The Emblematic Imagination of Anthony Hecht: Spiritual and Worldly Icons and Rituals

Abstract

In his essay on The Pathetic Fallacy, Anthony Hecht notes that there was “an anagogic, emblematic view of nature in the Middle Ages until the 17th century, typically religious, wishing to see God in every aspect of creation, found in biblical texts and theological arguments, as well as in poems by Donne and Herbert”. This same perspective is found in a number of Hecht’s poems, among which several collections of emblem poems stand out. The supposed presence of an ideal value within concrete objects is the same principle which informs the creation of in-between figures in religious cults, such as saints and, most importantly, Christ, the word made flesh. Religious icons in fact become the key subjects of Hecht’s most emblematic poems, as they provide a synthesis between the opposed forces of soul and body, the realms of the spiritual and the worldly. In a similar way, the emblematic mode triggers a meta-reflection on artistic media, which, in the special case of abstract religious entities, allow for the representation of the immaterial in ways perceivable to the limited human senses, with particular emphasis on the possibility of visualization. While the Metaphysical Poets employ everyday metaphors to explain divine nature, or even represent saintly figures in very human terms, in order to stress the proximity of man to God, Hecht recalls the same concrete images, or describes concrete works of art – ex-votos, statues, paintings and books of prayers – to emphasize, through a reversed mechanism, the unbridgeable gap between these two worlds. The use of such worldly icons in fact is seen, satirically, as proof of man’s inevitably earth-bound state: they betray a preponderant preoccupation with the body, with its primary demands and issues – illnesses, violence, poverty – whose idealization is simply unconvincing. This duality is highlighted through the combination of a rich, pictorial and baroque style, representing the vivid details of reality, and of a more concise and direct plain style, inspired by the Bible.