Booking Through Thursday: Bibliographic Qualities

This week's Booking Through Thursday meme is about the more bibliographic nature of buying and owning books:

--Hardcover? Or paperback?
--Illustrations? Or just text?
--First editions? Or you don’t care?
--Signed by the author? Or not?

For me, and in all of the above cases, it depends on the book and why I want it. For some books, I've gone out of my way to purchase a specific edition; I bought the illustrated hardcover copy of The Silmarillion several years ago, because I wanted it as a collectible. (Not that it's worth anything, but it's special to me.) For most books, though, my primary focus is cheap, so I don't really care which version I get as long as it doesn't cost too much. There's a part of me that likes the idea of a library full of beautiful hardcover books with decorated spines. But then there's another (and somewhat more practical) part of me that has grown to love my menagerie of disintegrating books with the variety of cheaply colored covers. It's kind of like my teacup collection: I don't think I want a full set (of teacups, that is...), because I think I like for them all to look different.

I also write in most of my books, because I like to underline things that jump out at me (I'm a kinetic reader!). So, I don't want to spend a fortune on an edition just to mark it up with a pen.

Art and Music: Samson and Delilah

Samson and Delilah

Artist: Lucas Cranach the Elder.
(Oil on wood; date unknown -- Cranach fl. 1472-1553).

I read the story of Samson and Delilah in my Bible reading yesterday, so when this image popped up in Google Reader, I thought it seemed a bit timely.

I love that this is a heavily Germanic take on the story. (I tend to be a stickler for accuracy, but I can't fault a German painter for utilizing what he knew.) Delilah is dressed like an upper-class woman in medieval Germany (although in red, probably to suggest a harlot-like quality) and the Philistines in the background are covered in heavy armor. I'm not sure if the fruit hanging from the tree is intended to represent apples, thus indicating a connection with Adam and Eve and the woman leading the man astray. (While there's no biblical indication that the fruit of temptation was the apple, of course -- and likely it wasn't -- it is in general the fruit that symbolizes the Fall of Man.) I can't tell for certain, though. But I have to give Cranach credit for the serious layer of hair on Samson's legs. Now, that's attention to detail!

And for a little music, the "Bacchanale" from Samson et Dalila, by Camille Saint-Saëns (Sergio Alapont conducting).



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Artwork and details derived from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Book Review: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

I first read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight several years ago when I began my personal Tolkien studies. I knew that Tolkien had loved the poem and even translated it at one point (an excellent and highly recommended translation), so I decided to read it.

I'm not exactly sure what I expected from Sir Gawain -- another Arthurian legend, perhaps, in the style of Chretien de Troyes? Whatever it was, the poem surprised and confused me a bit. And looking back I don't know why. Tolkien was a brilliant and often-underrated scholar whose medieval knowledge was vast and whose understanding and appreciation of medieval poetry was quite possibly unparalleled even in this day. This was a man who loved Beowulf, and that's anything but a simple fairy tale. So, why would I expect Sir Gawain to be some simple story about a knight on a quest?

Let me just state for the record that there is nothing simple or simplistic about Sir Gawain. The story is complex; the characters are complex; the poetry itself is highly complex and remarkable in its own right. It occurs to me that great literature does not necessarily conform to a specific literary style but rather takes it on for the purpose of undermining or reinterpreting it. And that's definitely what Sir Gawain does. The poem is written in the style of a romance, but without the traditional qualities of a romance. It's about a knight who has been given a quest, but he doesn't quite complete that quest, and his honor shows some definite weak spots along the way. It's as thought the Gawain poet (also known as the Pearl poet -- the poet's actual identity is not known) wanted to flip the traditions upside down in order to make a stronger point. Reading it a second time recently, it impresses me all the more as a great piece of literature and an extraordinary piece of poetry.

As for the plot, here goes. The poem opens at the New Year's celebration in Camelot; Arthur and his knights and the various ladies are engaged in great revelry and merriment (in other words, partying it up big time) when an unexpected guest arrives. It is a giant man who is entirely green, from his skin to his clothes, and he sets before Arthur and his men a challenge: he will allow one of them to take a swing at him with his axe if they will agree to let him do the same thing exactly one year later at the place he identifies. In a typical Arthurian legend, one might expect the famed Knights of the Round Table to leap at such a challenge, which is given with a hint of insult toward the king. In Sir Gawain, however, the Green Knight's challenge is met with dead silence. (Clue number one that this isn't the typical tale out of Camelot.) It looks as though Arthur himself will have to take on the challenge to save face, when Gawain pipes up and agrees to take it on. He claims to be the least of Arthur's knights and thus the least equipped for such a task, but he's willing to face the Green Knight for the sake of his king. Gawain swings the axe and cleaves the Green Knight's head right off, and then the knight calmly reaches down, picks up his severed head, and rides off.

Uh, at this point Gawain realizes that his end of the bargain might not lead to quite the triumphant quest he had anticipated. Ain't no way he can do the same thing if the Green Knight chops off his head.

But Gawain is a man of his word (sort of...), so he sets out almost one year later to find the Green Chapel, where the Green Knight had arranged to meet him. He doesn't find the chapel, but he does stumble upon a large and somewhat magical castle into which the host Bertilak de Hautdesert welcomes him eagerly and promises that he knows where the Green Chapel can be found. As Gawain is still three days from his appointment, Bertilak encourages him to stay and rest as he waits to meet the Green Knight. In fact, during the three days that follow Bertilak and his men go hunting, while Gawain lounges in the guest room. And as he lounges, Bertilak's lovely wife comes to visit him and more or less attempts to seduce him. She plays on the traditions of chivalric speech, so she couches her visit to him in terms of a good lady visiting an honorable knight. But Gawain is in bed the entire time, and she's sitting on the edge of his bed, scantily clad and offering herself to him.

