54 Having arrested Him, they led Him and brought Him into the high priest’s house. But Peter followed at a distance.
55 Now when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them.
56 And a certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat by the fire, looked intently at him and said, “This man was also with Him.”
57 But he denied Him, saying, “Woman, I do not know Him.”
58 And after a little while another saw him and said, “You also are of them.”
But Peter said, “Man, I am not!”
59 Then after about an hour had passed, another confidently affirmed, saying, “Surely this fellow also was with Him, for he is a Galilean.”
60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are saying!”
Immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.
61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.”
62 So Peter went out and wept bitterly.
Baudelaire's poem, Le Reniement de St. Pierre, captures the kind of blasphemous empathy one might feel for this denial. Here's the last verse:
— Certes, je sortirai, quant à moi, satisfait
D'un monde où l'action n'est pas la soeur du rêve;
Puissé-je user du glaive et périr par le glaive!
Saint Pierre a renié Jésus... il a bien fait!
I am quite satisfied to leave so bored
A world, where dream and action disunite.
I'd use the sword, to perish by the sword.
Peter denied his Master?... He did right!
— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)
The kind of decision with which Peter was faced is one of perennial difficulty. Baudelaire kicks against the traces of martyrdom in the face of the banality of evil. Kind of...
You assume here some knowledge of the Peter story. In case there is anyone else like me who doesn't have it, please could you say something more about Peter's dilemma (or is it antiheroism?). Why did he deny Christ? Why was he ultimately crucified? Is Baudelaire suggesting that he (Peter) also exemplifies using the sword to perish by the sword, and if so, what does this mean?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. On the question of Peter's crucifixion, I refer you to the Wiki article on St. Peter as, at least, a starting point. He, of course, survived Christ, not least because of this strategic act of denial that he was one of the company of Christ.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in the psychology of collaboration. In this instance, Peter 'collaborated' in order to preserve his life. There are two instances which hinge on the matter of collaboration within this blog. Gemma Atkinson refused to cave in, despite the odds; I mouthed the right words in order to stay at a festival.
As a child growing up within the Christian tradition, the story of St. Peter's denial was used as a model for the difficulty and struggle involved with maintaining 'faith' and 'bearing witness' to a Christian belief, particularly for those involved with early foundation of the Christian church. The broader implications of the matter were not discussed.
I think we can safely assume that Peter would not have considered his own action as anti-heroic in any sense. The paradox which constitutes the idea of the anti-heroic is associated with the nineteenth century in my mind, though one might identify, e.g., Hamlet with the psychology of anti-heroism, which is perhaps why the play was so popular in the context of a 'decadent' fin-de-siècle. The idea of anti-heroism is implied in Baudelaire's sabre-rattling final framing. The poem is substantially about the problem of marrying ideas or ideals with the substantial matter of action. Baudelaire seems to be posing questions. Are the wretched and barbaric communities of interest which humans form and exercise authority over worthy of any great sacrifice? appears to be one. The idea of suicide is posited as a solution to maintaining integrity - and other 'ideas' which proliferate: control, power, mastery of one's own fate etc. Baudelaire has elsewhere established the opposition of 'Spleen' and 'Idéal'. The final stanza here is a typically splenetic response to the dilemma.
A further paradox is that which implies that Peter did well in denying involvement in the idealism of another, for it is, after all, the seemingly inevitable translation of ideas into authoritarian, sabre-wielding structures that constitutes the evidently default structure or physical enactment of ideas or the ideological.
A further thought about the biblical story: Beckett uses the phrase 'exit, weeping' or something close, I think, in the dialogues with Georges Duthuit. Beckett utilises a barren tree, (a reduced version of the crucifixion cross, one might argue),as a component of the set of 'Waiting for Godot'. Beckett's reductio ad absurdum extends the logic of Baudelaire's modernising. When Vladimir and Estragon consider suicide, as in jumping from the Eiffel Tower hand in hand, they dismiss it as lacking the heroism/anti-heroism of 'the old days'. Suicide was very popular at the end of the nineteenth century.
ReplyDeleteis bollocks
ReplyDeleteThankyou 'anonymous', perhaps you'd like to expand on your comment!
ReplyDeleteis possible to tallk at lenth aboot howe diver's ellephants as Fillipino Lippi and Beckett are relate throo some common strand of truth that runs like the willd wind throo this yooniverse, but is bollocks all same.
