Claudel and Dante: Salvation on the Seventh Day

Abstract

t Le Repos du septidme jow (The Resr on the Seqtenth Doy), written in 1896, first published in 1901 in a collective volume of Ii Arbre, illustrates the search for the cross, the passage from the centre of the world of the living, to the spiritual centre of God's realm. In the beginning, the Chinese Emperorr occupies centre et le milieu (727) of his Empire du Milieu (725)., and governs his world according to the universal rules of music. His role is to maintain the harmony between the visible and the invisible, to model the melody of the terrestrial world on the celestial one on Dante's music of the spheres, 6coutant d'une oreille et de I'autre afin qu'aucune note ne se fausse (787). However, the musical rules and the precepts of Antiquity are not enough to keep him connected to divinity, so he retires in solitude and contemplation in order to find the ultimate revelation. ln k Repos the dead create havoc when they invade the world of the living, and the empire collapses as soon as the Emperor leaves the sacred center. The intrusion of the dead is the result of an unknown sin. In order to restore harmony, the Emperor has to travel to the Underworld to find the cause and the remedy. His voyage, like Dante's, is also willed from above. The main three moments of the first act leading to the Emperor's crossing into the other world echo the three episodes of Christ's descent to Hell from the Gospel of Nicodemas and the analogous scenes from Dante's Infento 8 and 9. The Emperor wears his body like a cross, and fulfills a Christ-like function. He aims at bringing the knowledge of salvation to his people and the revelation of the ttcentrgtt.2