Tan Callando, echoes and reminiscences around John Donne, Francis Thompson, and James Joyce

In 1934 Valery Larbaud revisited England, he went to London and Langar (Nottinghamshire) to have a view of the rectory where Samuel Butler was born. In those places he recalled his stay in Alicante as an echo going through a long period of silence. At that time, A la sombra de las palmeras de mi terra, he translated into English The way of all flesh and began writing Beauté, Mon beau souci... Tan Callando is an assertion of silence where all activities stand still to evoke Le Cœur de l’Angleterre, the excerpts of which certain passages of Ulysses could duplicate. It recalls also the late Sundays afternoon literary meetings by the Meynells, Wilfrid and Alice, in whose home Francis Thompson found shelter. The short story intimates unsuccessful love and reminds the underlying weave of some John Donne’s poem and it ends with a final sublimation where virtue of the ancient world blend with quotations of the New Testament.