Religious Wranglings

"the shadow of great, white wings" (Dover 75).

Points for Reflection

W. E. B. DuBois's "Jesus Christ in Texas" (1920), Dover 72-80

1. Du Bois's Darkwater; Voices from Within the Veil (1920), from which this story is taken, opens with part of his "Credo" (1904), part of which reads, "I believe in God who made of one blood all races that dwell on earth. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development." Does this tale effectively dramatize this perspective?
2. Can you identify any of the Biblical allusions in this tale?
3. Why does the colonel decide to hire the black convicts recommended by the promoter?
4. How do the colonel, judge's wife, young woman, young man, and rector each respond to the Christ-like stranger's presence? What do their reactions reveal about their respective characters?
5. Does the Christ figure transform the convict at only a surface level, or in more profound fashion?

Angelina Weld Grimké's "The Puppet-Player" (1923), PDF

1. Does this sound like the plaint of an oppressed people group, or the cry of all humanity?
2. Can a poem this succinct still pack a punch?

T. S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi" (1927), PDF

1. This poem narrates the journey of not only the magi traveling to see the Christ child, but Eliot's own journey towards faith--a journey which culminated in 1927 with his baptism and conversion to the Anglican church in 1927. Given this interpretive schema, what do lines 1-20 begin to represent?
2. Consider the possible significations of the following symbols: "a temperate valley" (l.21), "a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness" (l.23), "three trees on the low sky" (l.23), "an old white horse" (l.25), and "Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver" (l.27).
3. What does the word "satisfactory" denote in line 31?
4. Is the unease which characterizes the lives of the Magi upon their return to their homeland a positive or negative experience?
5. Has the Magus narrating this poem become suicidal in the poem's final line?
6. Eliot could have chosen any number of Biblical narratives to metaphorically describe his own spiritual journey. Why choose this one? Consider this question in light of Eliot's earlier poems.

Fenton Johnson's "The Old Repair Man" PDF

1. At what point in the human life cycle does this poem appear to begin?
2. Is the new good envisioned by Johnson something terrestrial or otherworldly, present or future?
3. Does this poem appear to concern a particular ethnic group, or humanity in general?
4. Does this poem balance the possibilities that humans are a work of craftsmanship (l.16) and an experiment (l.17), or privilege one as more likely?

Philip Larkin's "Church Going" (1955), PDF

1. Analyze the narrator's diction in the opening stanzas. What tone and attitude is shaped by the adjectives used to describe the church's interior?
2. The narrator concludes early (l.19) that it was not worth stopping by this church. Does he end the poem with the same conclusion?
3. What array of functions does the narrator imagine old, unused churches playing in the future (ll.21-31)?
4. Does the narrator conclude that religious belief has already died (l.34)? What does he mean by the query, "what remains when disbelief has gone?" (l.35)?
5. What did churches once contain which, according to the narrator, is "since [. . .] found / Only in separation" (ll.49-50)? What does he mean by this cryptic observation?
6. Why does the narrator keep returning to churches, given that he "always end[s] much at a loss like this" (l.20)? What does the final stanza suggest about this complex motivation?

Corpus Hypercubus (1954)
Salvador Dalí

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu