Dream of Gerontius, Part 3, The Angels

Angels in “The Dream of Gerontius”

In the second part of this series of posts on Newman’s greatest poem, “The Dream of Gerontius” the angelic presence within the poem will be considered. As part one of the series explained, Gerontius, the old Christian man nearing his death, struggling and weak, asks the help of his friends to aid him in calling upon the angels and the saints as he transitions from life to death. The still alive Gerontius cannot see these angels because they are part of the invisible world, that world of which Newman all his life was so keenly aware. The poem in essence is a meditation on the unseen world. As Fr. Juan Vélez wrote, “In effect, this poem is a sort of compendium of his [Newman’s] insights into the teaching of the Catholic Faith on creation, grace, redemption and life after death. It is also the expression of his personal experience of illness and his perception of the death of many loved ones.” 

This poem too serves as a poetic bridge between the two worlds: the dying man remains in the visible world, but soon he will be entering into the invisible world. Even as Gerontius clings to life, the angels sing to him from the invisible realm, gloriously teaching that this world and the next are an unbroken continuum.  There is an underlying intent and purpose in all of Newman’s poetry. He stated this in 1839 during the days of the Oxford Movement: “Poetry then is our mysticism; and so far as any two characters of mind tend to penetrate below the surface of things, and to draw men away from the material to the invisible world, so far they may certainly be said to answer the same end; and that too a religious one.”  Newman’s profound awareness of the invisible world is formulated in what is known as the sacramental principle. This doctrine, that created things can be signs of God’s presence and instruments of things unseen, is explained in his sermon, “The Invisible World.” 

“The Dream” is also a compendium of Newman’s various verse techniques. He uses varying line length and meter in different sections of the poem, always appropriate to what is happening. The rhythms and meters of the prayers at the beginning are more regular whereas soon, after he has died, Newman’s Guardian Angel will escort him through the fallen angels and the good angels, each using different verse and meter. Newman’s Guardian Angel is represented by regular meter and line length as will be examined in the next post.

Newman considered the visible world a beautiful veil and spoke of it as a screen between him and the true world. He cautions in the sermon, “The Invisible World,” that we must be aware so that the beauty of the visible world does not prevent us from seeing the true, Invisible World. He uses a simile drawn from the visible world to describe the Invisible: “In the spring season . . . there is a sudden rush and burst outwardly of that hidden life which God has lodged in the material world . . . . This earth, which now buds forth in leaves and blossoms, will one day burst forth into a new world of light and glory, in which we shall see Saints and Angels dwelling.”  It is clear that Newman had this very thought in mind when composing “The Dream of Gerontius.”

In an earlier poem, ‘”The Two Worlds,” Newman also reminds us that the only true and lasting joy lies in the Invisible World. Therefore, in “The Dream of Gerontius,” St. John Henry’s passionate hope is that we comprehend the existence of the Invisible World, timeless and immaterial but very real and personal, which lies unseen about us now, and will be revealed after death. He wants us to empathize with the experience of a dying person, in order that we understand the need to prepare ourselves to encounter Our Lord and Judge. He wants us to desire the glory and eternal bliss of Heaven. Though we see now only through a glass darkly, we can be aware of the angelic presence all around us, especially during Holy Mass, realizing that at every Mass, the sanctuary is filled with these divine beings. Let us yearn for this Invisible World. C.S. Lewis expressed this well when he had Orual, the main character in his novel, Till We Have Faces, say: “The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing . . . to find the place where all the beauty came from.” St. John Henry Newman had this longing all his life. And he poured this deep spiritual yearning into the poem, “The Dream of Gerontius.”