statue of Girolamo Savonarola in Italy (Errem)‘Piazza della Signoria, Florence: February 7, 1497’: A Villanelle by Tom Wehtje The Society February 7, 2025 Culture, Poetry, Villanelle 20 Comments . Piazza della Signoria, Florence: February 7, 1497 Savonarola gets up off his knees (much contact with the ground has formed a welt) and lights the bonfire of the vanities. His purpose is to purge the city’s sleaze. The virgin in that painting is too svelte. Savonarola rises from his knees. He’s sent his urchins through the streets to seize books, art, and music—or gold bling to melt. These feed the bonfire of the vanities. He turns a deaf ear to the artists’ pleas (whose sodomitic stews his nose has smelt). Savonarola brushes off his knees. He knows their kind: gourmands of wine and cheese! He tightens one notch more his hempen belt, then fans the bonfire of the vanities. That Venus in the garden was a tease. He feels desires one should not have felt. Savonarola rises from his knees and stokes the bonfire of the vanities. . . Tom Wehtje studied English literature at Stony Brook University (Ph.D.) and has taught literature and writing there and at colleges in Massachusetts, Washington state, and Michigan, where he now lives with his wife Karin Thompson, a music historian. He has published a scatter of poems and essays, mostly in the creative writing journals of those schools. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. 20 Responses Paul A. Freeman February 7, 2025 Hypocrites saving us from their own vices – topical and well-written. Thanks for the read, Tom. Reply Tom Wehtje February 7, 2025 Thank you, Paul. Reply Tom Wehtje February 7, 2025 Sonnet cycles are such an important part of literary history, but how about cycles or even just collections of villanelles? This Savonarola poem is one of a series of 5 Renaissance Villanelles I’ve drafted, and I’ve been composing a series of such “Moments in History” villanelles this past year (I’ve got about 60 now). Is anyone else working on cycles of villanelles? I’d love to dialogue with you about that process! (I myself write iambic pentameter versions in the tradition of W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, Theodore Roethke, Sylvia Plath, etc.) Does anyone know of any villanelles cycles you like, and/or the poets who write them? So often villanelles are written as sort of one-off freaks of nature, but they can be written about anything. Thanks! Reply Roy Eugene Peterson February 7, 2025 Although a Dominican ascetic, Savanarola deplored secular art and culture, advocated their destruction in favor of disciplined craft, beauty, civic glory, and Christian renewal while prophesying a greater future in store with a renaissance of values and careful skills applied to all activities of life and living. We are hopefully on the verge of such a renaissance. Such boldness, though, often ends fatally, as Savanarola was burned in the center of Florence. Your poem beautifully brought to mind these images. Your strategic use of “bonfires of the vanities” took on a double entendre meaning, which made me laugh when used after “He knows their kind: gourmands of wine and cheese! He tightens one notch more his hempen belt, then ‘fans’ the bonfires of the vanities. Then “stroking the bonfires of the vanities” after seeing the statue of Venus could have some interesting interpretations. Reply Tom Wehtje February 7, 2025 Thank you for your close reading, Roy. Yes, Savonarola is a very interesting character and his story brings up some complex issues. A couple years ago I read George Eliot’s novel ROMOLA in which the title character comes under Savonarola’s spell–and you can feel how that freethinking novelist herself was in part drawn to him, in part put off. The revolution he led in Florence was not just a religious crackdown against secularism, it seems, but also a sort of protest against the ruling super wealthy class. Romola ends up having doubts as to Savonarola’s religious vision, but nevertheless continues to work tirelessly, herself, as trained by Savonarola, to aid the poor and plague-stricken. (Perhaps not a bad solution? Social consciousness without the fanaticism?) The word I use in the final line is actually “stokes” the bonfire, not “strokes,” but you are right that Savonarola is represented as struggling to suppress his own sexual desires (“Savonarola rises” IS in there twice, and two lines are italicized to represent his own thoughts). “Gourmands of wine and cheese” also made me laugh when I came up with it, since it seems to represent today’s class resentments also. Then, just after the mention of food (wine and cheese), the ascetic “tightens one notch more his hempen belt” etc. Writing in a fixed form like this, somewhat like solving a puzzle, can lead to such surprising discoveries/solutions. I certainly hope we can all work together towards a more just and informed and principled society without too many bonfires (OR burnings at the stake). Reply Roy Eugene Peterson February 7, 2025 This may come under the heading of sharing too much, but I was diagnosed this week by an optometrist who told me my replacement eye lenses had deposits on them after several years, so I have an appointment with an ophthalmologist in April to solve the problem, hence, perhaps, my mistaking “stokes” for “strokes.” In any event, I had to laugh either way. Joseph S. Salemi February 7, 2025 I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but Girolamo Savonarola was the worst kind of religious fanatic — one who believes that that his own personal “visions” and moral imperatives have to be shared by the entire populace. His “bonfire of the vanities” put the torch to countless works of painting and literature, as well as magnificent artifacts and objets d’art, simply because they were secular and sometimes dealt with pagan mythology, or involved nudity. We don’t know how many major paintings of Sandro Botticelli, Lorenzo DiCredi, and other masters went up in flames because of this man’s pious insanity, not to mention first incunabular editions of Boccaccio, Petrarch, Ovid, Martial, and other “profane” writers. He also turned Florence into an ascetic theocracy, ruled by his sermons and by his thuggish disciples called the Piagnoni (the “weepers”), who patrolled the streets to attack anyone who was dressed “immodestly,” or who did not evince sufficient piety or humility. A city of Renaissance high culture and humanistic learning was turned into a drab Dominican friary. No wonder so many early Protestants like Luther thought of him as a hero. Savonarola provided the prototype for Anabaptist Munster and other cities tyrannized by prophetic crackpots. Nevertheless, this is an excellent villanelle. I hope Wehtje’s cycle of them will be all just as good. It is unusual to think of the villanelle as a vehicle for historical narrative. Reply Tom Wehtje February 7, 2025 Agreed. Thank you for explaining the mainstream historical understanding of Savonarola and his