It is obviously in Gawain's best interest to keep his lust in check, and to his credit he does, receiving from her only a kiss on all three days. He is a guest at Bertilak's castle, so it wouldn't do to commit adultery with Bertilak's wife; but there's another -- and somewhat more confusing -- reason for why Gawain needs to be careful. Before going out to hunt, Bertilak strikes a bargain with Gawain, in which each will agree to give the other his spoils of the day. Bertilak rewards Gawain each day with the animal that he killed, while Gawain gives to Bertilak each day a kiss (such as he received from Bertilak's wife). Well, here's the million-dollar question: if Gawain had slept with Bertilak's wife, how...exactly...would he have had to reciprocate with regard to Bertilak...? So, as I said it's in Gawain's very best interest to keep that lady at bay.

On the third day, Gawain does accept something from her that he doesn't give to Bertilak and that indicates a weakness in Gawain's character: the lady gives to him a girdle that she claims to be magical, so that anyone who wears it cannot be killed. As Gawain knows he has little chance of surviving his encounter with the Green Knight, he jumps at the chance to wear the girdle. But he doesn't tell Bertilak about it, and he doesn't offer a reciprocal gift. And when Gawain goes to meet the Green Knight, it turns out that the girdle is unnecessary and that there is far more to all of this than Gawain suspected. I won't ruin the ending, because it has a great twist to it, but suffice it to say that the poet once again turns expectation on its head and offers a very different conclusion than the reader might have expected. As a hint, Gawain does return to Camelot but not with the glory he might have hoped to surround him. And he is definitely a more humble man when he returns than when he set off.

All in all, a great poem and a treasure in the canon of English literature. This time around, I read Casey Finch's translation, but as mentioned above I definitely recommend Tolkien's translation, especially for first-time readers.

As a final note, I snagged the beautiful image above from artist John Howe's portfolio. He also illustrated for Tolkien's writings, so it's only appropriate to see an image of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from him.

Book Review: World War I British Poets (Dover Thrift Edition)

I had a major bout of laziness last week that made me unwilling to do much in the way of blogging (or even reading, I'm afraid) and also extended somewhat into this week. Fortunately, it has passed, so I'm back to reading and blogging more regularly. Until my next attack of laziness that is...

Anyway, I have two students who will be reading World War I poetry in the near future, and I'm assigning this particular book to them. I purchased this book back in college when I took a course in 20th-century literature, but it's still relevant and still contains one of the most complete collections of British poetry from World War I that can be found in such a small volume. In doing a search, I found several websites that contained a number of the same poems in this book: the First World War Digital Poetry Archive from Oxford University and FirstWorldWar.com. Both sites are excellent, and if you are just looking for a single poem or if you are looking to study one poet in more depth both sites contain the kind of information that will be helpful. If you just want a survey that offers a reasonable look at the variety of poems from British poets during World War I, I think the Dover book is best.

Well, now that I've made the case for what is essentially a $2 book...brand new...

Until I took the 20th-century literature course as an undergraduate, I really had never explored or studied much in the way of war poetry, and I had never considered the First World War as being a literary mine of good poems. In both cases, I was cheating myself out of something truly excellent. Now, let me be clear about something: war poetry -- and especially World War I poetry -- is not fun. If you want landscapes and lovers and Keats waxing eloquent on Grecian urns, this is not the kind of poetry for you. The only poem to come out of World War I that might be described as slightly glib would be John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields":

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

No, that's not the happiest poem, but it still manages to make the horror of violent death among soldiers in the trenches seem a bit...distant. And, no, I'm not knocking this poem. It's quite lovely and isn't horrible as far as poetry is concerned. What's more, it does manage to make a powerful point. Just a bit too formally perhaps. The phrase "stiff upper lip" comes to mind. In my defense, even McCrae didn't like it all that much, and it took one of his friends to rescue it from the trash and send it to a newspaper in England.

Compare this with Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth":

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

In both cases, the poets utilize a familiar poetic mode (Owen, in particular, is using the sonnet form), but with completely different results. Granted, McCrae's poem is completely appropriate for a place like a war cemetery, whereas it would be in poor taste to have Owen's poem there. That being said, Owen's poem expresses more clearly the voice of World War I poets -- the agonies of trench warfare, the disillusionment with authority figures, the sense of being constantly surrounded by death and dying. Many, many soldiers during the Great War ended up in hospitals due to severe shell shock, and many of these are the ones who wrote poetry. Their poems are intense and raw, and they offer a startlingly clear image of the war as fought on the front lines. Too often, I think, we forget or diminish the significance of World War I because of the horrors that followed in World War II, but the former was not necessarily a lesser war; and to the soldiers that fought in it, it was the "war to end all wars" (or so they hoped).

If you're interested in World War I as a historical topic, I strongly recommend browsing through the poetry, because it provides a very clear perspective of how the soldiers felt. Additionally, the Dover copy contains poems from non-soldiers, thus offering another point of view on the war and indicating the anguish of watching and waiting at home, the confusion about trusting the government or listening to the frustrated cries of the soldiers, and the growing sense that a change in English life was coming. As far as primary texts go, this poetry certainly offers something that no history book ever could.

Year of publication: 1997
Number of pages: 71

Ash Wednesday

Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Κύριε Ιησού Χριστέ, Υιέ του Θεού, ελέησόν με τον αμαρτωλόν.

(Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.)

Booking Through Thursday: Bookshelves

This week's prompt is about bookshelves and the personal arrangement of books. As I'm a dedicated (read: anal retentive...) organizer, I love this question!

How do you arrange your books on your shelves? Is it by author, by genre, or you just put it where it falls on?

I tend to arrange first by genre. From there, it depends on the genre itself. My language books are arranged alphabetically by language. My language reference books are arranged by author. All of my fiction and non-fiction history books are arranged chronologically by the date of publication (for fiction) or by the era of the topic (for non-fiction history).

At the same time, I currently have a bookshelf that is entirely decorative (since we needed to fill in a space in the house), so it's arranged by genre and then by book height. (As in, all the poetry books are together and organized from shortest to tallest, and all the biographies are together and organized in the same way.)

The one thing I hate about moving is having to organize this all over again -- because it takes a while to get this arrangement back in place each time we relocate. And every time I move, I have some new situation in my house that requires a slightly different approach to where the books all go. So, I stick with my genre-based technique and adjust it to the new home.

