top of page

Dante,

Will &

Eliot's

'third'

A NEW AND THIRD CANON CENTRE

T.S. Eliot: "Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern                                               world between them; there is no third". 

 

In Book II of 'The Christ Colloquy', 'Letteratura', at the centre of the poem, set like a jewel,

is 'Shakespeare's DNA Canto' (XLVII), where the two "supreme poets", Dante Alighieri,

and Andrew 'of the wood', are positioned either side 'the helix of assignation', the nub of Shakespeare himself. Both poets are unique, in having experienced courtly love in Florence, for Beatrice and for April, and for processing the unique experience, in ambitious long poems, 'The Divine Comedy' and 'The Christ Colloquy'.

 

'Through me, you enter, the centre of the Western Canon;

Through me, you will know, the eternal, universal, rhythms of man;

Through me, you come, into all felicity of being;

 

Through me, you enter the human condition;

For I, am the circumscriber of man and woman;

For I, am the delimiter of the eternal truths of human nature;

 

For I, am William Shakespeare, the centre of the Western Canon,

 

Andrew, that you take your place, with Dante and me, that

We together, you, liegeman with me, become an immortal three,

A Holy Trinity, to guard the Canon Western; and we three must be as

​

Red tabernacle lights, to guard it entire, you, new divine poet, full eclipser,

Of the Dantean; from the ancient near east, to India, the ancient Greeks,

The Hellenistic Greeks, the Middle Ages of Latin, Arabic, and the

​

Vernacular, Italy, Portugal, Spain, England and Scotland,

France, Germany, Scandinavia, Great Britain, Russia,

And those United States of America'.

​

And, I listened, from the consecrated lips of the very

Centre of the Western Canon himself, William Shakespeare,

Who had wed my own name, with that of the

​

Immortal Dante Alighieri, of Florence, and me,

Andrew 'of the wood', even so recognized, by

Shakespeare himself...

'The Christ Colloquy', Book II Letteratura, Canto  XLVI: 94-115,  Grattan.

​

Three cantos, set at the Logos Globe Theatre in New London, a district of Florence by the Arno in 'Letteratura Land', a whole world inside a side altar of St Paul's outside-the-walls, in Rome, depict Andrew Wood, Shakespeare's apprentice playwright, composing 'A Play Upon the Passion', to make him John Ruskin's new "most central man in all the world", subsuming Dante, and creating seven books, as a new interpretation of Shakespeare's celebrated Seven Ages of Man, from the play 'As You Like It'. 

 

He thought too, about that golden parallelogram in 'The Christ Colloquy,' he, Andrew 'of the wood', standing opposite, the defeated

and vanquished Dante Alighieri, the laurel wreathe crown of poetic achievement, desecrate and tissueless, upon his meekened, bowed head, and Beatrice Portinari, to his, Dante's right, and April Child to his, Andrew's right, the two objects of courtly love, who had inspired the 'fifth' and 'sixth' gospels of Christendom; and how Dante, his red eyes moist with a delicate dressing of tears, how Dante himself, had displaced the supreme poet's laurels, from his own rearing head, and placed them upon his, Andrew's head.

'Corpus Christi', Chapter I, p. 33, Grattan.

 

The new poet, literally climbs Merton's 'Seven Storey Mountain', in Book VII, when he guides

Virgil and Dante to the top of the Santa Scala in Rome, a new form of Mount Purgatory for our modern age, where John of the Cross, author of 'The dark Night of the Soul', replaces Dante's Cato, as the guardian of Purgatory. Andrew is then accepted for intellectual and spiritual formation by three Carmelite saints, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux and Elizabeth of the Trinity, who prepare the contemplative poet, with his pure desire to write a new literary gospel for today, to meet Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, who act as a preparative conduit and introduction, to the Holy Trinity, in the form of a Pillar of Cloud and Fire, in Book VII.

