Mark the Music: Beauty and Literature

It might seem a little odd to begin a meditation on beauty and literature with a discussion of music. Yet such a discussion is necessary for an understanding of beauty in general and the way that it is made manifest in the literary, visual, and musical arts.

The Latin word musica has its roots in the Greek mousiké, which refers to the nine Muses, the goddesses of inspiration and creativity. To the Greeks, the inspiration and creativity provided by the Muses were necessary to innovation in both the arts and the sciences. They were also inseparable from harmony, order, and proportion, each of which is a manifestation of the triune splendor of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. This understanding of the interconnectedness of the creative inspiration of the artist and the harmony and order of the cosmos was integral to the Greek understanding of the arts. The artist received his creative inspiration from the gods and was meant to use the creative gifts he’d been given to reflect the Goodness, Truth, and Beauty of creation itself. In essence, the work of the human artist or poet should emulate and reflect the beauty of the order and harmony of the cosmos.

This ancient understanding of the relationship between beauty and art was taken up by the great Christian philosopher Boethius in the early sixth century. In his seminal work, De Musica, Boethius explicates the teaching of Pythagoras and Plato as encapsulated in the latter’s dictum that “the soul of the universe was composed according to a musical harmony.” The harmony of the cosmos is divine, dwelling in the mind of God and expressive of God’s intrinsic Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. This shines forth in Creation in the musica mundana, the music of the spheres (or the world), the physical expression of the spiritual harmony of the cosmos itself. In this sense, the music of the cosmos is united with arithmetic or mathematics, obeying the rules of order and proportion.

In addition to the musica mundana, Boethius also speaks of the musica humana, the inner harmony of the human person, body and soul, as well as the musica instrumentalis, the manifestation of music in a physical sense.

Boethius’ De Musica would become the standard music theory textbook throughout the Middle Ages, in much the same way as his Consolatio would become the standard philosophical text.

Boethius’ enduring influence is seen in the works of Shakespeare and is made manifest especially in the words of Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice. The extent to which Shakespeare is indebted to De Musica is seen in the manner in which Lorenzo’s words echo Boethius’ understanding of the musica mundana, the musica humana, and the musica instrumentalis, alluding to each in the order in which Boethius writes of them.

Lorenzo begins by waxing lyrical about the beauty of the universe itself, the music of the spheres, or the musica mundana:

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold.
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-ey’d cherubins…

The “sweet harmony” of the cosmos does not merely “creep” into the ears audibly, it is felt in the sweetness of the sleeping moonlight and the softness of the night; it “touches” us. It is seen in the stars in the sky, which are “inlaid” within heaven’s “floor” like glittering jewels. And it is beyond the physical senses, shining forth spiritually so that every star and planet in the sky, in its ordered motion and physical beauty, sings like an angelic choir.

Having exhorted Jessica to experience the beauty of the musica mundana, Lorenzo then speaks to her of the musica humana, the music of the human person, body and soul, the imago Dei:

Such harmony is in immortal souls,
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Insofar as man is made in God’s image, he reflects the beauty of his maker, the harmony of the divine, which is present in his undying soul. But his mortal body, the “muddy vesture” that he wears, is subject to decay, a reflection of his fallen state, which means that his soul is also subject to decay, the decadence of sin. This mortality, this presence of death and decay, deadens the immortal soul, grossly closing it in upon itself, so that we cannot “hear” the inner harmony that is God’s image within us.

Finally, Lorenzo speaks of the musica instrumentalis, the beauty of art, which is in some sense an incarnation of the musica mundana and the musica humana, the divine image in man singing in harmony with the divine presence in Creation:

Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn,
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear
And draw her home with music.

Lorenzo’s marvelous speech concludes on a cautionary note, serving to remind not merely Jessica but Shakespeare’s audience that those who pay no heed to divine harmony, who have no sense of beauty, and who are deaf to the music of Creation are not to be trusted:

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

Shakespeare’s words, spoken in the voice of Lorenzo, were a warning against the puritans of his own time who mistrusted music and the seductive power of beauty, but they were also prophetic of the coming of the so-called and superciliously self-named “Enlightenment.” In the century or so following Shakespeare’s death, the “age of reason” would reject metaphysics and the metaphysical understanding of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty that had animated the philosophy of Plato and Boethius. The materialism and scientism of the eighteenth century were marked by the ideas of those who had no music in themselves, who were “not moved with concord of sweet sounds.” The motions of their spirit were as “dull as night” and their affections as dark as hell itself. They refused to “mark the music” and should not be trusted.

Thankfully, the music cannot be silenced by false philosophies or false prophets. It plays in the cosmos in which we live, in the microcosmos of our souls, and in the beauty of the music we produce in literature and the other creative arts.

Let Lorenzo’s words be heeded. Let’s mark the music. Let’s praise the music. Let’s play the music.