Art Study: Nocturne, by Whistler

Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights

There are many different shades of blue out there, and each shade has the potential to indicate a different emotion or mood. Some blues convey sadness, some suggest impending danger, some hint at tragedy, and others speak of an idyllic day. To me, this is a peaceful blue, the end of a perfect day and a quiet transition to evening. It has that soft and gentle whisper of a happy dream.

And yes, the artist is that Whistler -- the one with the mother.

Oil on canvas (1872).



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Derived from Tate Britain.

Music: The Elephant

From The Carnival of the Animals, by Camille Saint-Saëns.

If I were to put music to an elephant's movements, this is probably what I would have aspired to come up with as well. It sounds pretty accurate to me!

Poetry Study: Sweet and Fitting...Or Not

I'm reading a book of Wilfred Owen's World War I poetry right now, so I thought I'd post this most-famous of his verses. His description of war and the implied dishonesty to which he and his fellow soldiers had been subjected reaches through history and still speaks to readers today.

"Dulce et Decorum Est"
By Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

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Text derived First World War Poetry Digital Archive.

Teaser Tuesdays -- Dust, Dust...Everywhere

I'm a little late in the day, but I guess that's better than not at all!

This week's teaser is from The Grapes of Wrath, chapter 1:

Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air: a walking man lifted a thin layer as high as his waist, and a wagon lifted the dust as high as the fence tops, and an automobile boiled a cloud behind it. The dust was long in settling back again.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Saint Calendar: Cyril and Methodius

14 February

(Okay, so everyone likes to remember St Valentine on his namesake day, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to remember two very important saints who tend to be overlooked. So, they might not have a Hallmark holiday named after them. But they did develop Cyrillic...and evangelize the Slavic peoples. So, "Спасибо," Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius.)

Cyril

Brother of Saint Methodius. Born to the Greek nobility; his family was connected with the senate of Thessalonica, and his mother Maria may have been Slavic. Studied at the University of Constantinople, and taught philosophy there. Deacon. Priest. Librarian at the church of Santa Sophia. Monk, taking the name Cyril. Sent with Methodius by the emperor in 861 to convert the Jewish Khazars of Russia, a mission that was successful, and which allowed him to learn the Khazar’s language. In 863, sent with Methodius to convert Moravians in their native tongue. Though some western clergy opposed their efforts and refused to ordain their candidates for the priesthood, they did good work. Developed an alphabet for the Slavonic language that eventually became what is known today as the Cyrillic. After initial criticism for their use of it, the brothers achieved approval of the Liturgy in the Slavonic language. May have been bishop, but may have died before the consecration ceremony.

Died 14 February 869 at Rome, Italy of natural causes.

Also known as:

--Apostle of the Slavs
--Apostle of the Southern Slavs
--Constantin
--Constantine the Philosopher
--Constantine
--Cyril the Philosopher
--Equal of the Apostles

Methodius

Brother of Saint Cyril. Greek nobility. Studied at the University of Constantinople, and taught philosophy there. Priest. Sent with Cyril by the emperor in 861 to convert the Jewish Khazars of Russia, a mission that was successful, and which allowed him to learn the Khazar's language. In 863, sent with Cyril to convert Moravians in their native tongue. Though some western clergy opposed their efforts and refused to ordain their candidates for the priesthood, they did good work. Helped develop an alphabet for the Slavonic language that eventually became what is known as the Cyrillic today. After initial criticism for their use of it, they achieved approval of the Liturgy in the Slavonic language. Bishop. Evangelized in Moravia, Bohemia, Pannonia, and Poland. Baptized Saint Ludmilla and Duke Boriwoi. Archbishop of Velehred, Czechoslovakia, but deposed and imprisoned in 870 due to the opposition of German clergy with his work. Often in trouble over his use of Slavonic in liturgy, some claiming he preached heresy; repeatedly cleared of charges. Translated the Bible into the Slavonic languages. Pioneered the use of local and vernacular languages in liturgical settings.

Died 6 April 885 at Moravia (Czechoslovakia).

Also known as:

--Apostle of the Slavs
--Apostle of the Southern Slavs

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Text derived from Patron Saints Index (Cyril; Methodius).

Big G, Little G, What Begins with G....

I got tagged with the letter "G" from Lisa writes, so here are the rules:

If you want to play, leave a comment on this post letting me know and I’ll assign you a letter. You write about ten things you love that begin with your assigned letter, and post it at your place. When people comment on your list, you give them a letter, and the chain will continue.

I have to admit up front that I'm terrible about assigning things like this (you wouldn't think so, since I'm a teacher/tutor...), so my "assignment" to those who are interested in playing the game is going to be a bit different. Instead of my giving you a letter, just select the first letter of your name (first, middle, or last name) and go from there. You may, of course, reinstate the original rules for your own blog.

So, my ten with the letter "G":

Ummm...actually, let me take a detour and mention that I feel like God should be a freebie. I'm not sure I should include Him as an item in a list of "things I love." In fact, each of the items in this list relates back to my love for all things truly beautiful, and since I believe that God is the definition and starting point of beauty, you could say that He's within and beyond this list. Well, how's that for splitting hairs?

Back to the ten. All starting with the letter "G":

1) Gardens -- all gardens in general and English gardens in particular.

2) The Brothers Grimm -- who were early philologists and taught 19th-century scholars the way that myth reflects language development.

3) The "Grey" teas -- Earl and Lady. (It sounds a bit like I'm talking about dog names, doesn't it...?)

4) Greek food -- I didn't know I liked this until I got married, and my husband introduced me to gyros. Well, there's another "g."

5) Gewurtztraminer -- Well, there's no way this list would be complete without the inclusion of some kind of wine. And a good bottle of this particular variety is really good. (The cheap stuff stinks, though.)

6) Globe-trotting -- I love traveling. No surprise there.

7) Being green -- All right, I'm not perfectly green, but my husband and I do what we can to conserve and be good stewards of what God has given us. I dislike the way that the "green" movement has become trendy, but I like the underlying goals.

8) The Gaelic language -- I began studying this several years ago and have fallen in love with the rhythm of the language and the music that derives from it.

