Even without a picture in front of you, John Updike’s vivid descriptions of Saint-Chapelle display the beautiful image of a Catholic chapel – the stained glass windows with brilliant colors and the images upon the windows that make the chapel so unique. The descriptions used to depict the concert pull together the chapel’s beauty mixed with the music. The music seems to match the fantastic colors and style of the windows and the beauty of the church as a whole: “That held the holy glowing fantasy together.”
When we were presented the picture in class, it was actually climactic of a sight than what Updike’s words had put into my head. To me, the picture didn’t do the poem’s illustration justice. Maybe I was just in a bad spot to see, but the way Updike put together his words in a specific way and used alliteration made the image of the chapel so real and fantastic – “Then violins vaunting Vivaldi’s strident strength, then Brahms, seemed to suck with their passionate sweetness, bit by bit, the vigor from the red, the blazing blue…”. Saint-Chapelle sounds so beautiful.
I think his words are enough--unless you've never been to church or have never seen a truly magnificent stained glass. Nice post.
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