Ronsard–Poet and Militant Catholic

Extract

It is often asked why the Catholic Church, for some centuries past, has apparently ceased to be the Mother of Poets—why, in Francis Thompson’s phrase, whilst retaining the palm of Sanctity, she has foregone the laurel of Song? The fact is scarcely in dispute : one could easily count upon the fingers of a hand the outstanding Catholic poets of the last three hundred years. All the greatest names are either pagan or heretic. Is there an explanation of this lamenable condition? For it was not always so. Time was when the courts of the Temple outsang the groves of Parnassus, and all the sons of God made joyful melody like birds in the woods of a spring morning.

‘Poetry,’ says Thompson, ‘sinned, Poetry fell: and instead of reclaiming her, Catholicism cast her forth from the door, to follow the feet of her pagan seducer.’ This is true : Poetry became the instrument of evil—the very lovely and effective instrument of a worldly and sensuous philosophy. She lost her good name, and her very beauty only made her the more an object of suspicion.

But how came it that poetry fell from grace? The Protestant Reformation has been rightly blamed for many evils: it must take the blame for this too. Previously, Christendom had been one—not only in faith, but in life also, and in genius. The same warm, vital stream flowed freely through every part of her. But, in an evil hour, the poison of heresy got into that life-stream, causing atrophy here, paralysis there, and everywhere inducing fever and delirium.