9) Mozart's Symphony 40 in G Minor -- (I feel a bit like that woman from Sense and Sensibility: "And what key will you be playing in, Miss Dashwood...F Major?") The Austen book aside, this piece of music is Mozart's truly magnificent "Jupiter" symphony that has become rather ubiquitous due to its role as a cell-phone ring option.

10) Guillem -- As in Sylvie, the prima ballerina assoluta. And her version of the Raymonda variation that truly rocks my world. (See below.)



Some honorable mentions that didn't quite make it into the list above (or that were booted for more interesting or more relevant selections): Great Britain, the Genzano Flower Festival (another ballet), gourmet cooking, the story of St George and the dragon, and Jean-Paul Gaultier's Spring/Summer 2009 Haute Couture collection (if only I had the money...).

Book Review: Dante's Inferno

Dante's Inferno is a must-read.

If you read no other piece of great literature, if you read nothing else that I recommend on this blog, Dante's Inferno is the one book to read. Now, I'm sure that Dante purists would argue that you can't read Inferno without also reading Purgatorio and Paradiso, and I'd agree that the Divine Comedy is a brilliant work that deserves a complete reading. But if there's absolutely nothing else you choose to add to your list, at least let it be Inferno.

This is, simply put, a masterpiece of medieval literature. I have a funny feeling that Dante knew that and accounted himself quite a genius for it, but that being said he does deserve the praise. I first encountered Inferno in my World Literature survey during my sophomore year of college, and after that there was no question in my mind that I would be studying literature. In spite of the looming prospect of writing long papers, I absolutely had to follow the path of the English major. It was something about those opening lines of Inferno that haunted me:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

In the middle of the journey of our life
I came to myself in a dark wood,
where the straight way was lost.

The implication is that Dante has arrived at a crisis in his life. Some scholars suggest that the "dark wood" symbolizes Dante's thoughts of suicide or his arrival at a moral turning point. The poet Virgil (who is himself a resident of the First Circle of hell -- Limbo, or the resting place of the "virtuous pagans") comes to Dante's rescue and takes him on a journey through hell, so that Dante may see the horrors that await those who turn their backs on God. This occurs on the evening just before Good Friday, in the year 1300.

It probably sounds odd to recommend a story in which the main character walks through hell and sees the misery and torment that is there, as sinners are punished for their sins. But Dante manages to combine a rather horrific topic with a degree of sympathy. Never does he mock the sinners; never does he behave with self-righteousness toward them. On occasion, he responds angrily when a sinner mocks him, but his attitude is one of genuine sorrow for those who are suffering eternally -- even when they likely deserve their suffering. Rather ironically, though, Dante isn't afraid to name names: he plops a number of popes in hell, alongside various characters from Greek mythology, meting out to each one the punishment for the sins committed in life. Additionally, Dante brings up a number of Italians who would have figured prominently in his own political and religious experiences. I'm not sure I'd have the boldness to state so clearly that certain people are in hell for their specific sins, but Dante doesn't seem to have a problem with it. He is confident that he can discern between righteousness and unrighteousness, and he has no qualms assigning some people to hell. I suppose this is a part of the medieval mindset that has been lost to the modern world (for good or for bad).

A note on the circles of hell. There is no easy way to describe this, but the diagram to the right should offer some kind of visual. (Click to see it a little larger.) Dante divides hell into nine circles, each circle representing a sin and some circles further divided by degree of sin. Now, I was raised with the idea that "God has no sin meter," so I've always been a bit confused by the idea that some sins will reap a greater punishment in hell, but from a medieval standpoint I can see the logic of this.

1) Virtuous pagans (Limbo) -- not punished but still separated from God
2) Lust -- sinners blown around by a great storm
3) Gluttony -- sinners required to lie trapped in garbage
4) Avaricious and miserly -- sinners forced to push great rocks around
5) Wrathful, sullen, and slothful -- sinners trapped underwater

Now, after the Fifth Circle, there is a divide that indicates a split between Upper Hell and Lower Hell. Upper Hell contains those who have committed passive sins, whereas Lower Hell (enclosed within the city of Dis) contains those who have committed active sins, or deliberately malicious sins against others.

6) Heretics -- sinners are trapped in flaming tombs
7) Violent, who are divided into three rings: (A) thieves and murderers are covered in a river of boiling blood; (B) suicides and profligates are turned into trees that bleed (suicides) and constantly chased by dogs (profligates); (C) blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers are forced to run about on a desert of flaming sand
8) Fraudulent, who are divided into ten "bolgias" (I won't go through all of them) -- all of the fraudulent face truly horrendous punishments
9) Traitors, who are divided into four rings: Caina, Antenora, Ptolomaea, and Judecca

Far from being a lake of burning fire, the Ninth Circle of hell is ice and contains those who have betrayed a special trust, suggesting the coldness of heart that leads to such actions. At the very bottom of hell, in the center, sits Satan who is represented as a massive and massively hideous creature trapped waist-deep in ice. He has three heads and in each of these heads he chews a sinner: Judas, Brutus, and Cassius.

From this point, Dante and Virgil climb out of Hell, and they are preparing for their journey to Purgatory. Inferno ends, as do all three canticas of Divine Comedy, with the words stelle (stars), signifying the need for the need for a metaphorical focus upward, or toward God.

Year of publication: Between 1308 and 1321
Number of pages: 185

Book Review: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reviewing classics such as The Great Gatsby is always a little tricky. I mean, it's a classic: of course, people should read it. It's an excellent book, beautifully written, and full of interpretive possibilities. So, what's my angle for reviewing it?

I guess I'm just going to have to go with the approach of offering my impression of the book from this particular perusal. I read it in college and then again in grad school. I'm reading it yet once more for two of my students who will be studying it in upcoming weeks. I should start by saying that I wouldn't call The Great Gatsby a book that I love. I wouldn't really call this a book to love at all. It's a rather stark look at the kind of human depravity that hides under the veneer of well-bred society, as well as a warning about the materialism that has corrupted American society. So, it has some very depressing overtones. Perhaps I'd call it the kind of book that you appreciate, largely for the quality of the writing and the impact of the story that is being told.

