A Robust Masterpiece
By
Frederick Bauman
A Review of Ivan Argüelles’
Comedy , Divine , The
(Blue Lion Books, Puhos , Finland , West Hartford , CT
available from lulu.com)
In the prosaic desert that is contemporary American poetry, Ivan Argüelles has created a lush oasis called Comedy , Divine , The. This hefty epic is worth reading for the sheer richness of the language alone:
incarnations of vishnu , as a subway rushes through
a new tunnel towards its apogee , definition of water
, for the blind and unspeakable an apology , litmus
test result in sublime azure , a song without notes,
“skin” , umbratile figures wavering in a liquid
horizon , unable to wake entirely from this dream
(Inferno, Canto I)
Like its name sake, this epic is divided into three canticles – Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Each contains about thirty-three cantos, but instead of terza rima, Argüelles uses very beefy, unrhymed six line stanzas. Like Dante’s great work, each canticle ends with the word “stars,” representing the direction both poets are aiming towards. In Canto III of Inferno, Dante presents the famous warning, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” In his corresponding canto, Argüelles gives us a reason for the warning:
whole skies dis membered , aggregates of stellar
holocausts , the membrum virile writ “big” on its
peninsula of gas , all reduced to a fleck of spit
in the brain’s tawdry reckoning of “life” , fled
truants naked tossed face down in their ice , ire
? legends , gusts of envy blown through eye cavity
(Inferno, Canto III)
Yet, of course, there is a big difference between Dante’s and Argüelles Comedies. Dante, working in the Thirteenth Century, presented a culmination of the medieval world view. Argüelles, working a century and a half after Nietzsche declared the death of God, poring over ancient texts of all traditions, is aiming to ascend from the modern angst toward some sense of the sublime. This ascent is attempted honestly and courageously, without resort to escapism or sentimentality. He begins with a clear recognition that we are in hell:
the face in the oil slick , whose ? mine was left of center
third from right , offal and used motor parts , slab of
white “stuff” hanging in mid air , ghosts who ponder “this”
, not knowing , no longer wanting to know , rib cage
smashed in , a music shifting in the ruined grasses , long
epochs of rust and shattered granite , miles of dead horse
(Inferno, Canto XXIII)
There is the sense throughout that hell, purgatory and heaven are not conceived as the after life so much as the possibilities of human life in this world. As we’ve seen, the first canticle descends down to the lowest levels of modern human existence. How does Argüelles work his way up from hell in the second canticle?:
a stenciled figure forced to walk out of his
dead automobile, or waving the lictors’ symbol
, a variegated essence not yet colored just
somewhat nascent , a memory of the rotunda
or of the bullet that entered it , a panorama
of the elysian fields before the conflagration
(Purgatorio, Canto I)
There is no let up on the intensity, but – at least to this reviewer – there is a gradual lightening – in the sense of something finer, lighter entering in. It is, perhaps, just a glimmer penetrating the suffering of existence:
at a certain point you can only ask “what’s the use?” , assigning coded
digits to things remembered , what good is that ? red is for , and
yellow the designated , and white always the , followed by sections of
bleak , why didn’t You ? in principle breath is only for the living ,
each of us exists as an “interpretation” , language is a buffer , blue
persists symbolically , speaking feels good , some times….
(Purgatorio, Canto XXIII)
Even in paradise, Argüelles won’t let himself take the easy way to some kind of imagined nirvana:
had we but taken the right turn , paradise might have been a reality ,
not this monotonous sequence of beautiful painted hand-fans , gorgeous
plumage , what does it say on the reverse ? models of fine porcelain ,
how easily night falls for them , one hand fits around their waist ,
but You ? “la grande nuit des mots” , with what savage eloquence your
hair speaks , were we ever so far on the Path?
(Paradiso, Canto IV)
Yet by the next to last canto there are several stanzas in which there is some experience of what might be called the sacred. Here is the first of them:
I will be Thy lifelong companion , said the shadow to its other , nor
shall fear find home in Thy heart , and when life hath uttered its last
color , when dark erases too its shades , how shall I know Thee but as
the devotee of the Formless god , in Thee shall this shadow inhere , in
Thee shall drink to the last this empty cup , Thou art the all alone
and endless , as I am the all together and unending , in Thee is Me !
(Paradiso, Canto XXXII)
Herein the twilight of European civilization, such glimmers are to be valued. At the same time it is clear that we must face what we do not understand:
from what garden we are exiled , to what earth consigned , to what urn
confined , it is what yearning is , a longing for the Island , what ,
that cannot be , that , fell thing , taste of earth , salt , humus ,
(Paradiso, Canto XXXIII)
It is, to this reviewer, significant, ironic and amusing that Argüelles concludes his massive and wonderful epic with a quotation from Dominico Modugno’s Volare. This lively but silly song was popular in both Italian and English about fifty years ago. We may not find answers to our most profound questions, but keeping a sense of humor in the face of our ignorance helps one endure the long periods between fleeting experiences of deeper understanding such as Argüelles is able – here and there – to express in this robust and energizing masterpiece.