movement. This is consistent with how he is represented in the poem. Of course I use his own point of view, but just because HE is expressing something (disgust with artists, etc.) doesn’t mean that I or “the poem” itself “agrees” with him, as it were. Note the reference in the poem to the burning of books, art, music. Another commenter mentioned this sort of cleansing as good or necessary in our own day–I think it’s appalling. Indeed, one reading of the poem’s timeliness is that this sort of reactionary tearing-down of important cultural institutions and values is going on right now: “Savonarola” (or, in this case, actually a fake populist and billionaire-friendly autocrat) with his minions has got his hands on the government and they are throwing things onto the bonfire. Science? It can go. Education? Likewise. Expertise? Ethics? Honesty? We ditched those already during his previous term. Let’s keep greed and selfishness, though, because those are good and will save the world . . . (which surely even Savonarola never would have said–the more principled, he!) Reply Joseph S. Salemi February 7, 2025 Perhaps we had better not argue, since our political views are absolutely different. But, I can’t fully resist. Let me just say this — our new President is SAVING civilization from the brand-new religious manias of political correctness, gender feminism, DEI, trannie-worship, open borders, and the coddling of criminals and terrorists. If you want to see modern versions of Savonarola, look at the fanatical left-liberal types who run the Democrat Party, and who are now in a state of meltdown. And if you think the Department of Education is anything but a milch-cow for left-liberal control of American schools, it’s hopeless arguing with you. C.B. Anderson February 9, 2025 Bingo! Joseph. These are the kind of attitudes we usually get from essentially low-information voters. As I found out when we were homeschooling our children, The Federal Department of Education has never educated a single American child. The heads of Libtards are so far up that dark place that their eyes are in the back of their throats. Julian D. Woodruff February 7, 2025 Good villanelle on the disaster that can ensue from the lack of personal restraint, but I’m with Mr. Salemi on today’s goings-on. Further, I think the Catholic Church suffers from periodic fits of generalized iconoclasm, where little that’s inspiring or elegant can issue from homilies, where beauty in church architecture, art, and music is shunned or trashed (e.g.: there are 2 St. John the Evangelist churches in Rochester, NY; one has large, very fine windows portraying various saints, but with a sanctuary that was gutted sometime within the last 60 years for a non-descript, modern apartment-style makeover; the other is a prize-winning horror whose exterior looks like a hood & chimney above an invisible huge, free-standing rustic fireplace). If Christianity can pass through this phase (& there’s reason to hope it has started doing so), then it could lead the way to the emergence of sanity-restoring love and respect for order & beauty in the arts (not conformity!) & similar regard for true science, the moral realm etc. Trump may play only a minor role, if any, in all of this, but oh my! is he so much to be preferred to the pretend Catholic who has just departed–not to mention his cronies. Reply John Caruso February 7, 2025 Not very much about the poem, but a political speech that actually ignores the context of this poem…This is to Mr. Salemi as well. Who is doing the banning of books? Who is stoking the bonfire of the vanities? Trump. He is an amoral man. He can hardly be part of a moral realm, especially as it regards true science, as we witnessed during COVID. You mentioned non-conformity. But dear leader does not allow any non-conformity or threatens to withhold disaster aid money. I dare say he will have nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of restoration of order and beauty. His transactional nature is morally ugly. Coddling criminals and terrorists, says Mr. Salemi: who just pardoned some of the worst violent offenders in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 election and the Capitol itself (many of whom were avowed anti-semites and white supremacists. I see. Saving the country is turning the clock back to Jim Crow or better yet pre-reconstruction. Mr. Salemi has some strong contempt for Savonarola, but fails to see the rightwing cult of Trump resembles the book and art burners of the Renaissance; the Christian nationalists who would obliterate the separation of church and state move in the spirit of Savonarola. To not see that is the blindness of the fundamentalist spirit. Reply Joseph S. Salemi February 7, 2025 I guess you’re a member of the new religion of political correctness, Mr. Caruso. Everything you have just said above is pure left-liberal bullshit, in accord with the catechism of the New York Times. We on the right are not “book burners,” Mr. Caruso. We just don’t want drag-queen hour in our grade schools, or forced sex-change operations on little kids, or third-rate men posing as fake women in women’s sports, or South American terrorist gangs crossing our borders. But if you’re a member of the left-liberal religion, I suppose that you actually want those things. Correct me if I’m wrong, or at least use your rhetorical skills to weasel out of it. C.B. Anderson February 9, 2025 What do you know about science, Caruso? If Fauci ever said a single thing based on science, please tell me what it was. The so-called vaccine did not prevent anyone from contracting or spreading the disease, and wearing masks did nothing to protect anyone from anything other than seeing Biden’s lying face. Tom Wehtje February 7, 2025 Oh, well, it seems like the political rhetoric is getting a little heated here. But perhaps this is a good place to stop or pause, since we seem to have come full circle, with Mr. Salemi’s words taking us back adroitly to the spirit of Savonarola in Florence of 1497, whose “purpose was to purge the city’s sleaze” (as I paraphrase it in my villanelle). Reply Julian D. Woodruff February 7, 2025 Perhaps you’re right, Mr. Wehtje, about a stopping point. But let me ask, if only rhetorically, what exactly is wrong with the desires expressed by Prof. Salemi in the 2nd paragraph of his post immediately above your last? Can it honestly be said that such concerns are of straw? Reply Joseph S. Salemi February 7, 2025 Oh yeah, sure… like the liberal left’s purpose was to purge conservative opinion from social media; to imprison pro-life and traditionalist Catholics; to wage lawfare against political opponents; to weaponize the FBI, the CIA, and the DOJ; to say and do nothing about antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses; to tolerate Antifa thuggery; and to hide illegal aliens in “sanctuary cities.” But that’s all part of your religion, I suppose. Reply Tom Wehtje February 8, 2025 My guess is that if we sat