The entire story is narrated by one Nick Carraway, a man from the West (as he claims in the beginning of the book) who has moved East to get into the bonds business during the Roaring Twenties. He moves to a fictional place known as "West Egg" in Long Island, just across from where his wealthy cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom live, in "East Egg." (The Eggs were almost definitely based on the "new money" Great Neck and the "old money" Manhasset Neck in Long Island.)

Nick's next-door neighbor is a mysterious man named Gatsby who personifies the new-money world of West Egg: he is rich and showy, throws big parties to which a variety of rather seedy people come, and is involved in highly questionable business pursuits. Meanwhile in East Egg, Daisy and Tom live in their quiet, perfect, old-money surroundings, horrified at the thought of getting involved with Gatsby's world. But it turns out that there is a connection: Gatsby is Daisy's former love, a soldier who was shipped off to Europe before they could formalize their relationship, and she got so tired of waiting for him that she married Tom and sank happily into her luxurious life. But five years later, Gatsby shows back up, claims to be in love with Daisy still, and firmly believes that she doesn't love Tom. Daisy gets caught up in the romance for a while, but at the end of the day turns her back on Gatsby.

Now, this seems like the right thing to do, and I'd argue most of the time that a woman should stay with her husband, regardless of whether or not she used to love someone else. But at the same time, there are complications. For one, Tom is definitely a worthless slug who cheats on his wife without the slightest sense of guilt (though angered by the thought that she might cheat on him) and who more or less determines that Gatsby will meet the end that he meets. As for Daisy, she's happy to play with Gatsby's heart until she's forced to make some kind of decision, at which point she realizes that she has no intention of walking away from the comfort that she knows. Nick's comment toward the end of the story summarizes Tom and Daisy perfectly:

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess that they made...

What is so frustrating for Nick is that he doesn't entirely like Gatsby, but he finds himself sticking up for the man and essentially becoming his only friend, because everyone else turns their backs on him when he needs friendship the most. In Tom and Daisy's perspective, Gatsby is expendable, disposable. And Nick is disgusted by this.

As for Gatsby's claim that he loves Daisy, I have to admit that this time through I saw it as being entirely superficial, whereas I was more inclined to buy it in the past. This time, however, it struck me that Gatsby is a social-climber, an ambitious man who has never met a challenge he can't overcome. With Daisy, he lost her, so he fixated on her as the one object he had failed to attain. It wasn't so much about winning Daisy (although I'll allow that he probably did retain a degree of infatuation for her) as it was about showing a man like Tom Buchanan -- the swaggering old-money jock (quite literally, it turns out) who saw Gatsby as nothing more than trash -- that he could win over Tom's wife and take her from Tom. (For more on the West/East dichotomy, see here. I can't really find a way to work the discussion into the review, but it is an important part of the story.)

As I mentioned above, this is a classic, so I definitely recommend it. Be forewarned that it isn't a happy story, but it's a powerful one that will leave the reader with a lot to think about. But I really do tend to believe that's the best kind of story, so it's well worth the time spent reading it.

***As a quick endnote, I recommend clicking on the cover of the book above and taking a closer look at the larger image. I'm not really sure what the immediate connection between the cover and the plot is, but Fitzgerald himself approved it, so it's an important bibliographic element of the story.

Year of publication: 1925
Number of pages: 182

Art Study: Tennis at Newport, by George Bellows

I just completed The Great Gatsby, and while it takes place in Long Island as opposed to Newport this painting reminded me of the lifestyle that Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker lead.

Oil on canvas (1919).




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Derived from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Music: Telemann

Fantasias for Solo Violin, from 1735. Violinist: Andrew Manze.

Saint Calendar: Victoria

11 February

North African nobility. Convert in her youth. She refused an arranged marriage to a young nobleman, and on her wedding day she leaped from a window in her parents' house. She sought sanctuary in a nearby church, and there dedicated her life to God.

Arrested during the Eucharist for her faith, her pagan brother, Fortunatianus, tried to intercede with the judge by claiming she was insane; she disproved this by engaging in debate with the judge. The judge, Anulinus, was willing to release her if she agreed to her brother's supervision, but she refused, saying she could obey only God. Anulinus finally, knowing her family, pleaded with her to not throw away her life on what he considered a fantasy; she proclaimed that she was a Christian, that she was loyal to God, and that she had taken part in the Eucharist. Marytred with 45 fellow parishioners; they have long been given as examples to those who are lukewarm in attending Mass. She was noted during her imprisonment for her courage.

Tortured to death in 304 in prison at Albitina, north Africa; relics may be in an ancient sacristy in Rignano, Italy, and/or a chapel in Maria Stein, Ohio.

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Text derived from Patron Saints Index.

Book Review: Heart of Darkness

This week I'm actually reading two of the books that had a major impact on my decision to study literature: Dante's Inferno and Heart of Darkness. I can't really explain what it is about these two books that struck me to the core (and oddly enough -- now that I think about it -- both seem to revolve around a similar topic, i.e. descent into hell or a hellish state). But both were highly influential in driving me toward literature, and I have enjoyed taking the opportunity to read both again: great literature is great because it can be read time and time again, yielding new revelations with each turn of the page.

This definitely the case with Heart of Darkness. Oddly enough, as much as I enjoyed the book the first time through, I'm not sure I fully understand the chronology of the plot. Yes, I picked up on the basic details: Marlow is narrating (through another narrator) a story about his experiences in the Congo and primarily about his encounter with a strangely fascinating and suspiciously diabolical man named Kurtz. This time it all made far more sense (this is perhaps one of the benefits of getting older...), and I absorbed the complexity of the story even more than I did the first time around. What is so amazing about Heart of Darkness is the simultaneous density and compactness of the plot. It's not a long book. All put together, I didn't spend more than three hours on it. And yet every sentence counts. There's not one throw-away word or phrase in there. This is all the more extraordinary because Marlow is talking for the majority of the story, and dialogue tends to develop one of two problems: it's either full of fluff statements ("Well," "you know," and so forth), or it's stilted to the point of sounding unrealistic. Somehow Conrad made it work, so that Marlow actually sounds like he's telling a story to his comrades on the steamer, but that he's not adorning his comments with unnecessary linguistic ornaments.

