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Hello all,
I'm sorry I'm a bit late to the party in this discussion. I've been saving the comments for a aday when I had the time to read and think about them. This thread has
been fascinating. I hadn’t realized that the opening of LIR was a reference to Dante until this conversation. I remember first reading it and drawing a parallel to the opening paragraph of For
Whom the Bell Tolls: "He
lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of
the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass."
The connection
to Dante has been convincingly argued here, though, I 'm not surprised to suppose now that Percy was layering the allusions.
Maybe it's just me, as I thought he was spoofing Hemingway a bit in MG as well with the character of Sam Yerger (although I think that connection to Hemingway is confirmed by others).
I was, however, surprised that Jessica Wooten Wilson identified Art Immelmann as Jewish in LIR. I have assumed (perhaps falsely as I don't mean to question Wilson's scholarship) that the name was
a reference to the German aviator Max Immelmann, since Tom is reading a history of World War I. I guess I don't expect Percy to cast a satanic figure as a Jew, given that he doesn't reflect the antisemitism of some Catholics (as well as so many others). Percy
is adamant always that the Jewish people are God's chosen, as the Old Testament asserts. That does lead me to the other obvious connection in LIR, which is the
Don Giovanni, the Faustian opera that Tom listens to while watching the martins fly to and from their martin house behind his office. That one is such an easy surface grab, though. It's low-hanging fruit, whereas, in LIR, I find this Dante connection
to be more subtle and satisfying.
The commentary on the list regarding Lancelot was another nice illumination. While I had picked up on some of the Dantean elements on my own, I hadn't realized something as basic as the nine chapter division of the book. Now
I'm wondering if Anna can be correlated to Beatrice? I'm thinking that's an investigation worth pursuing, although someone more clever than I am has likely already thought of it! I remember reading somewhere (if only I had Chuck's scholarship or memory and
could find or remember where) that the image created of Lance being blown out of Belle Isle evokes Lucifer falling from heaven, which adds Milton's
Paradise Lost as another intertextual element.
What a lovely way to spend a Sunday morning, musing on Percy and Dante and other allusions to fine literature and art.
All cheers to the whole list!
Rhonda
On Feb 18, 2023, at 2:27 PM, Charles Lowry <lowry.charles AT gmail.com> wrote:
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