In part one of Dr. White’s commentary on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, he points out that this particular comedy makes obvious references to the 12 days of Christmas, with the “twelfth night” as the end of festivities. And the plot of the play is also connected to the Feast of the Epiphany, i.e., seeing the truth where others fail to see it. This play contains a host of strong-willed characters and numerous cases of mistaken identity wherein they are unable to see the truth about themselves. It’s a play that reminds us we are human. A great comedy, according to Dr. White, but one sprinkled with sorrow and sadness.
T.S. Eliot changed the face of poetry with Four Quartets, his four-part poem based on musical string quartets that features four instruments. The four instruments in the musical version are replaced with four voices in the poem. The Quartets deal with: air, earth, water and finally fire. The poems are based on his life’s experiences. The final quartet is about Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost appeared as fire from the sky to inflame the Apostles and Our Lady with the full enlightenment of Christ’s life and message. Modern man is in his many sins is punished by fire in the form of aerial incendiary bombs that fell over London during WWII, which Eliot personally witnessed. He reasons that we will be redeemed by the fire of suffering given to us by God in this life to avoid the suffering of fire in the next. Receive the fire of the Holy Ghost and burn with love of God. Suffering is redemptive. The fourth Quartet is a hidden sonnet: seven lines and seven lines instead of the usual 14. Sonnets are always love poems, thus this too is a love poem. Four Quartets is considered the greatest lyric poem of the twentieth century.
In part two of his commentary on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Dr. White describes how Shakespeare’s characters bear a striking similarity to those found in Greek mythology, namely Echo and Narcissus. Twelfth Night, White tells us, is filled with similar instances of self-love. But, interspersed with dramatic readings, he also points out that there is life in the play, whereby love breaks out of selfishness. Dr. White sees it as a play filled with truthfulness, in which characters eventually see what is real, i.e., what is actually there. This ultimately leads to a happy ending as they learn to care about someone other than themselves. He ends the commentary with a question and answer session.
In this talk Dr. White discusses O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” within the context of the four stages of violent charity; which like Christ’s suffering is a charity that wounds. He opines that it is O’Connor’s vision that the modern world is mad, sealed off from God’s grace. Dr. White discusses what he describes as the comic first half of the story along with the shocking second half.
Here Dr. White makes passing reference to O’Connor’s affection for the films of W.C. Fields, as he segues into a discussion of “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” White characterizes this story as frightening, and one in which O’Connor presents an empty, dead world wherein she deals with intellectual pride and the racism of the deep South in a bygone era.
Here Dr. White makes passing reference to O’Connor’s affection for the films of W.C. Fields, as he segues into a discussion of “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” White characterizes this story as frightening, and one in which O’Connor presents an empty, dead world wherein she deals with intellectual pride and the racism of the deep South in a bygone era.