Now for the plot. Because this is such a ubiquitous story, I'm not sure if I should offer a detailed summary. Perhaps a basic summary would be better, and I found the one below here:

In Conrad's haunting tale, Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, recounts his physical and psychological journey in search of the enigmatic Kurtz. Travelling to the heart of the African continent, he discovers how Kurtz has gained his position of power and influence over the local people. Marlow's struggle to fathom his experience involves him in a radical questioning of not only his own nature and values but the nature and values of his society.

This is basically what the story is about. And yet it's also so much more than can be recounted in a summary. So, this is going to be a rather cheap review, but the best I can say is that everyone should read Heart of Darkness. Bar none. It's that kind of book. And I'm not saying this because I like the book; considering it more carefully, I'm not sure this is a book that one does like. I checked over at Amazon to read the reviews there, and someone else commented that this is a difficult book to like. But I think that's because it's the kind of book that makes an impact by ripping straight into the reader and laying human emotions and motivations bare. There are some classic books that are painful to read and don't necessarily leave the reader with much more to think about than his own onset of depression. (I'd count The Death of Ivan Ilyitch in this group.) Heart of Darkness is definitely painful and perhaps depressing in the short term. But it also has an added motivation to action, the need to avoid the mistakes that Kurtz made and to learn from Marlow's experiences that all humans are capable of great evil and must combat it daily. That's the kind of book I count as a classic, because that's something everyone needs to read and acknowledge.

Year of publication: 1902
Number of pages: 80

Teaser Tuesdays -- The Divine Comedy

This week from Canto XIV, Lines 76-81 of Dante's Inferno. No, I'm not reading it in Italian (perhaps one day), but it seems to me that one can't quote Dante without referencing the original language.

The translated portion below is by John Aitken Carlyle.

Tacendo divenimmo là 've spiccia
fuor de la selva un picciol fiumicello,
lo cui rossore ancor mi raccapriccia.

Quale del Bulicame esce ruscello
che parton poi tra lor le peccatrici,
tal per la rena giù sen giva quello.

In silence we came to where there gushes
Forth from the wood a little rivulet,
The redness of which still makes me shudder.

As from the Bulicame issues a streamlet,
Which the sinful women share amongst themselves:
So this ran down across the sand.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should be Reading.

Poetry Study: Poetry from Doctor Zhivago

Since I just finished Doctor Zhivago, I thought I'd include a poem from the book this week. Printed in the last chapter of the book are several poems attributed to the title character, writes poetry from time to time during his adult life. At the very end of the story, Doctor Zhivago's poetry has been shared with Russia through its publication, just as he has always hoped it would be.

"White Night"

I have visions of a remote time:
A house on the Petersburg side of the Neva;
You, the daughter of a none-too-well-off landed proprietess
(The land being out in the steppes),
Are taking courses -- and were born in Kursk.

You are a darling; you have admirers.
This night you and I
Have made ourselves cozy on your window sill;
We are looking down from this skyscraper of yours.

The street lamps are just like butterflies of gas.
The morning has flicked us with its first chill.
That which I am telling you is so much like
The far-off vistas now plunged in sleep.

You and I are in the grasp
Of precisely that timid devotion to a mystery
Which holds St Petersburg, spread like a panorama
Beyond the unencompassable Neva.

There, far, far among thick-wooded landmarks,
On this night, so vernal and so white,
The nightingales roll and trill their paeans,
Filling with rumbling the city's wooded limits.

Their frenzied trilling surges.
The song of each tiny, dull-hued singer
Stirs rapture and awakens unrest
Deep within each ensorcelled grove.

Night, like a barefoot pilgrim woman,
Is creeping close to the fences as she makes her way there,
And the tracks of our murmurs, which she has eavesdropped,
Trail after her from our window sill.

Amid echoes of these overheard murmurs
The boughs of the apple and cherry trees
Bedeck themselves in whitish blossoms
In the gardens with their rough-hewn palings.

And the trees, themselves white as specters,
Come out on the road jostling and thronging,
Just as if they were waving their farewells
To the white night which has witnessed so very many things.

And the "unencompassable Neva" during the White Nights:

Book Review: Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak

When I was about halfway through Doctor Zhivago, I found this article by author Robert Morgan, entitled "The Wisest Book I Ever Read" -- his memories of reading Doctor Zhivago as a young man. In the article, Morgan comments, "Doctor Zhivago was my first encounter with that special genre, the flawed master work."

And I suddenly realized that's what I couldn't put my finger on about the story.

Yes, Doctor Zhivago is a masterpiece and well worth the praise and awards that it has received. But it is still a flawed masterpiece. Events occur in the story that aren't precipitated by a clear cause; characters come and go, with some appearing rather serendipitously "in the nick of time" when their appearance is just a little too good to be true. (And this isn't an epic, so the "eucatastrophe" doesn't make sense here.) Some events occur that simply don't work in the context of the story, and the character development for some of the primary characters falls a little flat. That being said, this is still a brilliant book, largely because the writing -- even in translation -- is so extraordinary in the details that it offers. The book is divided into seventeen chapters (or rather fourteen chapters, followed by a Conclusion, an Epilogue, and some poems that the title character is supposed to have written). And each chapter is divided into sections, moments in time. This is what makes it a masterpiece. Each little section is exquisite, like a beautifully crafted jewel or a perfectly executed piece of music. In fact, as I read the book I was reminded of a piece of music in which the musician manages to perform each phrase sublimely but never quite joins the phrases properly or fails to provide effective transitions between phrases.

At the same time, this is part of the book's charm. It's unique, slightly incomplete, but so full of heart. Never have I read a piece of literature that breathed such a passion for Russia and its people. I drank it up, page by page, as I read of Yurii Andreievich, the people in his life, and his struggle to adapt to the changing times when he believes that the change isn't necessarily beneficial. There is something about Russian literature that gets to me. The culture, the way of life, the fight for survival in that often-bleak landscape. And the names! My goodness. Those Russian names just sink into my mind and somehow become essential to me (and I'm not even slightly Russian in background). I can't explain it, but I'm probably going to end up with children who have names like Vladimir, Olesya, and Evgenya.