down, Joseph, you and I, that we could probably find many values which we actually share in common. For starters, you share my disapproval of Savonarola’s destructive, intolerant methods. Perhaps you and I share empathy for the many migrants, some of them “illegal” ones, who are nonetheless hired to keep farms running and to pick the crops which end up on our dinner tables. Perhaps we also share sympathy for kids who are bullied, at school and elsewhere, for being “different” (and who are risks of suicide). And the list goes on. I hope you are open-minded enough to agree that the vast majority of Democrats, as well as of Republicans, are not child abusers. Unfortunately one of the tasks which government employees such as elementary school teachers as well as social workers have to do is to be on the lookout for signs of kids who are being abused–and then to know what to do about it. If we get rid of government, do we solve that problem? Do we turn, instead to religion? Will that save us from child abuse? What if we turn even more inward and get rid of all social institutions except the family? Will that save us from all such ills? Alas, no, and no. We know about the many decades (centuries?) of child abuse by clerics, and we know that a large percentage of abuse (child abuse, spousal abuse) takes place in the home. Does that mean we should ban religion? Ban the family? It’s not that easy to just identify who to blame, is it–even if it might be politically expedient to find scapegoats, as Hitler was fond of doing, for one in a long list. If only we could identify and isolate evil as being THEM, then perhaps we could take care of it by banishing them. (No, banishing TRUMP wouldn’t solve all our problems either.) The evil is . . . inside ourselves, isn’t it? It’s US. Not just US, but US also. One lesson of these times is to say good-bye to the illusion of American exceptionalism. These are human ills which cross national and religious boundaries, aren’t they? Of course, that said, there are aspects of this great American experiment which I still defend as wonderful in principle, if not always in practice. Perhaps you would agree with me that the separation of church and state is one of these? I hope you agree! I think you might, since you pointed with horror to what Savonarola did when he united the two. I’m amazed at some conservatives who have no problem excoriating the dictatorial regime in Iran (that is, “The Islamic Republic of Iran”), but then turn around and want to claim this is a “Christian” nation, and want to unite church and state here as it is there. So, is the Christian nationalist dislike for Iran ENVY, basically? They want to become the mirror image of that fundamentalist church/state regime, but can’t seem to be able to ditch the Constitution and our Enlightenment/Secular values? Let religion flourish in this country all people want, but as separate and independent from government!!!! It will be better for religion that way, I would argue, since people are often so cynical about politics. Part of the recent upswing in “nones” when it comes to religious affiliation in this country (the unchurched) is perhaps a reaction to the marriage on the far right between religion and what seems to many of us a cold and inhumane (and greedy, driven by corporate concerns) politics. So, yeah, we might instead talk right past each other. Can you at least recognize that my own indignation is MORAL and ETHICAL?! That’s a starting place: for it’s one thing to disagree about policy and so forth, but another to impugn the other side’s motives as being EVIL. I mean, I’m sure your humanity doesn’t extend only as far as to US citizens, does it? No concern about the other people we exploit–perhaps just in the act of eating some grapes? And then turn around and blame THEM (like some sort of outer space aliens) for all our ills? Humans are by nature so clannish, aren’t we? Don’t we have to work hard to educate ourselves to be more tolerant and inclusive?? Is THIS Society really so clannish? Are its members mostly of-a-piece when it comes to political ideology? Is that somehow implied by liking old-fashioned poetry? I myself like poetry from all historical periods, so I’m happy that platforms exist for sharing “traditional” forms which are today a bit out of vogue. Let the sonnet and villanelle etc. survive! (But as for Drydenesque heroic-couplet political diatribes, hmm, let me think on that one, actually . . . HA!) But, seriously, if you like writing traditional form poetry, what skin is it off your back if other people like to write free verse? I can like BOTH! I DO like both! I can like trying to WRITE both! Yes?! You too?! We can be pro rhyme without having to be anti-modernist! I don’t get this zero-sum thinking. We are all enriched by poetry from all the periods, even though the poets of one generation were often straining to get out from under the powerful influence of the best writers of the previous one. That probably helped their art to be more interesting and vigorous, more inventive. Oh, well. But, seriously, the reactionary vibe one sniffs here can be rather off-putting. Can’t it? Go ahead! Celebrate rhyming verse! But you can also like some . . . Stanley Kunitz, say. Have you read him? Try “The Wellfleet Whale,” for example, and think back to Melville’s Moby-Dick. Free verse isn’t EVIL. Really, it isn’t. . . . https://www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/kunitz/Wellfleet.html I’ll admit to bouts of optimism, but I do think we could probably have a great conversation and end up discovering we share many beliefs and values in common. That hope, that optimism about humanity, helps keep me going. Reply Joseph S. Salemi February 8, 2025 Well, look… you’ve opened a huge can of worms here, and it might take months to argue the entire matter out. But let’s consider one indisputable fact. My first comment on this thread had nothing to do with politics, but with Savonarola and his fanaticism. As you admit, I only expressed a “mainstream” viewpoint on those subjects, and I included no contemporary political references. On the other hand, you were the one to reply to my comment by expressing a rather nasty and cliched left-liberal attack on Donald Trump, which had nothing to do with my remarks about Savonarola. What did you expect after that little diatribe? That we on the right who frequent this website would let the matter pass? We’re not RINO Republicans here, who turn the other cheek at left-wing arrogance and insult. We don’t take lip from left-liberals, and we punch back. Part of the utter dismay and bafflement among left-liberals today over the recent election is that this fact is now being rubbed in their faces, with interest. You can’t scare us anymore. If you had kept the discussion on aesthetic matters, none of this unpleasantness would have happened. The attack on Trump was purely gratuitous. You ask if the SCP is “clannish.” No — anyone who wishes to post traditional verse