The Library Princess

Advert Break

2010-03-01T18:18:00.003Z

We interrupt this blog's coma for an advert break.

If it's jewellery you're after, you should go to LuShae Jewelry. They even have earrings.

Have I been bribed to write this? Hell, yes. Jewellery essentially turns me into Gollum. I'm not going to turn it down. Actually, I was going to turn it down initially, as I was convinced that this freebie must be a scam and somebody would be bound to use my address for identity theft or something. But my husband said it was safe and he knows about The World.

So I got this. It's medievally. I like it.

And I have to say: bizarre as I found being asked to advertise jewellery on my dead blog, I was impressed with the pendant when it came. It's a decent size. It sparkles. It came in a good quality box with a good, substantial chain. I hate it when pendants come with chains that are so fragile I'm frightened to wear them. Or with no chain.

So, yes, I do recommend this site. Some of the jewellery looks a bit tacky on the website but the quality is very good in real life, and I love the design of my pendant. The site provides plenty of information on each item, too, which is important.

This was my review :o)

Goodbye My Lover, Goodbye My Friend

2009-05-30T02:54:00.002+01:00

Despite appearances to the contrary, I am still blogging enthusiastically, if sporadically and in various places. But I think 'The Library Princess' has run its course. Much of what used to go here now goes at 'Candyfloss and Medicine.' I shall copy everything over to my hard disk, and leave the blog up as a sort of monument, but there won't be any new posts.

Thanks to everyone who has commented over the years. Please transfer your bookmarks to 'Candyfloss and Medicine.'

The End.

Still Alive (just)

2009-02-08T16:20:00.001Z

My header's gone. That's... interesting. Will have to chase that one up.

I know, I know, it's been a long time. Busyness and laziness are a deadly combination. I've set myself a target for a blog post (in any blog) per week, and I think that's do-able. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I've finally said goodbye to LJ entirely - Candyfloss and Medicine is now joining its friends on Blogger. Here I am.

Thinky-type posts will resume... sometime.

Memes go around like wake-up calls

2008-08-24T20:36:00.000+01:00

My uncle once: busted his leg in drunken skipping.

Never in my life: have I had unprotected sex. I don't know how people can take that risk.

When I was five: I had an invisible friend called Bella.

High School was: not something I experienced - one of the many reasons I thank God I wasn't born in America.

I will never forget: crouching behind a door in the darkness, listening to John McCusker and Kate Rusby warming up on the fiddle.

Once I met: Matt Le Tis. Whoo.

There's this girl I know: who's afraid of cherries.

Once, at a bar: in Majorca, a guy just came up and asked me if I'd be his girlfriend. A complete stranger. And I was only twelve.

By noon: I'm not always up!

Last night: I ate Indian food.

If only I had: muscal talent.

Next time I go to church: I will try really hard not to be bored or to compare it with the vitality of church in Africa.

What worries me most: *shrugs*

When I turn my head to the right: I hope that it isn't in fact the left.

You know I'm lying when: I just can't hide it in Cheat.

What I miss about the 80s is: my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles jeans.

If I were a character in Shakespeare: please don't let me be Hamlet. Better Malvolio than Hamlet.

By this time next year: I will probably be planning my wedding.

A better name for me would be: Doris the New Forest florist.

I have a hard time understanding: geometry.

If I ever go back to school: I'll have to be a teacher as I'm quite old.

You'll know I like you if: I mock you.

If I ever won an award the first person that I would thank is: my parents.

Take my advice: under no circumstances.

My ideal breakfast is: Coco Pops and a monkey cabaret.

A song I love but do not have: "Let him go, let him tarry..." from the war film The Way to the Stars.

If you visit my hometown: you'll regret it. Though the shopping's not bad.

Why won't people simply: make me Queen of the World?

If you ever spend the night at my house you probably won't get any sleep because: I'll be up all night fidgeting.

I'd stop my wedding for: House, M.D.

The world could do without: mushrooms.

I'd rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: lick the penis of a cockroach.

My favorite blonde is: probably actually light brown. Most blondes seem to be.