Anywho...Set in the days before, during, and after the Russian Revolution, the plot of Doctor Zhivago follows Yurii Andreievich's life as he develops his personal beliefs about humanity and its purpose in the world. While he supports the goals of the revolutionaries initially (freedom for all, dismantling of a suppressive regime, etc.), he finds that it all becomes pointless after a while, as people lose focus and revolution becomes annihilation for those who disagree.

In a series of events that are not always presaged clearly, his life is slowly pulled apart: he and his family flee Moscow to escape the problems there, but he is unexpectedly drafted into service as a doctor for some local revolutionaries in the countryside and never has a chance to see his family again. (They are deported to Paris.) Meanwhile, he struggles with his love for Larissa (or Lara) Antipova, a woman not his wife and who is the wife of another (but separated from him due to the war). They try to resist their love for each other for some years and eventually succumb to it, only to be separated themselves and never to be reunited. The book actually concludes rather sadly: Yurii dies alone, and the book ends with him never having seen two of his children (one with his wife and one with Lara).

The problems aside, this book draws you in. It is written in such a style that the primary political events in the plot are not announced but rather come upon the reader -- just as they do Yurii, so that the reader is experiencing them alongside him. There are brilliant moments of prose that are nearly poetic, and since it seems like one cannot discuss Doctor Zhivago without mentioning a favorite passage, here is mine, when Yurii overhears a woman singing a folk song:

An old Russian folk song is like water held back by a dam. It looks as if it were still and were no longer flowing, but in its depths it is ceaselessly rushing through the sluice gates and the stillness of its surface is deceptive. By every possible means, by repetitions and similes, the song slows down the gradual unfolding of its theme. Then at some point it suddenly reveals itself and astounds us. That is how the song's sorrowing spirit comes to expression. The song is an insane attempt to stop time by means of its words.

This touches me in ways that I can't really describe, so I'll let it stand without further comment from me.

I highly recommend Doctor Zhivago. It's a powerful story about a life: not always happy, not entirely rewarding, but certainly worth experiencing. I read the translation by Max Hayward and Manya Harari, and I can also recommend it -- it seems to capture the heart of the story as much as one can in English.

Year of publication: 1957
Number of pages: 559

And a sample of Russian folk music, "Ой, да не вечер" ("Oh, it was not evening," or "The Cossacks Dream." I'd gladly put the Russian lyrics up, but I don't know that it would serve much of a purpose here.)

Book Review: Understanding The Lord of the Rings (Essays)

Whew! Fifteen more essays done.

All in all, this was a great review of Tolkien criticism and, in my opinion, lives up to the subtitle of the book: "The Best of Tolkien Criticism." The essays are definitely written in the style of literary criticism, but they all remain very true to the idea of "unpacking" the story. Far from being filled with exotic ideas of feminist interpretations or unexpected findings of post-colonialism, these essays stay close to Tolkien and his story and simply demonstrate for the reader what he was doing. Because the authors of these essays are almost all literature professors or professional writers, they have a unique appreciation for Tolkien's purposes (yes, I'm going to risk referencing "the intentional fallacy...") and are thus able to make connections for readers that might be overlooked but that remain well within Tolkien "orthodoxy."

As noted above, there are fifteen essays in this book, including an essay of introduction that is nevertheless very insightful about Tolkien:

--"Introduction: On the Pleasures of (Reading and Writing) Tolkien Criticism," by Neil D. Isaacs
--"The Dethronement of Power," by C.S. Lewis
--"The Lord of the Hobbits: J.R.R. Tolkien," by Edmund Fuller
--"The Quest Hero," by W.H. Auden
--"Power and Meaning in The Lord of the Rings," by Patricia Meyer Spacks
--"Moral Vision in The Lord of the Rings," by Rose A. Zimbardo
--"Men, Halflings, and Hero Worship," by Marion Zimmer Bradley
--"Tolkien and the Fairy Story," by R.J. Reilly
--"Folktake, Fairy Tale, and the Creation of a Story," by J.S. Ryan
--"Frodo and Aragorn: The Concept of the Hero," by Verlyn Flieger
--"Middle-earth: An Imaginary World," by Paul Kocher
--"Tolkien: Archetype and Word," by Patrick Grant
--"Myth, History, and Time in The Lord of the Rings," by Lionel Basney
--"The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien's Epic," by Jane Chance
--"Another Road to Middle-earth: Jackson's Movie Trilogy," by Tom Shippey

Of these essays listed, I'd like to highlight a couple of them as being well worth the read. Ryan's essay is particularly interesting as a discussion of the fairy story and what it represents. Ryan argues,

The story, more than the essay, is an exploration of the difference between the states of life lived prosaically, life with imagination, and life after death, for, by an intensification of some aspects of earthy life, the individual is translated to a different plance. While for "Leaf [by Niggle]" "one of its sources was a great-limbed poplar tree that...was suddenly lopped and mutilated by its owner," this has surely been transmuted into the "Tree of Tales" which every man of vision can glimpse, even if it is not in his earthly power to give actuality to the leaf which is the testimony to the value of the seed planted in the most arid soil, the soul of "a very ordinary little man."

I'm always fascinated by discussions of the fairy story as a genre, and especially when scholars seek to pursue the study of fairy stories as something other than what we tend to dismiss as "fairy tales." Ryan argues, as did Tolkien and Lewis, that fairy stories/tales offer a way for the reader to see reality even more clearly by stepping outside it briefly. Ryan discusses this more clearly through Tolkien's purposes in The Lord of the Rings, as well as in his story "Leaf by Niggle," and Ryan makes the connection between Tolkien and Coleridge (whom Tolkien apparently admired). This is something of an abstract essay at times, but Ryan does manage to get the point across in several clear passages, so it's a great read.

