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(The Dream of Gerontius) tells the story of a soul’s journey through death, and provides a meditation on the unseen world of Roman Catholic theology. Gerontius (a name derived from the Greek word geron, “old man”) is a devout Everyman. Elgar’s setting uses most of the text of the first part of the poem, which takes place on Earth, but omits many of the more meditative sections of the much longer, otherworldly second part, tightening the narrative flow.
In the first part, we hear Gerontius as a dying man of faith, by turns fearful and hopeful, but always confident. A group of friends (also called “assistants” in the text) joins him in prayer and meditation. He passes in peace, and a priest, with the assistants, sends him on his way with a valediction. In the second part, Gerontius, now referred to as “The Soul”, awakes in a place apparently without space or time, and becomes aware of the presence of his guardian angel, who expresses joy at the culmination of her task (Newman conceived the Angel as male, but Elgar gives the part to a female singer). After a long dialogue, they journey towards the judgment throne.
They safely pass a group of demons, and encounter choirs of angels, eternally praising God for His grace and forgiveness. The Angel of the Agony pleads with Jesus to spare the souls of the faithful. Finally Gerontius glimpses God and is judged in a single moment. The Guardian Angel lowers Gerontius into the soothing lake of Purgatory, with a final benediction and promise of a re-awakening to glory.
That there’s the synopsis of the The Dream of Gerontius as determined by Wikipedia. It’s the last line of that which really gets to me: “the soothing lake of Purgatory.” Ok, so I wasn’t raised Catholic but I’m pretty sure that purgatory isn’t all that soothing. I mean just look at this artist’s rendition of these dead dudes chilling in that lake:
Yeah, those guys’ asses are on fire. Flames lickin’ everything the eye was not meant to see. So, it’s not really that health spa that Wikipedia makes it out to be.
I was raised Mormon and instead of having Purgatory on our plate we had Spirit Prison. That’s right, it was actually called Spirit Prison. Like most other doctrine in the Mormon religion there wasn’t a good explanation of exactly what that meant. I always envisioned I was going to be locked up in some heavenly Super Jail because I lied to my mom about making the neighbor kid eat grass or something. How exactly does one lock up a spirit? Can’t they walk through walls and all that jazz? Do you get conjugal visitation rights? Do spirits bone? Do they have difficulty maintaining satisfying erections after 60 years in the slammer? So many questions left unanswered.
If we’re going to have to deal with a “soothing lake” until we’re cleansed of our earthly asshole tendencies it better look something like this:
