they this deny for him she'll teach them how to die so shall she leave amongst them sown her Lord's blood or at least her own farewell then all the world adieu Teresa is no more for you farewell all pleasures sports and joys never till now esteemed toys farewell whatever dear may be mother's arms or father's knee farewell house and farewell home she's for the moors and martyrdom sweet not so fast low thy fair spouse whom thou seekst with so swift vows cause thee back and bids thee come to embrace a milder martyrdom and this of course is her role in reforming the the carmelite order and a life of penance and prayer and austerity the slow martyrdom as he calls it and we'll read just the concluding lines of this wonderful poem one of the greatest uh in the canon of English verse thou shalt look around about and see thousands of crowned souls throng to be themselves thy crown sons of thy vows the virgin birth with which thy spouse made fruitful thy fair soul go now and with them all about the bow to him put on he'll say put on my rosy love thy rich zone sparkling with the sacred flames of thousand souls whose happy names heaven keeps upon thy score thy bright life brought them first to kiss the light that kindled them to stars and so thou with the lamb thy lord shalt go and where so he sets his white steps walk with him those ways of light which who in death would live to see must learn in life to die like thee this learning to live by dying is actually a recurring motif in which it creates you're almost to the point of it being overdone one might dare to say for instance his motto it's just the author's motto he this um it's an epigram we see i'm going to show some more of his epigrams later but live Jesus live and let it be my life to die for love of thee so this is richard crature's personal motto live Jesus live and let it be my life to die for love of thee this is a recurring theme we see how it he ends his poem on some trees in the same way uh walk with him whose ways of light which who in death would live to see must learn in life to die like thee do i like saint therese of avala and then his short poem was in therese which also love upon the book and picture of the seraphical saint therese oh thou undaunted daughter of desires by all that dower of lights and fires by all the eagle in thee all the dove by all thy lives and deaths of love by thy large drafts of intellectual day and by thy thirsts of love more large than they by all thy brimfield bowls of fierce desire by thy last morning's draft of liquid fire by the full kingdom of that final kiss that seizing thy part or soul and sealed thee his by all the heaven thou hast in him fair sister of the seraphim by all of him we have in thee leave nothing of myself in me let me so read thy life that i until all life of mine may die so the same recurrent motif but tell me uh if there are many more beautiful prayers because that as well as being a wonderful poem is a marvelous prayer um asking for the intercession of the seraphical saint therese of avala let's look at some of um some of uh his uh other poetry that i that i selected in this book obviously there's loads more that i did not select um all of them here so i've i've selected verses from the shepherds him so you watched longer poems which i've actually had to have excerpts from this from the so long but he's actually better known for very brief poems but uh just to to conclude well just one verse that i've plucked from the i don't know so that i selected from the verses from the uh the shepherds him to thee meek majesty soft king of simple graces and sweet loves each of us this lamb will bring each his pair of silver doves at last in fire of thy fair eyes ourselves become our own best sacrifice all right this time i'm going to read some of these epigrammatic short verses now only a few lines um all of which are just marvelous so on the water of our lord's baptism each blessed drop on each blessed limb is washed itself in washing him tis a gem while it stays here while it falls hence tis a tear short simple sweet sublime but let's look a little bit more closely because remember we talked about how metaphysical poetry is uh is marked by the use of a conceit which i like into a chest atonian paradox uh putting of two things together don't seem to fit that seem to conflict with each other or contradict each other in order to make us see something in a fresh light with with new eyes to see it as it really is perhaps to rekindle within our jaded worldly vision a childlike innocence that's necessary to see things as they truly are so here on the water of our lord's baptism what's he doing uh he's seeing it not through our eyes but from the perspective of the water itself um each blessed drop each blessed limb is washed itself in washing him that christ himself doesn't need baptism of course he's he's got himself um that uh that he's baptized us as as a mark of obedience um as a mark of uh symbolic um uh adherence to the law as a as a prefiguring of the sacrament of baptism itself but he did not need himself to be baptized as we do in order to remove the stain the mark of original sins so the water is not washing the sin away sacrament of the it's being washed by the sinless one each blessed drop is washed itself in washing him tis a gem what it stays here so while it's actually touching christ's skin it's like a gem a jewel a priceless jewel not mere water but something that's kissing the face of god so when it falls from that face uh it becomes a tear it's creation separated from the creator this is crecho's brilliance uh the use of conceits to take us deeper through inviting us to see with fresh eyes so again another four line epigrammatic uh verse but men love darkness rather than light you know this is all obviously scripture the world's light shines shine as it will the world will love its darkness still i doubt though when the world's in hell it will not love its darkness half so well so the light of the world being actually darkness destined for darkness itself the absence of the light of god which is hell on st peter casting away his nets at our saviour's call what a delightful way to be invited to relook at well-known gospel stories thou hast the art aunt peter and can't tell to cast our nets on all occasions well when christ calls and our nets would have these stay to cast them wells to cast them quite away so the fisherman needs to become a fisher of men he needs to cast away uh his nets not cast the nets to catch uh fish from the seer galley but to cast the nets themselves away then he may become a fisher of men the best way to cast the net is to cast them quite away and then dominate non-sumdinius i am not worthy that thou should come under my roof those now nine we say before communion of course but only say the word and my soul shall be healed thy god was making haste into thy roof thy humble faith and fear keeps him aloof he'll be thy guest because he may not be he'll come into thy house no into thee okay so obviously that when we say thou thou shall enter under my roof in the in in um the holy sacrifice of the mass we're not using it in the sense in which it's used in the gospel not enter into my house but enter into our very selves the roof is our own soul uh two went up into the temple to pray two went to pray oh rather say one went to brag the other to pray one stands up close and treads on high where the other dares not send his eye one nearer to god's altar trod the other to the altar's god the exhortation of the humble i'm going to pass over a few more here now and we'll finish with uh with one final poem but here there's others on the blind cured by the word of our saviour on christ crucified and upon our saviour's tomb where in never man was laid but i'm going to end with an epitaph upon husband and wife by the way the word turtles in here is i'm sure you know shakespeare wrote a wrote a poem called the phoenix and the turtle uh when elizabeth and the jackabee and writers um such as shakespeare and crecia use the word turtle they mean turtle dove and not uh not um uh an amphibious shelled creature an epitaph upon husband and wife to these whom death again did wed this graves the second marriage bed for though the hand of fate could force twix soul and body a divorce it could not serve a man and wife because they both lived but one life peace good reader do not weep peace the lovers are asleep they sweet turtles folded lie in the last knot that love could tie let them sleep let them sleep on till the stormy night begun and the eternal morrow dawn then the curtains will be drawn and they wake into a light whose day shall never die in night we've had plenty of good work poems epigrammatic poems about saints and about christ about the gospel but it's good i think to end on an epitaph upon husband and wife this glorious poem about the glory of of the holy sacrament of matrimony and of the way to heaven which is the way of marital love and the uh the destined home which is heaven for those who stay true to their marriage vows um so on that note we we will end this discussion of richard crature one of the great metaphysical poets a convert to the faith um who died in lonely exiling consequence um practicing what he preached so beautifully in his poetry thanks as always for joining me in the authority i'm joseph pierce do join me next time until then goodbye and god bless 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