and comment on it is more than welcome. Would you care to deny that freedom of that sort for conservatives and rightists is absolutely absent on websites run by persons of your persuasion? But if you come here, you have to deal with the fact that we are NOT COWED by virtue-signalling, or “anti-racism” grifts, or pious speeches about DEI, or gender feminism. This also means that we aren’t going to listen politely to lectures from people who want to teach us, or change us, or convert us. And as for religion, no one here wants to push a particular faith on the other members, and if someone tries that he gets severe pushback from us. Some past members have been kicked off for being proselytizers. I myself am a religious believer, but I strongly dislike professional religionists and I have worked hard to prevent the SCP from becoming Piety Corner. So if we don’t take sermons from our own conservative colleagues here, why should we take them from you? This site has Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu, Falun Gong, atheist, agnostic, and pagan contributors. And none of those opinions takes pride of place here. You ask about child abuse. No, most Democrats are not child abusers. But politically you have TOLERATED a vast range of child abuse from others! You have fought tooth and nail to promote sex-change operations on small children; you want drag-queen hours in grade schools; you have fought to favor transsexuals in positions of influence and power; you are ferocious supporters of abortion at every stage of pregnancy, including after-birth abortions. You favor a vast influx of illegal scum across our border, many of whom are sex traffickers in children, or who are pimps and child molesters, and when we have tried to fight this, your fellow left-liberals have gone screaming into the street to prevent any effective action from being taken. So how dare you accuse US of child abuse? Are you trying to gaslight us here? Then you claim that your indignation is “MORAL and ETHICAL.” Holy smoke, Wehtje — you’ve just opened yourself up for a roundhouse right, rhetorically. Of course your objections are “moral and ethical” — that’s the case with all religionists! That’s what makes them such pains in the ass! They are always trying to change the behavior or other persons, even when those other persons are perfectly happy and content. Why do you think I referred to “your religion” in one of my above postings? It’s because you are a member of the left-liberal religious cult, and you adhere to all of its doctrines and dogmatic restrictions. For you to claim, as you do, that we on the right are trying to force the nation into an ideological mold is so blindingly lacking in self-awareness that Freud could have quoted it as a textbook case of psychological projection. You and your Democrat Party have done nothing but attempt to impose an ideological straitjacket on the American people for decades — on sexual matters, on race, on climate change, on gender, on foreign policy, on gun rights, on vaccine mandates, on energy, on environmentalism. There isn’t a goddamned thing that you people don’t want to have your finger in! Can’t you just mind your own business and leave the rest of us alone? As for our attitude here towards free verse and modernism — some of us like some of it, some of us dislike all of it, but nobody here is calling for free verse or modernism to cease. We don’t have any plans to forbid them. Where do you get that crazy idea? We are simply expressing our opinions. If you have an objection to an expression of opinion, you are merely confirming what I have just said above about the left-liberal religion. You don’t want to hear any opinion that you consider “wrong” or “harmful” or “exclusionary.” Those are simply synonyms for what a professional religionist would call “blasphemous.” Like you, I also value some modernist poets, like Eliot and Stevens and on occasion Pound. I’ve said that here in many of the discussion threads. So what exactly are you objecting to? If there is a “reactionary vibe” here, so what? Do you only like being in places where you enjoy the vibe? How does that comport with your religious commitment to DEI? Let me end with this: No one here has attacked you, and you are perfectly welcome to submit material and to take part in the discussions threads. But if you raise political issues that many of us have strong views about you are going to get some fierce counter-punches. We don’t let left-liberals get away with preaching here. We have refused to allow religionists to take over the site, and we certainly won’t allow left-liberals to colonize it and impose their religion on us. So the best thing is to avoid antagonizing poets who disagree with you, or telling us that we should not write “Drydenesque heroic-couplet political diatribes.” That’s one of the things we do well. Why are left-liberals always trying to tell us what we shouldn’t do? Reply Tom Wehtje February 9, 2025 You’re right. Someone else earlier in the comments had expressed the view that a Savonarola-type firestorm was hopefully starting in our own day. You objected to that with some horror, and I was wholly agreeing with you! That’s how politics got into it–but I suppose politics, as well as (gulp) things such as ethics and values are involved in most things, one way or another. That’s part of what it means to be human–we need to wrestle with these things. Despite your reaction, I continue to suspect hopefully that we actually do share significant interests and values. Perhaps some of your own views which you expressed would have others calling you a RINO, whereas I would argue that a “failure” to remain in lockstep with one’s leader is a sign of your own principled nature and independence of thought. You speak as if you know everything about critics of the president, whereas in reality I think they can come from many different angles, including from traditional Republicans who believed what they still do when Trump (not so long ago) was a registered Democrat (so then who is the “RINO”?) In other words, the political world isn’t so binary as the folks at FOX and at MSNBC (like Coke and Pepsi?) seem to want us all to believe, is it? (I’m glad, and not surprised, that you agree with me that the aesthetic world doesn’t have to be divided between strict traditionalists and avant gardistes or modernists either.) Oh, well. But, hey, it’s understandable I suppose if the topic of Savonarola sparks something of a firestorm. As the earliest messages suggested, it’s “timely.” George Eliot found it so in the mid-19th Century, and it seems so again to some of us today (even those with some very different political views). Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Paul A. Freeman February 7, 2025 Hypocrites saving us from their own vices – topical and well-written. Thanks for the read, Tom. Reply
