The Call of Beauty: Heaven for Some, Hell for Others
by Eugene Terekhin. The anguish of the soul that refuses the Call feels everlasting.
We have a special treat for readers today. The following article was written by Eugene Terekhin, the man and the mind behind the publication Philosophy of Language.
Philologist, philosopher, translator, and author Eugene Terekhin explores in Philosophy of Language the secret literary theory behind the fantasy worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield who believed that when words are spoken aright, they invoke the invisible reality from behind the veil of the world. He is a voice of much needed wisdom in our day and age, when so much of true art is being eviscerated and trivialized.
He is the author of the following books and I have read three of his books and highly recommend them:
and The New Exodus: Escaping One Man’s War
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This article originally appeared on Philosophy of Language here. I’m sharing it with The BoldBrush Letter because in it, Eugene has explored an important topic, perhaps the most important topic for creative people.
Editor’s Note: In two days, this post will be locked and is available only to paid members because we don’t want this duplicate content on the open web in a way that might draw traffic away from Eugene’s original post. If you are not a BoldBrush paid subscriber, you can still read the entire post here.
The Call of Beauty: Heaven for Some, Hell for Others
In Canto 3 of Inferno, Dante is astonished by the sheer number of souls rushing into Charon’s boat, which will carry them straight to Hell. He wonders—why would they desire such a fate?
As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off, first one and then another, till the branch surrenders all its spoils to the earth; in similar fashion did these evil seeds of Adam throw themselves from the group, one by one, into the boat at Charon’s signal, as a bird is called to its lure.
Moreover, they hurry to cross the River Acheron, eager to reach Hell as soon as possible. Dante calls these people “those who never lived.” For them, Hell is an escape from God’s call to live the life they were meant to live.
The inner call is a beautiful and dangerous thing. In Greek, the words for “beauty” (καλός – kalós) and “call” (καλέω – kaléō) share the same root. Sooner or later, we all hear that call. It’s a call of beauty. If we heed it, it will lift us on the wings of Desire to the highest Heaven.
But if we hear it and choose earthly security and predictability over the perilous path of Desire, the call will become unbearable. It turns into a torment. To know that I could have lived my own life but instead am living someone else’s is the ultimate anguish—the soul is constantly torn by an inner conflict.
It is easier not to desire — to betray the call of beauty in exchange for a predictable and secure earthly paradise. Deep down, we know this “paradise” will be hell for the soul, yet we settle for it because we fear to follow the path of Desire. Hell is our own choice. It’s an escape from the Desire awakened by the call of beauty.
The gnashing of teeth is what happens in the midst of our “earthly paradise” when we are suddenly overtaken by the Call. The more we betray our Desire, the more unbearable this call becomes. We want to hide from it. We rush into Charon’s boat, longing to escape into a dungeon where no sunlight can reach.
For Dante, Hell is a place where all Desire ceases. The souls in Hell don’t desire anything. That’s why he calls them “those who never lived.” And yet, Hell remains a popular destination. It is attractive for those who would rather “settle in life” than travel the perilous road of Desire.
After finally reaching our goal and settling in our secure earthly “paradise,” we are overtaken by the realization that we don’t truly want it. We are in hell even within the paradise of our own making. We want something else. This realization is the very fire of hell. It feels eternal as long as we refuse to heed the ultimate call. Observing the crowd, Dante saw someone he knew,
After I had distinguished some among them, I saw and knew the shade of him who made, through cowardice, the great refusal.
The greater our refusal the more our soul suffers. The anguish of the soul that refuses the Call feels everlasting. When we trade Desire for a predictable earthly paradise we rush headlong into the boat of Charon for the only escape from the bitter emptiness is to go deeper into Hell.
The Call is Heaven for some and Hell for others. If we hear the call of beauty but say, “This is foolishness—if I pursue this Desire, I will certainly lose this and that,” we make the great refusal and throw ourselves into the boat at Charon’s signal, as a bird is called to its lure.
Yet, when we heed the Call and follow Beauty, we grow wings and ascend to the highest Heights. We lose our earthly security but begin truly living.
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By Eugene Terekhin
A place for the outlaws of poetry and the written word. One of the aims of Poetic Outlaws is to revive the Promethean fire of the dead poets and artists in an attempt, however futile, to elevate the modern soul out of the sludge of the status quo.
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