ANDREW GRATTAN
"the intimate
union of Dante with this
Chair of Peter"
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Dante & the Chair of Peter
courtly
love
poet & prophet
prophecy & hope
nunc est tempus acceptabile:
now is the acceptable time:
'il veltro' / the greyhound / the hunting hound
lost in the 'selva opaca' of 2013.
Andrew 'of the wood', 'the eternal pilgrim' at 40, and the new 'poet of popes', with a "sixth gospel" for Christ & Our Lady, Pope Francis & the Roman Catholic faithful, and academia.
'That beast - you cry out at the very sight -
lets no one through who passes on her way.
She blocks their progress; and there they will all die.
She by her nature is cruel, so vicious
she never can sate her voracious will,
but, feasting well, is hungrier than before.
She couples, a mate to many a creature,
and will so with more, till at last there comes
the hunting hound that deals her death and pain.
He will not feed on dross or cash or gelt,
but thrive in wisdom, virtue and pure love.
Born he shall be between the felt and felt.
To all the shores where Italy bows down
(here chaste Camilla died of wounds, Turnus,
Euryalus and Nisus too), he'll bring true health.
Hunting that animal from every town,
at last he'll chase her back once more to Hell,
from which invidia has set her loose'.
'The Divine Comedy', Inferno, Canto I, 94-111, Dante Alighieri,
TRANSLATED, EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY
ROBIN KIRKPATRICK, Penguin Classics, 2012.
APRIL CHILD - PASCHAL MYSTERY OF CHRIST.
Giambattista Vico, in his 'New Science', proposed a cycle of three ages in The Western Canon: the Theocratic, the Aristocratic, and Democratic Ages, after which, a New Theocratic Age would eventually emerge. The Age of Chaos, reached its nadir, in the desecration of the logos
by the Irish writer, James Joyce in 'Finnegans Wake'.
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Dante met Beatrice in Florence, and elevated her to the
exalted status, primarily, of divine love and wisdom in
'The Divine Comedy', where he enters the 'selva oscura'
or 'dark wood' of human sin and Florentine politics, prior to Inferno, as 'the pilgrim' at the age of 35, in 1300, with the Roman poet Virgil, of 'The Aeneid', as his guide.
Dante designed the poem as a summa of the medieval world view, and it is often called, the 'fifth gospel'.
Andrew met April in Florence, at the age of 35, the same
age as Dante's 'the pilgrim', and elevates her to the auxillary status of divine agency in 'The Christ Colloquy', where he re-enters the 'selva oscura', reopened at the verbal command of Christ from the Cross, and becomes 'the eternal pilgrim' at the age of 40, at 6 pm on Good Friday evening, 2013. John Milton, of 'Paradise Lost' is his master, with Dante and Virgil together, as his guides.
April, and her twin sister, Vocatio, impel him through Inferno and Purgatorio, to Paradiso, where he witnesses the beatific vision of Shakespeare's chrysolite, ('Othello' Act 5, Scene 2, 151-3), 'light of Christ' in Heaven, and the face of Christ, misericordiae vultus et lumen gentium, as he is heralded, as the new eternal 'sommo poeta', by the cherubim and seraphim, at the conclusion of Book I.
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​'The Christ Colloquy', the new, companion 'Commedia' of 2013, takes place over the course of the Easter Triduum,
and concludes on Easter Monday night, at the major basilica of St Paul's outside-the-walls, in Rome.
​
I have returned to the canto form, to become the new 'sommo poeta', pupil and master with Dante Alighieri,
both of us, united by an experience of courtly love in Florence, inspiring a new literary "gospel", post Joyce, and honouring the canonical New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
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canonical author
ll Veltro - Greyhound
The Logos & the logos
​ THE CHRIST COLLOQUY
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​'The Christ Colloquy', is an epic poem, literary "gospel", and didactic summa, conceived to honour Christ and Our
Lady. The poem is also a complete 'DNA theory' of the Literature of The Western Canon, in seven books, for William Shakespeare's 'Seven Ages of Man', featuring Andrew and April, as 'the library' and 'the librarian' of the entire Canon, designed too, to honour the Canon.
