A Scene from Britten's Death in Venice It may seem strange to focus on Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice in talking about how he composed his seascapes; after all, he returned to the subject many times throughout his career – perhaps more than any other composer – and often treated it more directly than in [...]
Sacred Geography and Buddhist Enlightenment in Marcel Proust’s 'In Search of Lost Time' The idea that Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time represents, in one sense, a journey of disillusionment is no new thesis.1 It is the very surface level of the narrative, which nevertheless concludes not in despair, but in several moments of [...]
Following on from my article on Barfield’s use of the Eternal Feminine, I want to examine Hans-Jürgen Syberbeg’s adaption of Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal. This film is a masterful achievement on several fronts. Syberberg manages to draw out many elements implicit in the story, as well as reading into it some esoteric themes of his [...]
Owen Barfield was a member of the Oxford Inklings, alongside J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, a writer, poet, and devotee of Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy. He is seldom talked about except by academics, yet he had a great impact on the writing of his friends, and his own considerable creative efforts merit attention. His one unpublished [...]
Following on from my last article on the Octopods in P’o-lu, I thought I would attempt a brief look at Taliessin’s Song of the Unicorn, to see if we can make any interpretations of its symbolism in a traditional vein. While the answer may get very abstract and philosophical, the question I have to ask [...]
Four roads run from Logres, to cardinal points;joints in the bones of this burgeoning nation,named New Troy, when Brutus laid its foundation,slew a great ram and cut it in quartersfor the demarcation of rule along four borders.Yet when he awoke the next morning from sleep,gone was the carcass and there stood the sheepalive and unharmed [...]
Any readers of this blog unfamiliar with Charles Williams’ Taliessin poems will have to forgive this rather absurd-sounding question, and may pass over the answers given here. But, really, why are there octopods in P’o-lu? The reason, I believe, is linked to Williams’ use of the Zodiac. The octopus corresponds to the house of Cancer, [...]
What is the place of symbolism in Orthodoxy? How do we make good use of this “traditional science”, as thinkers like Guénon describe it? In this brief article, I mean to touch on some of the key distinctions between a Christian and a perennialist understanding of symbolism. Joseph P. Farrell, in his magnum opus God, [...]
My debut novel is now available in paperback and ebook via Amazon - order a copy today! In this Kafkaesque, escapist, adventure story, Joseph K, a young lawyer, arrives at the mysterious and perplexing Postlethwaite Estate – a world unto itself, governed by ancient traditions and a host of eccentric and comic characters.K must learn [...]
Nietzsche's Metaphysical Awakening What is the will to power? It is rather poorly understood in the popular imagination, if indeed it is understood at all, this idea so central to Nietzsche’s thought in the last phase of his life. The fact remains that, being at once so simple and so far-reaching that it could unify [...]
Steps to Taniquetil 