John Crowe Ransom’s “Judith of Bethulia” was a fascinating poem. For me, it was more interesting than the others because of it’s subject matter, the heroin of the story, the Apocryphal character of Judith. Not being Catholic, I had no idea whatsoever, concerning this character. So I went online and the Catholic Encyclopedia and Sundayschoolcourses.com helped me out. For the benefit of those, like myself, who didn’t know much about this person, here’s a brief summary. When the Jews are besieged by King Nebuchadnezzar, the beautiful widow, Judith, makes herself up in order to be alluring to her enemies. She then leaves the protection of Bethulia and is promptly captured, according to plan. She is then taken to the commander, Holefernes, who becomes intoxicated with more than the woman’s beauty and lies down in his bed. Taking advantage of the man’s state, the heroin, hacks off his head, saving the day. The feminine strength of Judith makes her an incredibly interesting character. While it is obvious enough to me why this story was refused canonization by the Protestant church, (it contains geographic errors), it remains a great read. So armed with this information, I attacked the poem again, this time with a framework of understanding what I was reading. This time the line, “Her beauty was the sword” makes more sense. Man, do I love the information age! Ransom’s poems depict the power of a beautiful and wise woman. To do this he does not mind talking about her naked body, I suppose that is one obvious difference between this version of the story and the Apocryphal one. This story reminds me of the Biblical story of Esther who, like Judith, saved the Jewish people from destruction, while at the same time claiming the life of the antagonist. It also is reminiscent from a negative angle of Samson’s demise in the form of the exotic Delilah, who allures the powerful hero into telling her the secret of his strength, a secret that ends up costing the man’s life. I point out this last story because while Esther and Judith bring death by their beauty and are forever praised for it. Delilah uses her loveliness for evil. To research the author further, I threw his name into a Google search. According to Kieran Quinlan, who wrote about the poet on the University of Illinois’ English Department website, Ransom was the son of a Methodist minister and wrote pieces about religion including the author’s first book, Poems about God, and a defense of religion in God without Thunder: An Unorthodox Defense of Orthodoxy. My point is that as a Protestant, Ransom would most likely not have grown up with the story of Judith. And yet…she becomes the main character in his poem. The gory language in this poem makes me wonder if Ransom is not reminding his readers of this negative side of femininity. The macabre lines, “And now their white bones clutter the holes of foxes, and the chieftain’s head, with grinning sockets, and varnished” display this well. Also, the fourth line, “And a wandering beauty is a blade out of its scabbard,” makes me think that Ransom might be doing more than simply praising Judith. He is also making the deeper point about the dualism of femininity.
Posted by JohnHaddad at March 3, 2005 05:30 PM