Tom Wehtje February 7, 2025 Sonnet cycles are such an important part of literary history, but how about cycles or even just collections of villanelles? This Savonarola poem is one of a series of 5 Renaissance Villanelles I’ve drafted, and I’ve been composing a series of such “Moments in History” villanelles this past year (I’ve got about 60 now). Is anyone else working on cycles of villanelles? I’d love to dialogue with you about that process! (I myself write iambic pentameter versions in the tradition of W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, Theodore Roethke, Sylvia Plath, etc.) Does anyone know of any villanelles cycles you like, and/or the poets who write them? So often villanelles are written as sort of one-off freaks of nature, but they can be written about anything. Thanks! Reply
Roy Eugene Peterson February 7, 2025 Although a Dominican ascetic, Savanarola deplored secular art and culture, advocated their destruction in favor of disciplined craft, beauty, civic glory, and Christian renewal while prophesying a greater future in store with a renaissance of values and careful skills applied to all activities of life and living. We are hopefully on the verge of such a renaissance. Such boldness, though, often ends fatally, as Savanarola was burned in the center of Florence. Your poem beautifully brought to mind these images. Your strategic use of “bonfires of the vanities” took on a double entendre meaning, which made me laugh when used after “He knows their kind: gourmands of wine and cheese! He tightens one notch more his hempen belt, then ‘fans’ the bonfires of the vanities. Then “stroking the bonfires of the vanities” after seeing the statue of Venus could have some interesting interpretations. Reply
Tom Wehtje February 7, 2025 Thank you for your close reading, Roy. Yes, Savonarola is a very interesting character and his story brings up some complex issues. A couple years ago I read George Eliot’s novel ROMOLA in which the title character comes under Savonarola’s spell–and you can feel how that freethinking novelist herself was in part drawn to him, in part put off. The revolution he led in Florence was not just a religious crackdown against secularism, it seems, but also a sort of protest against the ruling super wealthy class. Romola ends up having doubts as to Savonarola’s religious vision, but nevertheless continues to work tirelessly, herself, as trained by Savonarola, to aid the poor and plague-stricken. (Perhaps not a bad solution? Social consciousness without the fanaticism?) The word I use in the final line is actually “stokes” the bonfire, not “strokes,” but you are right that Savonarola is represented as struggling to suppress his own sexual desires (“Savonarola rises” IS in there twice, and two lines are italicized to represent his own thoughts). “Gourmands of wine and cheese” also made me laugh when I came up with it, since it seems to represent today’s class resentments also. Then, just after the mention of food (wine and cheese), the ascetic “tightens one notch more his hempen belt” etc. Writing in a fixed form like this, somewhat like solving a puzzle, can lead to such surprising discoveries/solutions. I certainly hope we can all work together towards a more just and informed and principled society without too many bonfires (OR burnings at the stake). Reply
Roy Eugene Peterson February 7, 2025 This may come under the heading of sharing too much, but I was diagnosed this week by an optometrist who told me my replacement eye lenses had deposits on them after several years, so I have an appointment with an ophthalmologist in April to solve the problem, hence, perhaps, my mistaking “stokes” for “strokes.” In any event, I had to laugh either way.
Joseph S. Salemi February 7, 2025 I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but Girolamo Savonarola was the worst kind of religious fanatic — one who believes that that his own personal “visions” and moral imperatives have to be shared by the entire populace. His “bonfire of the vanities” put the torch to countless works of painting and literature, as well as magnificent artifacts and objets d’art, simply because they were secular and sometimes dealt with pagan mythology, or involved nudity. We don’t know how many major paintings of Sandro Botticelli, Lorenzo DiCredi, and other masters went up in flames because of this man’s pious insanity, not to mention first incunabular editions of Boccaccio, Petrarch, Ovid, Martial, and other “profane” writers. He also turned Florence into an ascetic theocracy, ruled by his sermons and by his thuggish disciples called the Piagnoni (the “weepers”), who patrolled the streets to attack anyone who was dressed “immodestly,” or who did not evince sufficient piety or humility. A city of Renaissance high culture and humanistic learning was turned into a drab Dominican friary. No wonder so many early Protestants like Luther thought of him as a hero. Savonarola provided the prototype for Anabaptist Munster and other cities tyrannized by prophetic crackpots. Nevertheless, this is an excellent villanelle. I hope Wehtje’s cycle of them will be all just as good. It is unusual to think of the villanelle as a vehicle for historical narrative. Reply
Tom Wehtje February 7, 2025 Agreed. Thank you for explaining the mainstream historical understanding of Savonarola and his movement. This is consistent with how he is represented in the poem. Of course I use his own point of view, but just because HE is expressing something (disgust with artists, etc.) doesn’t mean that I or “the poem” itself “agrees” with him, as it were. Note the reference in the poem to the burning of books, art, music. Another commenter mentioned this sort of cleansing as good or necessary in our own day–I think it’s appalling. Indeed, one reading of the poem’s timeliness is that this sort of reactionary tearing-down of important cultural institutions and values is going on right now: “Savonarola” (or, in this case, actually a fake populist and billionaire-friendly autocrat) with his minions has got his hands on the government and they are throwing things onto the bonfire. Science? It can go. Education? Likewise. Expertise? Ethics? Honesty? We ditched those already during his previous term. Let’s keep greed and selfishness, though, because those are good and will save the world . . . (which surely even Savonarola never would have said–the more principled, he!) Reply
Joseph S. Salemi February 7, 2025 Perhaps we had better not argue, since our political views are absolutely different. But, I can’t fully resist. Let me just say this — our new President is SAVING civilization from the brand-new religious manias of political correctness, gender feminism, DEI, trannie-worship, open borders, and the coddling of criminals and terrorists. If you want to see modern versions of Savonarola, look at the fanatical left-liberal types who run the Democrat Party, and who are now in a state of meltdown. And if you think the Department of Education is anything but a milch-cow for left-liberal control of American schools, it’s hopeless arguing with you.