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COLLOQUIUM CHRISTUS
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​I write novels with James Joyce as my main literary influence, and epic poetry with John Milton as my 'great
original' as the poet Edmund Spenser, author of 'The Fairie Queene', was his. I also write sonnets, and I have invented a new genre of homily, the 'epi-homily'. I write rhetorical homilies too, indebted to the Church Fathers.
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​I am preparing twenty books in different literary genres, in order to fully honour the dual incarnation, God made Man, multiplied by the Ten Commandments, and the Logos, the person of Christ, the divine 'Word', being honoured by the logos, the literary 'word', the vocabulary that evolved from William Tyndale's translation of the New Testament, crystallized in the King James Bible, and utilized by the greatest writers of The Western Canon.
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"Dante is a prophet of hope, herald of the possibility of redemption, liberation and the profound transformation of every man and woman, of all humanity".
Pope Francis, St Peter's, Rome, May 7, 2015.
2015 750th Anniversary of Dante's birth in 1265.
"If heaven would make me such another world of one entire and
perfect chrysolite, I'd not have sold her for it".
Othello, Shakespeare, Act V: Scene 2, 151-153.
The Chrysolite Collection' (in 3 volumes), Grattan.
Dante Alighieri
'the pilgrim' at 35
'The Christ Colloquy'
Andrew 'of the wood'
'eternal pilgrim' at 40
YEAR OF DIVINE MERCY, MISERICORDIAE VULTUS: POPE FRANCIS, ST PETER'S, ROME, BULL OF INDICTION, 11 APRIL 2015.
​In Praeclara Summorum, Benedict XV, 1921.
Altissimi cantus, Paul VI, 1965.
"Dante is ours! Ours, the meaning of the Catholic faith". Altissimi cantus, n. 9, Paul VI.
St. Paul's
a "sixth gospel"
for the manger of Bethlehem, and
the Chair of Peter
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Dante,
Virgil & Andrew
Jesus &
il veltro
l'altissimo poeta
academia
chrysolite
THE DIVINE COMEDY FIRST FOLIO THE CHRIST COLLOQUY
John Ruskin called Dante, "the most central man in all the world", for the journey undertaken in 'The Divine Comedy', with Virgil , the Mantuan poet and author of 'The Aeneid', as his master and guide through Inferno.
On Good Friday evening, at 6 pm, 2013, Dante's 'selva oscura', as it is today, is re-opened, at Christ's verbal command from the Cross, during his Passion, at the basilica of St Paul's outside-the-walls in Rome, to admit the passage of John Ruskin's new "most central man in all the world" through Inferno, up Mount Purgatory, and to Paradise, in order to
compose a new literary gospel to rest underneath, the four canonical gospels of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
In a side chapel of St Paul's, Christ, the Logos, calls Dante back from Paradise, to receive Andrew, an exiled, ex-English Benedictine novice monk, as his pupil in divine poetry, and to comfort him in his distress at not having found Thomas More's monastic utopia on earth. On Easter Saturday morning at 6 am, William Shakespeare, guides Andrew 'of the wood', through all Canonical Literature in Letteratura Land, until, at 3 pm, St Thomas More, in the company of Beatrice and April, instruct him in Philosophy, within the monastic choir-stalls. At 6 am on Easter Sunday morning, St Augustine receives him as an amanuensis in his study at Carthage, in Africa, to record his survey of Theology, before Easter Sunday at midday, when Our Lady, guides him through the lives of the saints and the history of the religious orders. Christ himself, teaches him about earthly and divine love at midday on Easter Sunday afternoon at 3 pm, before the Holy Spirit, inducts him into the mysteries of the Roman Catholic Church, on Easter Monday morning, while on pilgrimage from Florence to Rome, led by the Holy Trinity as a pillar of cloud, where the new, eternal 'sommo poeta', receives the poet's ancient laurel crown of Dante, Petrarch and Milton, from the Pope.
at 6 pm, on Good Friday evening, 2013, at St Paul's outside-the-walls in
Rome, the 'selva oscura' of 1300, is reopened at the verbal command of
Christ on the Cross, to admit the passage of 'the eternal pilgrim' at 40,
and 'the greyhound', into Dante's Inferno, to write a new literary gospel
for modern Christendom...