 

 

            'THE GLOBE', SHAKESPEARE  &  'THE LOGOS GLOBE', GRATTAN                                                                           

                                 THE GLOBE  SONNET                        

 

Globe-ruling, topless-towering, spin solving Shakespeare! His ever revolve,                                                                         Ball revolving, human nature surveying, sieving solving, blue-green ocean-landed

Turning, silken shimmering, your naked gaze beholding, solve-spinning Shake-

Speare! Prospero wanded, magic-ball beholding, trickless, your almighty gift, trick

Tongue to glorious open telling! My solvent tongue, strews sestercii, flories, pennies,

Groats, addressing enoaked groundling circle! Wondering, awed, sitting merry-talking

Prattle tell sounding! Elizabethan crowds knew 'Wood-Talk' original! Jonson, Marlowe,

Merely hollow, your full sack swift song harmonious ambrosial! Sit, within marvellous

Confines, your Thames house around, Globe, the Globe, round, sift out satiate my

Pentateuch of five, Cross companionable, Biblical books lyrical: King Lear;

Tempest; Othello; Macbeth; Hamlet; pushed, drop all, save pellucid beloved disciple?

King Lear, will I sue, for meek, holy cloth suiting, single Will-work wanting:

England green, your spotless orb detailing, turning, his, round globe shape cylindrical,

Magisterial: perfect globing King Lear: Italy living- my anglicized tears for England!

'The Christ Sonnets', Sonnet LI, Grattan.

 

In 'The Divine Comedy', Dante wrote about the human soul and the afterlife, in the context

of the 'dark wood' or 'selva oscura', representing human sin and Florentine politics, and I am

writing about the human soul in the context of the prime wood of the Cross, filtered through

the 'light wood', of the monastic choirwood of Adonai Abbey, which I first entered in utter   innocence, when I was a postulant at 26, this 'selva opaca' representing universal 'Church sin'.

 

I met April at the age of 35, the age of Dante's 'the pilgrim', and I enter Dante's 'selva oscura', at 40, as 'the eternal pilgrim' at 6 pm on Good Friday evening at 6 pm. The two 'woods', the 'selva opaca' and the 'selva oscura', equip me with a unique and new perspective, the new 'divine poet', having two masters in both Dante and Virgil, as well as his primary, 'great original' of the sublime, blind Puritan, John Milton, in the new 'Commedia' of Easter 2013.

 

And Dante, withered his disconcerted gaze over me in whistful chagrin: 'For, it seems, the greyhound, has, stealthy, Hell harrowing, final come, though out another wood than mine, this wan and weak, selva opaca, you, the hunting hound, and a lean one, though, most late in time-history, this anno domini, two thousand thirteen'.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            'The Christ Colloquy' Book I Commedia  Canto IV:  157-160 Grattan.

Dante formally identifies and recognizes Andrew 'of the wood' as the greyhound.

 

 

                                                                                                         'Leave us alone, Malacoda, for I come

                                     With one travelling under prayer-patronage of Pope Emeritus Benedict the Sixteenth,

                                   

                                     And, the new, Assisi humble one, Jesuit Francis, raised elevate, from Argentina, in

                                     Base, black scuffed shoes; he travels in his novitiate habit to keep him safe

                                     From you; you cannot strike me, nor Dante, who has travelled here before'.

                                   

                                     And, a thumb, Virgil, he jerked at me: 'This one, he travels under divine protection'.

                                                       'The Christ Colloquy', Book I Commedia Canto XX: 127-134, Grattan.

The new 'divine poet' travels through Dante's Inferno on Good Friday evening, 2013

under the prayer-patronage and protection of Pope Emeritus Benedict & Pope Francis.

                                                                                           

 

 

                 'What end, your journey tends to Andrew, I know not, for, my 'Comedy', was the best of me, but he of the art of  holy

                  eloquence, rhetoric's  Ibsenic Master Builder, Wilfrid Sollom, in holy Heaven, knows that a new gospel is desired by

                  the Holy Trinity, to rest underneath the gold of  M, M, L and J; and a silver A, from you Andrew, is the mene, mene

                  tekel, 'A' hallmark, divine justice scales, weigh-price'.

                                                                                           'The Christ Colloquy' Book I Commedia  Canto XXIV: 141-145, Grattan.

Dante instructs Andrew, that the 'The Christ Colloquy' must be a silver 'A', to rest underneath the gold 'M' of Mathew, the 'M' of Mark, the 'L' of Luke and the 'J' of John.

