In Praise of Salt
In Praise of Salt - meaning Summary
Salt as Paradoxical Force
Mistral treats salt as a paradoxical, elemental force: dazzling and jewel-making, bleaching and preserving, absolute as death. The poem moves between natural images—beaches, birds, rocks—and moral weight, suggesting salt both beautifies and wounds. It conserves bodies and identities while 'nailing' good hearts, including a reference to Christ, preventing them from dissolving into mere sentiment. Salt thus symbolizes endurance, purification, and a harsh moral restraint.
Read Complete AnalysesThe salt, in great mounds on the beach of Eve in the year 3,000, seems squared off in front and squared off in the back, holding no warm dove nor living rose in its hand, and the salt of the rock salt that gleams, even more than the seal on its peak, capable of turning everything into a jewel. The salt that bleaches the seagull’s belly and crackles in the penguin’s breast, and that in mother-of-pearl plays >with colors that are not its own. The salt is absolute and pure as death. The salt nailed through the hearts of good people, even the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, keeps them from dissolving in piety.
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