'Who is it, who has come to rout me out, my hard worn bliss, with my beloved Portinari Beatrice?'
'The Christ Colloquy', Book I Commedia Canto II, 72-76.
'This is Andrew 'of the wood' and Inferno is his formator'.
'The Christ Colloquy', Book I Commedia Canto XVII, 7.
NEW EPIC POEM & LITERARY GOSPEL 'The Divine Comedy' 'The Christ Colloquy'
Dante & Beatrice Andrew & April
Beatrice Portinari
'selva oscura'
greyhound & Child
April Child
'selva opaca'
1300 'La Divina Commedia' 'Colloquium Christus' 2013
MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR CULTURE FOR THE SOLEMN CELEBRATION OF THE 750th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF THE SUPREME POET DANTE ALIGHIERI.
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To the venerable brother Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture the Vatican, 4 May 2015.
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On the occasion of the solemn celebration of the 750th anniversary of the birth of the supreme poet Dante Alighieri, being held at the Senate of the Republic of Italy, I wish to address my cordial and friendly greeting to you and to those who will be participating in commemorating Dante... I extend a greeting to all the authorities present, to the Dante Alighieri Society, to the scholars of Dante, to the artists and to those whose presence honours one of the most illustrious figures not only for Italians but for all of humanity.
With this message, I would like to add my voice to those who consider Dante Alighieri an artist of the greatest universal esteem, who through his immortal works still has much to say and offer to those whose desire to travel the way to true knowledge, to the authentic discovery of self, of the world, of life's profound and transcendent meaning.
"APRIL CHILD" - THE PASHCAL MYSTERY OF CHRIST - 'THE GREYHOUND' AND 'CHILD' 'I am the way, the truth and the life'. John 14:6
'The Christ Colloquy' - the gospel according to Andrew
Among the many celebrated geniuses of whom the Catholic faith can boast who have left undying fruits in literature and art especially, besides other fields of learning, and to whom civilization and religion are ever in debt, highest stands the name of Dante Alighieri...that noble figure, pride and glory of humanity.
'In Praeclara Summorum', Benedict XV, 1921.
'Heaven's own Alighieri, has ceded place and placed, in divine judgement, il sommo poeta's, bay wreathe upon his brow'...
St Lucy, speaking in Paradise, before Christ, Our Lady, Beatrice and the Communion of Saints.
'The Christ Colloquy', Book III Filosofia, Canto I: 67-69 , Grattan.
Gone, then, was that hot Carthage basin, that Rollins' Brown, in prize garnering biography did dense detail, a service Lewalski, has recently performed, for my lost master Milton too, and I, the new, eternal 'sommo poeta', lifted mind and spirit, high above Alighieri now, so that
Paul VI in Heaven, will have to append term, 'Altissimi cantus', to another man; Benedict XV, revise letters, 'In Praeclara Summorum'; and, beautiful Begnini, repronounce, new 'Paradiso' words before a Senate, upon an anniversary; and, twenty-twenty-one Rome committee of Ravasi's Culture Council Pontifical, confer honours fresh, upon the hunting hound, I, who did re-evade, a lion, leopard and she-wolf menacing, when the sun, she, did slip down, at six, last Good Friday night, and, with Publius and Durante, I walked down into Hell...
'The Christ Colloquy', Book V Mary, Canto I: 1-11, Grattan.