In the Oratory

Arthur Symons's In the Oratory

Arthur Symons’ In the Oratory is a poem that marries the sensory richness of religious ritual with the enigmatic presence of a solitary woman, crafting a moment of profound ambiguity and emotional intensity. Written in the late 19th or early 20th century, the poem reflects Symons’ association with the Decadent and Symbolist movements, which prized aestheticism, mysticism, and the exploration of the ineffable. Through its vivid imagery, musicality, and psychological depth, In the Oratory invites readers into a space where the sacred and the mysterious converge, leaving them to grapple with questions of devotion, desire, and existential meaning.

Historical and Literary Context

To fully appreciate In the Oratory, one must situate it within the broader currents of fin-de-siècle literature. Symons, a key figure in the British Aesthetic and Symbolist movements, was deeply influenced by French poets like Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine, who sought to evoke moods and sensations rather than convey straightforward narratives. The poem’s emphasis on sensory experience—incense, music, the visual impact of the woman’s face—aligns with Symbolism’s preoccupation with synesthesia and the transcendent power of art.

Moreover, the poem’s setting—a Catholic oratory—reflects the late Victorian fascination with ritual and the occult, as seen in the works of Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats. The Mass, particularly Beethoven’s Mass in C, serves not merely as background but as an active force, shaping the emotional and spiritual atmosphere. The choice of Beethoven is significant; his music was often seen as embodying the sublime, capable of overwhelming the listener with its emotional and structural grandeur. Here, the music does not merely accompany the scene—it transforms it, breaking the silence with "shafts of sound" that suggest divine revelation.

Themes: The Sacred and the Enigmatic

At its core, In the Oratory explores the tension between the communal experience of worship and the private, inscrutable nature of individual devotion. The first stanza establishes a collective anticipation: the priests bow before the altar, awaiting "the divine event." This moment is charged with expectation, yet the "divine event" remains undefined—is it the Eucharist, the presence of God, or something more ineffable?

The arrival of Beethoven’s Mass disrupts the silence with an almost violent magnificence ("Thundered"), suggesting that the divine manifests not in quiet contemplation alone but in overwhelming sensory experience. This paradox—the divine as both silent and thunderous—mirrors the central tension of the poem: the woman’s presence is both serene and profoundly unsettling.

Her depiction is where Symons’ Symbolist tendencies shine most brightly. She is described in terms of stillness and mystery: her "large lids serene" veil her eyes as though concealing a vision of Paradise. Her face is "calm as carven stone," an image that suggests both permanence and detachment. Yet this tranquility is deceptive, for her eyes are "inexplicable," drawing the speaker into an almost mythic confrontation. The reference to the Sphinx—a creature of riddles and fatal consequences—elevates her from a mere observer to an active, dangerous enigma. The speaker’s question—"why from me / Demand, new Sphinx, the fatal clue / That seals my doom or conquers thee?"—transforms the poem into a metaphysical struggle. Is she a divine messenger, a temptress, or a mirror of the speaker’s own spiritual longing? The ambiguity is deliberate, reinforcing Symbolism’s rejection of fixed meanings in favor of suggestive multiplicity.

Literary Devices and Imagery

Symons employs a wealth of sensory and figurative language to create an atmosphere of heightened reverence and mystery. The opening lines compare the incense to "a golden cloud of languid scent," an image that is both visual and olfactory, enveloping the reader in the oratory’s hazy sanctity. The synesthetic blending of sight, smell, and sound ("shafts of sound") reflects the Symbolist desire to transcend ordinary perception.

The poem’s structure reinforces its thematic contrasts. The first two stanzas emphasize movement—incense rising, priests bowing, music thundering—while the latter two focus on stillness: the woman’s "carven stone" face, her "sombre eyes." This shift mirrors the tension between external ritual and internal contemplation.

One of the most striking metaphors is the woman’s face as "the face that twilight shows the day." This paradoxical image suggests a liminal space between light and dark, knowledge and mystery. Just as twilight obscures the clarity of day, her expression conceals as much as it reveals. The speaker is both drawn to and alienated by this ambiguity, caught between adoration and existential dread.

Philosophical and Psychological Dimensions

The poem’s closing lines introduce a philosophical urgency. The woman, as a "new Sphinx," demands a "fatal clue"—an answer that will either destroy the speaker or grant him mastery over her. This evokes classical myths (Oedipus and the Sphinx) as well as Romantic and Decadent themes of fatal beauty and intellectual peril. The speaker’s dilemma is not merely romantic but epistemological: he is confronted with a riddle that may have no answer, or whose answer may be his undoing.

This moment resonates with the existential anxieties of the late 19th century, a period marked by religious doubt and the search for new spiritual paradigms. The woman’s inscrutability mirrors the unknowability of the divine in a post-Darwinian world. Is she a conduit to transcendence, or does she embody the silence of an indifferent universe? Symons leaves the question open, allowing the poem to hover between reverence and despair.

Comparative Readings

In the Oratory invites comparison with other Symbolist and Decadent works. The woman’s enigmatic presence recalls Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Blessed Damozel, where a celestial figure gazes longingly from heaven, or Baudelaire’s La Géante, in which an idealized, monumental woman becomes an object of awe and terror. Similarly, the interplay of music and silence echoes Walter Pater’s famous dictum that "all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music"—a belief central to Symons’ aesthetic philosophy.

Conclusion: The Power of the Unknowable

What makes In the Oratory enduringly compelling is its refusal to resolve its central mystery. The poem luxuriates in ambiguity, allowing the sacred and the enigmatic to coexist without reconciliation. In doing so, Symons captures a fundamental human experience: the simultaneous desire for transcendence and the fear of what such transcendence might demand.

The poem’s emotional impact lies in its ability to evoke both rapture and unease. The oratory, with its incense and music, should be a place of solace, yet the woman’s presence introduces a note of existential tension. Is she a saint, a siren, or a figment of the speaker’s longing? The answer, like the "fatal clue," remains tantalizingly out of reach.

Ultimately, In the Oratory exemplifies poetry’s unique capacity to dwell in uncertainty, to find beauty in the unanswerable. Symons does not provide closure but instead invites us to linger in the space between devotion and doubt, between the thunder of the Mass and the silence of the Sphinx’s gaze. In this liminal space, the poem achieves its greatest power—not as a statement, but as an experience, a moment of awe that lingers long after the final line.