C.B. Anderson February 9, 2025 Bingo! Joseph. These are the kind of attitudes we usually get from essentially low-information voters. As I found out when we were homeschooling our children, The Federal Department of Education has never educated a single American child. The heads of Libtards are so far up that dark place that their eyes are in the back of their throats.
Julian D. Woodruff February 7, 2025 Good villanelle on the disaster that can ensue from the lack of personal restraint, but I’m with Mr. Salemi on today’s goings-on. Further, I think the Catholic Church suffers from periodic fits of generalized iconoclasm, where little that’s inspiring or elegant can issue from homilies, where beauty in church architecture, art, and music is shunned or trashed (e.g.: there are 2 St. John the Evangelist churches in Rochester, NY; one has large, very fine windows portraying various saints, but with a sanctuary that was gutted sometime within the last 60 years for a non-descript, modern apartment-style makeover; the other is a prize-winning horror whose exterior looks like a hood & chimney above an invisible huge, free-standing rustic fireplace). If Christianity can pass through this phase (& there’s reason to hope it has started doing so), then it could lead the way to the emergence of sanity-restoring love and respect for order & beauty in the arts (not conformity!) & similar regard for true science, the moral realm etc. Trump may play only a minor role, if any, in all of this, but oh my! is he so much to be preferred to the pretend Catholic who has just departed–not to mention his cronies. Reply
John Caruso February 7, 2025 Not very much about the poem, but a political speech that actually ignores the context of this poem…This is to Mr. Salemi as well. Who is doing the banning of books? Who is stoking the bonfire of the vanities? Trump. He is an amoral man. He can hardly be part of a moral realm, especially as it regards true science, as we witnessed during COVID. You mentioned non-conformity. But dear leader does not allow any non-conformity or threatens to withhold disaster aid money. I dare say he will have nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of restoration of order and beauty. His transactional nature is morally ugly. Coddling criminals and terrorists, says Mr. Salemi: who just pardoned some of the worst violent offenders in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 election and the Capitol itself (many of whom were avowed anti-semites and white supremacists. I see. Saving the country is turning the clock back to Jim Crow or better yet pre-reconstruction. Mr. Salemi has some strong contempt for Savonarola, but fails to see the rightwing cult of Trump resembles the book and art burners of the Renaissance; the Christian nationalists who would obliterate the separation of church and state move in the spirit of Savonarola. To not see that is the blindness of the fundamentalist spirit. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi February 7, 2025 I guess you’re a member of the new religion of political correctness, Mr. Caruso. Everything you have just said above is pure left-liberal bullshit, in accord with the catechism of the New York Times. We on the right are not “book burners,” Mr. Caruso. We just don’t want drag-queen hour in our grade schools, or forced sex-change operations on little kids, or third-rate men posing as fake women in women’s sports, or South American terrorist gangs crossing our borders. But if you’re a member of the left-liberal religion, I suppose that you actually want those things. Correct me if I’m wrong, or at least use your rhetorical skills to weasel out of it.
C.B. Anderson February 9, 2025 What do you know about science, Caruso? If Fauci ever said a single thing based on science, please tell me what it was. The so-called vaccine did not prevent anyone from contracting or spreading the disease, and wearing masks did nothing to protect anyone from anything other than seeing Biden’s lying face.