ReplyDeleteThanks for a bit more explanation. You mean it's not worth the effort? Trying to discern the 'common strand of truth that runs like the wild wind' - great phrase - is surely worth the effort? Poets and artists strive to represent or rediscover it on occasion. At times we all have to stand up and be counted on the matter of principles, but maybe you are saying that talking about it has no value. Whatever, thanks for responding.
ReplyDeleteaiyee! git ov my case! i is too hii on droogs. but i like yoo, mon. but trooth is, mon, fra lippi n beckett is divers: one is divine ov coast ov mexico n dother ov maldive islands (were is warm).
ReplyDeleten wee try make conexion bwteen 2 is askin QEUSTION: "wotABOOTall " d'other divers? hoo lookin after dem, dem? wot aboot Condrad, and joyce n stuff...
mebe becket wos talkin bollocks! (n lippi in my hoomble was on droogs wen he try iz hand at painting)... so is all a big confuxing mess...
beestes is give up n take up droogs.
Hi NJP, (Ignoring all the nonsense from the previous guy :-) I'm going next month to Florence. Do you have any personal recommendations?
ReplyDeletePS: I am a studend of Fine Art at Goldsmiths. (sorry if this is the wrong forum)
Hi. Lucky you to be visiting Florence next month! Jumping in before NJP, some of my favourite places there are: the Church of San Marco in Piazza San Marco (go to the monks' cells upstairs painted by Fra Angelico); the Brancacci Chapel at Piazza del Carmine (again go upstairs to see paintings by Masolino, Masaccio and others); and the Laurentian Library (or Medici Library) in the Church of San Lorenzo. The Uffizi obviously has an extraordinary collection, and you should definitely go there, but it is so vast that it will quickly become enervating unless you focus on specific rooms/artists -- download a map of the museum or pick up one there to help you. You need tickets for all these museums (in the case of the Uffizi the ticket is timed so that you have to enter within a given half-hour period); buy your tickets online if you can, as queues can be long. Finally, if you have time, Fiesole (on one of the hills adjacent to Florence) is worth visiting, and it is a nice bus ride there - take the number 7 bus from the railway station (Santa Maria Novella).
ReplyDeleteSRM has pretty much covered the best in Florence. I could add that a trip to Sienna is worth the effort - magical place! It's funny, I had become a bit habituated to Renaissance art, but seeing it in situ and in context is incredible and gives a wholly new take on what was occurring.
ReplyDeleteHi SRM, your input is simply awesome!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much!
NJP, I will try go to Sienna (if I can convince my boyfriend! :-) But I get what you're saying, I guess seeing these seminal works "in situ" will be an entirely new experience.
Cheers!
Bethany
iz not let free sppEECH!
ReplyDeletePaul, I think it was becoming too much of an 'in house' ramble, and consequently off-putting for anyone who wanted to chip in. Cheers
ReplyDeleteHi NJP, I am half intrigued by your blog. I am an American by birth, but live in Nice. But what exactly should we expect of this work? I just don't get it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your mail. To what does 'this work' refer? The painting? The blog? The article? I will answer but you need to be more specific. Cheers
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to be 'half intrigued'? What's the other half thinking/feeling? I'm intrigued.
ReplyDeleteAnon, I was multi-tasking: the other half was wondering if Miss Whiplash had replied on the other open IE tab.
ReplyDeleteNJP, I should have said "I don't understand what you are saying about this work".
Wyatt
Wyatt, I have to admit that I have hijacked the Lippi fresco image because of its correspondence to the tarot image. Peter and his entourage have dignity and an air of resignation in this painting. There is not the snearing indifference or evident thrill of the crowd sometimes depicted in pictures of Christ's crucifixion. Maybe the inevitability of this form of death is being interpreted as a watershed in the history of Christianity. Physicality, by way of the naked muscular torsos is foregrounded at this moment of departure from a corporeal life. Men are doing their job.
ReplyDeleteThe Hanged Man tarot card represents a point of temporary illumination on the cusp of a decision or life choice. It is this matter of choice and revelation, the existential gap if you like, which I have tried to suggest with regard to the matter of Peter's denial. Common to most religions is the idea of standing up for your belief - and, of course, the potential for martyrdom for those that seek it. The latter is actively encouraged in some faiths. But it seems to me to be a truism that life is full of such choices, whether it be standing up to male pack mentality or refusing to collude with racial or other prejudice. But it's also true that some times of exceptional duress arise in which it is extremely difficult not to collaborate. Much of the re-reckoning of the 2nd. World War or post-Soviet history has to allow for this phenomenon. The matter of forgiveness opens up yet another topic.