Fellowship & Fairydust

In 2019 and 2020 I had the privilege of having a teaching position at the University of Warwick, where despite my academic work being in Maths I was able to work with people from many departments and institutes on topics outside of subject boundaries and delve into those interesting ideas like the logic of poetry that Academics so seldom get to work on. The following began as a response to a students reflection on Heraclitus, and became the address I gave at the close of my fellowship at the start of Lent when the term was cut short and the staff and the students were sent home.

As Lent comes to an end a year later, and the world continues to be in upheaval I feel it is relevant again.

 

In the late 16th century, perhaps the greatest poet of the English language, Edmund Spencer was driven from his home in Ireland. It was burned by the rebels and he lost a child in the fire. As Irelands nine-year war raged and he went from the upper echelons of Irish government to poverty, privation and finally death on the streets of London and the great poem he was writing was caught short.

Ten years earlier, this fate would have been inconceivable. Because of this great poem, the renowned Sir Walter Raleigh had sponsored his coming to the court of Queen Elizabeth. He was then sponsored by the crown to write his poetry and almost was given a seat at that court.

What was the poem that had brought him so high?

The Faerie Queene, an epic twelve volume work, that would bring together the pantheon of British legendary Heroes – from St George to King Arthur, and interweave them with fairy tales, Greek and Roman myth, scenes from biblical prophecy and reflections of the ascendancy and achievements of women and women rulers.

Ten years later, as his home burns and the lives of the poet and his family descend into chaos, this great work is cut short at the start of its seventh volume. 

It is now impossible for Spenser to tell the story of how Arthur, Una, the Knight of the Redcross and all of the other characters will ever reach the Court of the Fairie Queene. Motivated by this tragedy, his attention shifts to a new character, Mvtability, a titaness conquering all creation.

This makes sense. Tragedies have a way of making us conscious of mutability – the fact that our lives will end, the fact that the things we create will have an end, the terrible boundedness of our existence. But Edmunds genius wasn’t just in observing the world, but constructing narratives that reflect and go beyond it.

Mvtability in turn, meets her father time, and like the poet, and all of his other characters she finds her end and limitation.  This story reaches its climax in the last Canto- in contrast to all the others with their thousands of lines, it only has eighteen. In these last few lines his focus shifts from the upturning of everything towards rest and the immutable, and the great work ends abruptly. 

 

When I bethinke me on that speech whyleare, 

 Of Mutability, and well it way: 

 Me seemes, that though she all vnworthy were 

 Of the Heav’ns Rule ; yet very sooth to say, 

 In all things else she beares the greatest sway. 

 Which makes me loath this state of life so tickle, 

 And loue of things so vaine to cast away; 

 Whose flowring pride, so fading and so fickle, 

 Short Time shall soon cut down with his consuming sickle.

 

Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd, 

Of that same time when no more Change shall be, 

 But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd 

 Vpon the pillours of Eternity, 

 That is contrayr to Mutabilitie: 

 For, all that moueth, doth in Change delight: 

 But thence-forth all shall rest eternally 

 With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight: 

 O thou great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight. 

 

But buried in those beautiful words there is a strange thread of logic that defies tragedy. Heraclitus famously said “the only constant is change”, Spenser illustrated this with Mvtability conquering all, but he also challenges it. If, as Heraclitus said, the only constant is change, will that itself ever change?

In that final stanza, as tragedy comes down on him and his life is swept away Spenser argues yes. He seems to make the case that for logic to be satisfied, change can’t be constant an eternal.

In the same way that the phrase “all generalizations are false” defeats itself, or the phrase “all truths are relative” disproves itself he realizes that the claim that change rules all is itself an oxymoron- something that cannot possibly be true.

Grabbing hold of this logic his reflection on tragedy becomes unlike those in any other work I am familiar with. Instead of doing what others do, swearing revenge, embracing despair or even looking past the agony that change has brought to him, his poetry holds up mutability itself and says confidently – the existence and totality of change is proof of the existence of something beyond it.

In the final line his logic is interrupted by a prayer which seems to burst from his heart onto the page: O thou great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight. Edmund prays, not for an end to change, or even for his life to change back, but to see that which is at peace and at rest in the midst of change. 

 

As the university is a secular place I didn’t close with a prayer. As a result whilst the above felt finished, it didn’t feel resolved. It felt like a song that ended on a 7th chord. However, I feel Fellowship and Fairydust is a different kind of place, a place where we celebrate the beauty at the margins of the world. The magic of Gandalf, the winged creatures that dance off of Macdonalds pages and more than all those, the nouminous realities from which the world and all the beauty in its margins, songs and stories descends.

Taking the conceptual lens of Spenser and applying it to Easter, we see that the cross and the empty tomb is the ultimate example of the above – the moment where mutability itself is revealed as mutable and humbled at the feet of a God who is eternal. For us, this is the fountainhead through which every other miracle flows, and our source of calm in every storm. Whoever you are, and whatever faith or brand of unbelief you accept I pray that in this time of upheaval you would be able to take hold of a small piece of this miracle and experience the magical peace of Easter.