Flieger's essay is pure brilliance and left me saying, "Wow! I never thought of that!" over and over again. For the record, Flieger is one of my favorite Tolkien scholars; her style is simultaneously complex and accessible, and the tends to elucidate Tolkien like no one else (for me, at least). In the essay "Frodo and Aragorn: The Concept of the Hero," she argues that in The Lord of the Rings Tolkien offers not one heroic character but two (Frodo and Aragorn, obviously), and she goes on to demonstrate how the two characters are necessary as heroes in order for Tolkien to accomplish all that he wanted to do in his story. It is not pure epic or pure elegy: it is both, at the same time, and Frodo and Aragorn are both needed to make this work. She also makes a comment that seems to make so much sense now but smacked me across the forehead when I read it -- Gollum represents the dragon/monster character of medieval literature, just in a different form:

Gollum is a combination, then, of manlike and dragonlike monster. But a monster figure must be defined not just by what he is but by what he does. The function of the monster in medieval narrative is to oppose the hero, to body forth tangibly the evil to be overcome, to be the force against which the hero's strength and courage are tested.

It is typical of what I call Tolkien's modern medievalism that having given his story a monster in the person of Gollum, he chooses for the monster's opponent not the epic hero Aragorn but Frodo, the little man who feels he is not a hero and does not want to be one.

The battle between them is central to the reading of The Lord of the Rings as a modern work in the medieval tradition. For the battle is psychological, not physical, and the battleground is Frodo himself.

I don't think I can contribute much more, so I'll move on.

The third essay that I found to be very worthwhile was Jane Chance's essay on Tolkien's epic. This is a particularly long essay for the book, and it took me some time to get through it, but Chance is an excellent writer and raises some great points. Basically, she is explaining how The Lord of the Rings is a true epic even if it doesn't have all of the qualities of an epic. (She and Flieger share some similarities in this.) She also links it very clearly to The Hobbit, Beowulf, and Tolkien's "Monsters and Critics" essay (very highly recommended reading for anyone studying Beowulf):

As an epic novel The Lord of the Rings constitutes, then, a summa of Tolkien's full development of themes originally enunciated in the Beowulf article and fictionalized later in other works. It was, after all, begun in 1937 -- the same year The Hobbit was published and a year later than the Beowulf article -- and completed in 1949, prior to the publication of many of the fairy stories (1945-67) and the medieval parodies (1945-62). Its medial position in Tolkien's career indicates how he articulated his major ideas generally and comprehensively in this mammoth work before delving into their more specialized aspects in the later fairy-stories and parodies.

At the end of the essay, Chance again comments, "So this epic constitutes a sampler of Tolkienian concepts and forms realized in other works." All in all, this is an excellent essay and certainly worth the time required to complete it.

I realize that these essays are unique to those interested in studying Tolkien further, but if that does happen to strike your interest I recommend the book. Apparently, it's the third in a series edited by Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs. I haven't read the other two, but I'll certainly try to do so should they cross my path.

Year of publication: 2004
Number of pages: 294

Booking Through Thursday: Author Bios

This week's question:

Have you ever been put off an author’s books after reading a biography of them? Or the reverse - a biography has made you love an author more?

As I wrack my brain, I have to admit that I don't think this has ever happened to me -- in either case. Then again, I'm not sure I've actually read too many author bios, and maybe the answer is in there somewhere. I think I like for the wizard to stay behind the curtain.

Well, that wasn't much of an answer, but I was kind of stumped by this question. Of all the authors I love, I can't say for sure that I've read even one biography among them. Maybe I should crack one open. Then again, maybe not. I've never been a big fan of getting TMI.

Literature and Language-Related...Sort Of

I came across these articles today, and I suppose you could say the first one is book-related and the second is more linguistic in focus.

--Why Stephen King is probably now in hiding. I'm assuming he took out an extra life insurance policy before he decided to go on record stating that Stephenie Meyer is a joke of a writer.

--Obscene? Or just unfortunate. Some rather...questionable...names of towns, villages, streets, etc. in the UK. For example, Crapstone. How'd you like to give out that address over the phone? And I thought Hawaiian street names were tough.

Poetry Study: Not What You'd Expect from a Puritan Woman

"The Author to Her Book"
By: Anne Bradstreet

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
The visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array, 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam.
In critic's hands, beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known.
If for thy father askt, say, thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

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I've always loved Bradstreet for the anomaly that she was: an educated woman in a day when women weren't widely educated (at least not very well), a poet, and a devoted wife and mother. Not bad. Her poetry tends to offer a fascinating merging of the various strands of her life -- her theological views, her continued interest in pursuing knowledge, and her domestic responsibilities.

This poem is, I believe, the opening verse in one of her published volumes of poetry. It presents a somewhat self-deprecating introduction to Bradstreet's style, hinting at the struggle that all writers face in simultaneously loving their work and being embarrassed by it.

Music: Mozart's Symphony 41 (K 551), Molto Allegro

Apparently, Woody Allen once claimed that this symphony proved the existence of God and largely because of this movement. Toward the end, Mozart interweaves five melodic lines simultaneously. The human ear can distinguish up to three separate lines of melody at once, but the argument goes that only God can hear all five at once. It's not exactly the most solid theology, but it's an interesting point all the same.

Saint Calendar: Ia

03 February

Irish saint. Sister of Saint Ercus (Euny). Spiritual student of Saint Baricus. Missionary to Cornwall with Saint Fingar, Saint Piala and as many as 777 companions. Legend says that to reach Cornwall, she sailed across the Irish Sea on a leaf. Saint Ives, Cornwall is named for her. Martyr.

Also known as Hia or Ives.

Martyred in 450 at the River Hayle, Cornwall.

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Text derived from Patron Saints Index.

This is a bit shallow, but I selected this one largely because of the name. I've never come across it before and wouldn't even have guessed this could be a name without more details. Ironically, were this name used today, I have a feeling it would always be spelled wrong.

Teaser Tuesday

Courtesy of Should Be Reading.

(I'm always a bit hesitant to get involved in these challenges, largely because I'm afraid I'll begin to feel obligated and then feel bad if I can't get to it during the week; but this one looks like fun, and it won't require much more than a quick post.)

The rules for Teaser Tuesdays:

--Grab your current read.
--Let the book fall open to a random page.
--Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
--You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
--Please avoid spoilers!

My teaser, from Doctor Zhivago:

The books she had just returned were still lying on the counter where he had put his own. They were textbooks of Marxism.

For those who decide to participate in Teaser Tuesdays, be sure to link at Should Be Reading.