Tom Wehtje February 7, 2025 Oh, well, it seems like the political rhetoric is getting a little heated here. But perhaps this is a good place to stop or pause, since we seem to have come full circle, with Mr. Salemi’s words taking us back adroitly to the spirit of Savonarola in Florence of 1497, whose “purpose was to purge the city’s sleaze” (as I paraphrase it in my villanelle). Reply
Julian D. Woodruff February 7, 2025 Perhaps you’re right, Mr. Wehtje, about a stopping point. But let me ask, if only rhetorically, what exactly is wrong with the desires expressed by Prof. Salemi in the 2nd paragraph of his post immediately above your last? Can it honestly be said that such concerns are of straw? Reply
Joseph S. Salemi February 7, 2025 Oh yeah, sure… like the liberal left’s purpose was to purge conservative opinion from social media; to imprison pro-life and traditionalist Catholics; to wage lawfare against political opponents; to weaponize the FBI, the CIA, and the DOJ; to say and do nothing about antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses; to tolerate Antifa thuggery; and to hide illegal aliens in “sanctuary cities.” But that’s all part of your religion, I suppose. Reply
Tom Wehtje February 8, 2025 My guess is that if we sat down, Joseph, you and I, that we could probably find many values which we actually share in common. For starters, you share my disapproval of Savonarola’s destructive, intolerant methods. Perhaps you and I share empathy for the many migrants, some of them “illegal” ones, who are nonetheless hired to keep farms running and to pick the crops which end up on our dinner tables. Perhaps we also share sympathy for kids who are bullied, at school and elsewhere, for being “different” (and who are risks of suicide). And the list goes on. I hope you are open-minded enough to agree that the vast majority of Democrats, as well as of Republicans, are not child abusers. Unfortunately one of the tasks which government employees such as elementary school teachers as well as social workers have to do is to be on the lookout for signs of kids who are being abused–and then to know what to do about it. If we get rid of government, do we solve that problem? Do we turn, instead to religion? Will that save us from child abuse? What if we turn even more inward and get rid of all social institutions except the family? Will that save us from all such ills? Alas, no, and no. We know about the many decades (centuries?) of child abuse by clerics, and we know that a large percentage of abuse (child abuse, spousal abuse) takes place in the home. Does that mean we should ban religion? Ban the family? It’s not that easy to just identify who to blame, is it–even if it might be politically expedient to find scapegoats, as Hitler was fond of doing, for one in a long list. If only we could identify and isolate evil as being THEM, then perhaps we could take care of it by banishing them. (No, banishing TRUMP wouldn’t solve all our problems either.) The evil is . . . inside ourselves, isn’t it? It’s US. Not just US, but US also. One lesson of these times is to say good-bye to the illusion of American exceptionalism. These are human ills which cross national and religious boundaries, aren’t they? Of course, that said, there are aspects of this great American experiment which I still defend as wonderful in principle, if not always in practice. Perhaps you would agree with me that the separation of church and state is one of these? I hope you agree! I think you might, since you pointed with horror to what Savonarola did when he united the two. I’m amazed at some conservatives who have no problem excoriating the dictatorial regime in Iran (that is, “The Islamic Republic of Iran”), but then turn around and want to claim this is a “Christian” nation, and want to unite church and state here as it is there. So, is the Christian nationalist dislike for Iran ENVY, basically? They want to become the mirror image of that fundamentalist church/state regime, but can’t seem to be able to ditch the Constitution and our Enlightenment/Secular values? Let religion flourish in this country all people want, but as separate and independent from government!!!! It will be better for religion that way, I would argue, since people are often so cynical about politics. Part of the recent upswing in “nones” when it comes to religious affiliation in this country (the unchurched) is perhaps a reaction to the marriage on the far right between religion and what seems to many of us a cold and inhumane (and greedy, driven by corporate concerns) politics. So, yeah, we might instead talk right past each other. Can you at least recognize that my own indignation is MORAL and ETHICAL?! That’s a starting place: for it’s one thing to disagree about policy and so forth, but another to impugn the other side’s motives as being EVIL. I mean, I’m sure your humanity doesn’t extend only as far as to US citizens, does it? No concern about the other people we exploit–perhaps just in the act of eating some grapes? And then turn around and blame THEM (like some sort of outer space aliens) for all our ills? Humans are by nature so clannish, aren’t we? Don’t we have to work hard to educate ourselves to be more tolerant and inclusive?? Is THIS Society really so clannish? Are its members mostly of-a-piece when it comes to political ideology? Is that somehow implied by liking old-fashioned poetry? I myself like poetry from all historical periods, so I’m happy that platforms exist for sharing “traditional” forms which are today a bit out of vogue. Let the sonnet and villanelle etc. survive! (But as for Drydenesque heroic-couplet political diatribes, hmm, let me think on that one, actually . . . HA!) But, seriously, if you like writing traditional form poetry, what skin is it off your back if other people like to write free verse? I can like BOTH! I DO like both! I can like trying to WRITE both! Yes?! You too?! We can be pro rhyme without having to be anti-modernist! I don’t get this zero-sum thinking. We are all enriched by poetry from all the periods, even though the poets of one generation were often straining to get out from under the powerful influence of the best writers of the previous one. That probably helped their art to be more interesting and vigorous, more inventive. Oh, well. But, seriously, the reactionary vibe one sniffs here can be rather off-putting. Can’t it? Go ahead! Celebrate rhyming verse! But you can also like some . . . Stanley Kunitz, say. Have you read him? Try “The Wellfleet Whale,” for example, and think back to Melville’s Moby-Dick. Free verse isn’t EVIL. Really, it isn’t. . . . https://www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/kunitz/Wellfleet.html I’ll admit to bouts of optimism, but I do think we could probably have a great conversation and end up discovering we share many beliefs and values in common. That hope, that optimism about humanity, helps keep me going. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi February 8, 2025 Well, look… you’ve opened a huge can of worms here, and it might take months to argue the entire matter out. But let’s consider one indisputable fact. My first comment on this thread had nothing to do with politics, but with Savonarola and his fanaticism. As you admit, I only expressed a “mainstream” viewpoint on those subjects, and I included no contemporary political references. On the other hand, you were the one to reply to my comment by expressing a rather nasty and cliched left-liberal attack on Donald Trump, which had nothing to do with my remarks about Savonarola. What did you expect after that little diatribe? That we on the right who frequent this website would let the matter pass? We’re not RINO Republicans here, who turn the other cheek at left-wing arrogance and insult. We don’t take lip from left-liberals, and we punch back. Part of the utter dismay and bafflement among left-liberals today over the recent election is that this fact is now being rubbed in their faces, with interest. You can’t scare us anymore. If you had kept the discussion on aesthetic matters, none of this unpleasantness would have happened. The attack on Trump was purely gratuitous. You ask if the SCP is “clannish.” No — anyone who wishes to post traditional verse and comment on it is more than welcome. Would you care to deny that freedom of that sort for conservatives and rightists is absolutely absent on websites run by persons of your persuasion? But if you come here, you have to deal with the fact that we are NOT COWED by virtue-signalling, or “anti-racism” grifts, or pious speeches about DEI, or gender feminism. This also means that we aren’t going to listen politely to lectures from people who want to teach us, or change us, or convert us. And as for religion, no one here wants to push a particular faith on the other members, and if someone tries that he gets severe pushback from us. Some past members have been kicked off for being proselytizers. I myself am a religious believer, but I strongly dislike professional religionists and I have worked hard to prevent the SCP from becoming Piety Corner. So if we don’t take sermons from our own conservative colleagues here, why should we take them from you? This site has Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu, Falun Gong, atheist, agnostic, and pagan contributors. And none of those opinions takes pride of place here. You ask about child abuse. No, most Democrats are not child abusers. But politically you have TOLERATED a vast range of child abuse from others! You have fought tooth and nail to promote sex-change operations on small children; you want drag-queen hours in grade schools; you have fought to favor transsexuals in positions of influence and power; you are ferocious supporters of abortion at every stage of pregnancy, including after-birth abortions. You favor a vast influx of illegal scum across our border, many of whom are sex traffickers in children, or who are pimps and child molesters, and when we have tried to fight this, your fellow left-liberals have gone screaming into the street to prevent any effective action from being taken. So how dare you accuse US of child abuse? Are you trying to gaslight us here? Then you claim that your indignation is “MORAL and ETHICAL.” Holy smoke, Wehtje — you’ve just opened yourself up for a roundhouse right, rhetorically. Of course your objections are “moral and ethical” — that’s the case with all religionists! That’s what makes them such pains in the ass! They are always trying to change the behavior or other persons, even when those other persons are perfectly happy and content. Why do you think I referred to “your religion” in one of my above postings? It’s because you are a member of the left-liberal religious cult, and you adhere to all of its doctrines and dogmatic restrictions. For you to claim, as you do, that we on the right are trying to force the nation into an ideological mold is so blindingly lacking in self-awareness that Freud could have quoted it as a textbook case of psychological projection. You and your Democrat Party have done nothing but attempt to impose an ideological straitjacket on the American people for decades — on sexual matters, on race, on climate change, on gender, on foreign policy, on gun rights, on vaccine mandates, on energy, on environmentalism. There isn’t a goddamned thing that you people don’t want to have your finger in! Can’t you just mind your own business and leave the rest of us alone? As for our attitude here towards free verse and modernism — some of us like some of it, some of us dislike all of it, but nobody here is calling for free verse or modernism to cease. We don’t have any plans to forbid them. Where do you get that crazy idea? We are simply expressing our opinions. If you have an objection to an expression of opinion, you are merely confirming what I have just said above about the left-liberal religion. You don’t want to hear any opinion that you consider “wrong” or “harmful” or “exclusionary.” Those are simply synonyms for what a professional religionist would call “blasphemous.” Like you, I also value some modernist poets, like Eliot and Stevens and on occasion Pound. I’ve said that here in many of the discussion threads. So what exactly are you objecting to? If there is a “reactionary vibe” here, so what? Do you only like being in places where you enjoy the vibe? How does that comport with your religious commitment to DEI? Let me end with this: No one here has attacked you, and you are perfectly welcome to submit material and to take part in the discussions threads. But if you raise political issues that many of us have strong views about you are going to get some fierce counter-punches. We don’t let left-liberals get away with preaching here. We have refused to allow religionists to take over the site, and we certainly won’t allow left-liberals to colonize it and impose their religion on us. So the best thing is to avoid antagonizing poets who disagree with you, or telling us that we should not write “Drydenesque heroic-couplet political diatribes.” That’s one of the things we do well. Why are left-liberals always trying to tell us what we shouldn’t do? Reply
Tom Wehtje February 9, 2025 You’re right. Someone else earlier in the comments had expressed the view that a Savonarola-type firestorm was hopefully starting in our own day. You objected to that with some horror, and I was wholly agreeing with you! That’s how politics got into it–but I suppose politics, as well as (gulp) things such as ethics and values are involved in most things, one way or another. That’s part of what it means to be human–we need to wrestle with these things. Despite your reaction, I continue to suspect hopefully that we actually do share significant interests and values. Perhaps some of your own views which you expressed would have others calling you a RINO, whereas I would argue that a “failure” to remain in lockstep with one’s leader is a sign of your own principled nature and independence of thought. You speak as if you know everything about critics of the president, whereas in reality I think they can come from many different angles, including from traditional Republicans who believed what they still do when Trump (not so long ago) was a registered Democrat (so then who is the “RINO”?) In other words, the political world isn’t so binary as the folks at FOX and at MSNBC (like Coke and Pepsi?) seem to want us all to believe, is it? (I’m glad, and not surprised, that you agree with me that the aesthetic world doesn’t have to be divided between strict traditionalists and avant gardistes or modernists either.) Oh, well. But, hey, it’s understandable I suppose if the topic of Savonarola sparks something of a firestorm. As the earliest messages suggested, it’s “timely.” George Eliot found it so in the mid-19th Century, and it seems so again to some of us today (even those with some very different political views). Reply
