richard crashaw's music's duel?

Question

So, I'm having a conversation with my girlfriend about this poem. She dosn't seem to know what it's about. I told her, I feel that it's about sex. Can any of you tell me what you think it may or may not be about? If you check the internet could you also list a source or something, Thanks.

Answer 1

Sorry, you would have to go well beyond allegorical to find sexual consummation in Crashaw's "Music's Duel." Rather it's a tour de force that attempts to capture the sounds and intensity of music in verse, focusing (at length) on a duel between a man playing a lute and a nighingale attempting to outdo him but dying instead of over exertion.

True enough, "At one time listening to the nightingale became 'a euphemism for sexual frolicking' . . . ." [1] But there is also a long-standing tradition of duets and duels featuring human musicians and the nightingale, as nature's sweetest singer. "In 1924 there was a live outside broadcast of 'a duet between a nightingale and Beatrice Harrison, Britain's leading cellist at the time, which the BBC transmitted from her woodland garden.'" [1]

Of course, the mystical, religious Crashaw--good metaphysical that he was--could use sexual imagery in tandem with his religious ecstasy. But I don't think that's exactly what he's doing in "Music's Duel." Instead, I think what you have in this poem is Crashaw dallying with sexual overtones to elicit the sensuousness of music, both the musician's coupling with his lute and the nighingale's pouring forth of herself in song. For example, in this passage, I think sexual ecstasy is used to heighten the sense of the nightingale's music rather than vice versa:

Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about,
And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast ;
Till the fledged notes at length forsake their nest,
Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky,
Wing'd with their own wild echos, pratt'ling fly.
She opes the floodgate, and lets loose a tide
Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride
On the waved back of every swelling strain,
Rising and falling in a pompous train ;
. . . . .
Her little soul is ravish'd : and so pour'd
Into loose ecstasies, that she is placed
Above herself—music's enthusiast !

Notice too the onomatopeia in this description of the lutist's efforts, admittedly sensual, to achieve musical intensity:

The humourous strings expound his learnèd touch
By various glosses ; now they seem to grutch,
And murmur in a buzzing din, then gingle
In shrill-tongued accents, striving to be single

Crashaw even resorts to religious imagery to describe the pure intensity of music. In the passage he goes all the way from rape to heaven in order to address the soulfulness of the musician's touch:

Because those precious mysteries that dwell
In music's ravish'd soul he dare not tell,
But whisper to the world : thus do they vary
Each string his note, as if they meant to carry
Their master's blest soul, snatch'd out at his ears
By a strong ecstacy, through all the spheres
Of music's heaven ; and seat it there on high
In th' empyræum of pure harmony.


On the other hand, if you want Crashaw's attempt to capture the essence of sex with all its religious fervor, try this Song. Remember, in 17th century poetry, to reach sexual climax is to "dy." No poet expresses this better than Crashaw. Notice that he addresses this song simultaneously to his "Lord" and his beloved, "O love."


A Song

Lord, when the sense of thy sweet grace
Sends up my soul to seek thy face.
Thy blessed eyes breed such desire,
I dy in love’s delicious Fire.
O love, I am thy Sacrifice.
Be still triumphant, blessed eyes.
Still shine on me, fair suns! that I
Still may behold, though still I dy.

Though still I dy, I live again;
Still longing so to be still slain,
So gainfull is such losse of breath.
I dy even in desire of death.
Still live in me this loving strife
Of living Death and dying Life.
For while thou sweetly slayest me
Dead to my selfe, I live in Thee.

Answer 2

I haven't forgotten that you got me on a Ring Cycle kick. Nevertheless, I still see a few minus points: ■ Wagner could not express a wide enough range of moods. Maybe Der Meistersinger was supposed to be a comedy, but nobody ever laughs at the jokes. In Act II, the nightwatchman walks down the street and finds everything peaceful. A big fracas then takes place. After the fracas is over, the nightwatchman passes back the other way and again finds everything peaceful. That's supposed to be funny, but nobody laughs. In Act III, Beckmesser gives a poor rendition of his own song after he had been so critical of Walther's singing. That's supposed to be funny, but nobody laughs. When I was rummaging through the music library, I found a waltz and a polka composed by Wagner. They are a scream. Wagner apparently tried to play Johann Strauss but couldn't. ■ The pace is sometimes too slow. When the village people ask Lohengrin who he is and where he came from, it takes him several minutes to promise to answer the question. He could have answered the question in that time. Why does it take Siegfried 15 minutes to discover that the entity which he finds sleeping in the ring of fire is a woman? And once he wakes her up, why does their duet have to last 30 minutes? Confidential to Alberich: You got me beat. I've been a Puccini fanatic only since the age of 15. Confidential to Birdgirl: I haven't heard that quote before, but I've heard that Nadie Boulanger said that Richard Strauss's music had too many notes.

Answer 3

English poet. His first published poetry was in Latin, Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber [A Book of Sacred Epigrams] (1634). His next collection, published in 1646, was made up of poems in Latin and English, and was divided into a section of religious verse, Steps to the Temple, and one of secular poetry, Delights of the Muses. This book contained his most famous poems, including 'Music's Duel', 'Wishes. To his (supposed) Mistresse', and the poems addressed to St Theresa, 'The Flaming Heart' and the hymn 'Love, thou art absolute sole Lord / Of Life and Death'. An enlarged version of this collection was published three years after Crashaw's death, under the title Carmen Deo Nostro, and incorporated twelve of his own drawings.