Paper Clips are: fun to straighten out.

If I do anything well, it's: talk crap.

I can't help but stand up for: the National Anthem. Jokes.

I cry over: films that aren't even remotely sad.

My advice to my children is: when you're born, come out head first. Saves a whole lot of trouble.

Victorian Governesses

2008-08-24T13:36:00.001+01:00

Celia's latest acquisition is a fully-functioning 1890's governess cart. She naturally intends to use it. Her pony, Dusty, is great with carts, actually. I'm travelling up to Maidenhead in a couple of weeks - we're going to plot some Medieval field maps - so I'll be sure to get a photo of the cart then.

Take a look at this painting by Redgrave:

Says a lot, doesn't it? Painted by a man, of course, but still.

This is by Rebecca Solomon:

It must have been a funny position: above the servants but below the family. Always with the family yet entirely excluded. Aways there and yet invisible. All the labour of a tutor's work without the respect.

Jane Eyre, of course, is about a governess, but, although it's wonderful and I wouldn't change a thing, it isn't the most realistic novel I've ever read. I got a far better insight from Anne Bronte's much-underrated Agnes Grey.

Victorian Ballerinas

2008-08-20T23:48:00.001+01:00

A little picspam:

Credit to rockabillyvixen at Dark Victoria for the images.

And a few observations:

It seems to me that, actual blatant pornography aside, these images are pretty racy by Victorian standards. I've gathered a few photos for a future post which are actually supposed to be erotic, and they're surprisingly similar to these. Of course, the sexualisation of female singers/dancers/actresses is nothing new and is still going on merrily today, along with the sexualisation of just about everything else. But we have, thankfully, lost the idea of women on stage being somehow disreputable and the link with prostitution. Actually, I don't think we have lost it: I think it just slid, along with so much else, into the collective subconscious.

Another thing that struck me was how astonishingly healthy these girls look, in comparison with modern ballerinas. The third one perhaps excepted, these women display the female form in all its curvacous glory. They wouldn't last five minutes in modern ballet.

Natalia Sologub in the title role of Alexei Ratmansky’s Cinderella

I rest my case. I mean, look at her arms. Ech.

So why the change in the ballerina's physique? Is ballet more demanding? If so, why does that mean that ballerinas have to be skeletal as opposed to just having more muscle? Are the male ballet dancers not strong enough to lift a normal-sized woman? Did the Victorians have more respect for the female form? Apparently not, when you look at what some corsets did to people. And yet, isn't that just appreciation for curves with an additional dose of insanity?

I should probably do research. I'm really just thinking on my feet - or my fingers, as the case may be. Check back as research happens.

Rantage

2008-08-19T16:10:00.001+01:00

I'm in the mood for a rant. About homosexuality, or, more accurately, homophobia. Note I used the word 'rant,' not 'debate.' I tend not to express my opinions on this topic in Christian circles too often, because it rapidly spirals into debate. Debate is good, but it's really something I have to be in the mood for. But some things do get on my nerves. It gets on my nerves that people assume because I'm a Christian, I must be homophobic. I understand why they assume that, but it's annoying nonetheless.

When I was in Mozambique, I spent a lot of time with various American missionaries, some of whom really put the 'fun' in 'fundamentalism.' The one who really stands out in my memory is Gary. Gary and I, despite our differences, got on like a house on fire. This is possibly because I tended to do more questioning and listening than talking, but still. Fundamentalists are not bad people, any more than homosexuals or anybody else. Just because I disagree, sometimes quite vehemently, doesn't make anybody evil. Gary was wonderful, in fact. I'd be washing my hands, listening to him sing 'Heart of Worship' as he peed. He would explain to me, so earnestly, all about how the world was 6000 years old and carbon dating was a lie. He thought my accent was some kind of revolution in speech. He and his wife introduced me to the wonders of cinnamon toast. But his opinions did make me sometimes want to weep.

