Opening the purple wardrobe: a psychoanalytic approach to the poetry of Richard Crashaw (1613-1649)

Bill Phillips

doi:10.14198/raei.1999.12.11

Abstract

Richard Crashaw is often considered the odd man out in Metaphysical poetry. He is condemned for being the "most European", or "Baroque", and although he is not unusual in writing religious poetry, he is unique in his devotion to the Virgin Mary, and for his obsession with bodily fluids. This essay explores Crashaw's reasons for adoring the mother-figure and anathematizing the father, by means of a brief psychoanalytic appraisal of his life and work, and shows why so many critics nave felt uncomfortable with lines like: "To see one blended in one flood,/The mother's milk, the children's blood."

Highlights

Richard Crashaw is often considered the odd man out in Metaphysical poetry
For Crashaw, as a Román Catholic, the Virgin Mary is a central figure of devotion, and is frequently the subject of bis praise
The sensual nature of Crashaw's relationship with the Virgin is apparent in the fourth stanza when the tear becomes a pearl: Such a pearl as this is, (Slipp'd from Aurora's dewy breast) The rose-bud's sweet lip kisses; And such the rose itself, when vex'd With ungentle llames, does shed, Sweating in too warm a bed (Crashaw, 29)

Summary

Introduction

Richard Crashaw is often considered the odd man out in Metaphysical poetry. He is condemned for being the "most European", or "Baroque", and he is not unusual in writing religious poetry, he is unique in his devotion to the Virgin Mary, and for his obsession with bodily fluids. According to Paul Parrish in The Muses Common-Weale, Crashaw' s poetry "is seen as too obsessed with a limited range of experiences and images, especially of liquefaction water, milk, blood - and as unusual, strange or grotesque" (152) and in The Pelican Guide to English Literature, vol 3, we are told that the "reader may be faintly repelled" (Enright, 202) by the poem "Upon the Infant Martyrs": To see both blended in one flood, The Mothers' Milk, the Children's blood, Makes me doubt if Heaven will gather, Roses henee, or Lilíes rather (Crashaw, 51).

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Conclusion