                                                           

 

 

                                            LIII  

 

Most whole-souled Shakespeare, God's natural theologian, whole, out                                                                             

Arden forest, natural ardent cut! Christ's breaking, bark hue

Grain chopped, managed-shaped supernatural, teak bearing grain,

That early hallmarked wood, Italy's sylvan Dantean dark, bears his

Sluiced-eased imprint, eternity embracing heart! Will, in your eternal

Lines, seeded Christ's trans-eternal vine! Hail, Christ's Will, to you

I stand, I you salute, Will, in pure beaming admiration! Hail, Will

Of  Stratford! Bent my doubled knee undone, I snuff out my bent-back,

I, admire your own, your Englishness, delighting all, all before! Turned,

Primed bay-wreath round, in my hands, flourishment of bay laurel! Twirled,

Ivy-twine, round my blood-berries red of bead, within them, man, flourish

Behind, backed, my poorest berry fruits of straw, my poor pallid punnet sonnets!

Most, lying half-prone, eye to reading eye: Hail, true Englishman, St George's son!    

To you, willing Will, I here, proffer-present, Christ's sunny sonnet crown!   

'The Christ Sonnets', Grattan.

 

     Andrew Grattan presents William Shakespeare with "Christ's sunny sonnet crown".

 

                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                              XL

                                                           

                                                      Dante Alighieri, I remain still, quite a little in awe of you,

                                                      Though, already has diminished and rescinded, the

                                                      Grading distance; and, I can see your dropped, still un-

                                                      Drowsing, haughty eyes surveying my rising form too.

                                                      Still, not yet time, my English-Irish quotient two-thirds,

                                                      Satisfied must be: Will Speare, and Milton my conlocutors

                                                      Must be, while dressed, our fantastic Christ's body,

                                                      In salving sonnet vine lines, embalming healing before,

                                                      He ascending in three will rearise. Your bay leaf palms

                                                      Florentine-Italian, I do sere see; but first concluding vines

                                                      Of Will's heart and Milton's technique, before, you, your

                                                      Cantos, you, would, then teach me. Your Beatrice is exceeding,

                                                      Beautiful, distilling Dante, and I can now, well see, why love

                                                      And now I see entire, Dante, final, my, 'New Life', my 'Comedy'.

                                                                                                           'The Christ Sonnets', Grattan.

     

                                     Dante Alighieri: 'The New Life' & 'The Divine Comedy'

                  Andrew Grattan: 'The Christ Sonnets' and 'The Christ Colloquy

 

 

                                                                      CL

 

Lord, I have serious sought tried, in these, the sonnets of your all holy wine, to

Loving bathe-lathe your hurting body, so sore and cold; on Will's eternal lines,

Lines, lie my untearing vines, and I'll lie desperate, distressed tear sorry, Lord, if I have

Your soaring body failed. Sired out me, all vine love, I can of me perfect, those

Weal lashes, vine imperfect, wed, your hurts unmeet, hope sea-change, you would

Your wood-pain forget. Neither I, in any way, vain-vein rising, asked within Calvary ring,               

Retold man's suffering, mist vintage blood outpouring: 'Andrew, this is our one of year,

Our, one-one of year, our, one-one of year of our most holy wine'. Time Florentine

Duomo round, asked this task, so now near crowned, six months contemplate renew,

I, unhead, unheart, unread; no rest, idle sedulous, sloth, north-left transept, where hangs

A Cross beneath, a dried oil, of your one Saint Andrew, where rises his marshalling flag;

And under it, I long there stood, like More, post mass, though unUtopia'd in life, now,

Thrice, till, I felt your very veins in mine: these lines, not technical of perfect, Lord, nor,

No excellent of good, now, bid me to your back, O Lord, - call, your Andrew 'of the wood'.    

 'The Christ Sonnets', Grattan.

                                

the genesis of 'the new divine poet', in 'The Christ Sonnets', at 31, in Rome, before coming to Florence, at the age of Dante's, 'the pilgrim', 35, in 'The Divine Comedy'. 

 

bottom of page