November 5, 2006

• Grail:
  The Hermeneutics
  of Chance

  On "The Hollow Men" --

  "... as Genevieve W. Foster has shown in her Jungian analysis, the eyes, the rose,
  and the star are equivalent to the 'Grail' of The Waste Land."

  --  Grover Smith, T.S. Eliot’s Poetry and Plays: A Study in Sources and Meaning.
  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956

  The Grail also appears in legend as a stone--

  From a Nov. 6, 2006, entry in the New Zealand weblog Arcadian Functor:

  "Many modern Grail stories have a root in the early romances of von Eschenbach....

  They live from a Stone whose essence
  is most pure. If you have never heard of it I shall name it for you
  here. It is called Lapsit exillis.

  A search on "lapsit exillis" leads to "Cubic Stones from the Sky"...
  

  These stones are often seen as the Holy Grail....

  

  For 804, see
     8/04 --
  The Presbyterian Exorcist
  (in part a tribute to
  Wallace Stevens).

  For 008 and a
  "cubic stone,"
  see
  Christmas 2005.

  A poetic connection between the star
   
  of "The Hollow Men" and Christmas
  is furnished by the remarks of
  Wallace Stevens linked to in
  the previous entry from
   
  the word "information."

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