George Bush, he would say, was the greatest Christian president America has ever had. Okay, okay, he would concede, as I related the story of George Bush and "the Israeli and Polystyrene people," he wasn't the greatest public speaker, but he had done things that nobody really knew about. Like what? Well, he would say, "you're probably not going to believe this, but there are some people in America who think that queers should have rights."

At this point I started to praise cinnamon toast very loudly.

I don't know whether homosexuality is right or wrong. I haven't given it tremendous amounts of thought, because I don't really care. I figure that it's my job to love people rather than to judge them. What other people do is between them and God, as far as I'm concerned. What consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes is so spectacularly none of my business. And if it is wrong, who am I to point the finger? Who am I to think less of people? I have been known to nick the odd bit of fudge out of the Pick 'n' Mix; that's wrong. Sometimes I speak in a way that's not respectful and honouring of other people. Sometimes I even do that to make myself look witty. I've got enough to worry about with my own behaviour, without overseeing other people's.

Rant over, I think. I feel better now.

Something rotten...

2008-08-11T19:12:00.000+01:00

... in the state of Facebook.

An Insight

2008-08-06T00:04:00.001+01:00

My friend, Celia, makes driving whips for a living. She keeps them all in the kitchen area. I was staying with her the other week and, one day, I stood admiring one in particular.

"It's Victorian," she said. "What do you think it's made of?"

It was a creamy colour and a little like bone, only more flexible. I had no idea what it was made of so I listed every material I could think of and then gave up.

"I'll give you a clue," said Celia. "Men would present these whips to their betrothed on their engagement."

I pushed images of Victorian S&M as far out of my mind as possible.

The whip turned out to be made out of a bull's penis.

The little joke/coded message there is obvious: "I'm hung like a bull!" says our Victorian gentleman. Good for him. Men never change, do they?

I can't help wondering, though, what the lucky recipient of the bull's-cock-turned-driving-whip would have felt. Amused? Embarrassed? Erotic excitement? Supposing she was a virgin, would it not have been a little terrifying, to be presented with this thing, three feet long, with the unspoken assurance that your intended plans to rip you in half? It's hardly romantic, really.

Damn, blast and bugger

2008-07-30T02:24:00.003+01:00

I was going to type up my journal of my trip to Mozambique. That was meant to be my next post.

However, last week, I put all my favourite belongings in a suitcase and left it on the train. Some things were easily replacable - toiletries, make-up, etc - though I could do without the expense. Some things are harder to replace because of expense or availability: my laptop, my Riverside Chaucer, my Kate Rusby traditional folk sheet music, my phone charger, my camera-to-computer link-up cable. And some things are irreplacable: an 80 page letter from a friend, the music and photos and documents on the laptop, most of my clothes, my beautiful Bible I bought in Johannesburg and, of course, the Mozambique journal. I've phoned every train company and station in the country, nearly, and it seems to have been stolen. So that's that.

The online journal (http://maybemozambique.blogspot.com), for those who have been following it, is going to be inactive for a while. I'm going to leave it open because I anticipate future mission trips. In the mean time, All Things Jesus will be over at St. Pixels, the online church (http://www.stpixels.com). I have a blog there. I'm "Laura Mary" if anyone wants to find me.

This couldn't have come at a worse time. Depression has hit. I'm irritable; I don't want to see anyone or do anything; tasks are impossible; difficulties insurmountable; faith dead; suicide tempting (but not happening); sleep evasive... Blah. I feel very sorry for my family, living with me at the moment. The helpfullest things at the moment are my boyfriend's voice on the end of the phone and distraction, when I can manage it.

Ah well, I still have lots of unfinished, literary-type posts. This place won't go empty.

The Poet's Job

2008-07-23T11:15:00.000+01:00

Two perspectives on "the poet's job:"

"It's the poet's job to figure out what's happening within oneself, to figure out the connection between the self and the world, and to get it down in words that have a certain shape, that have a chance of lasting."
~Galway Kinnell

"But the poet's job is, after all, to translate God's poem... into words."
~Babbette Deutsch

What would you say was "the poet's job?" I'm quite tempted to say, "to write poetry, and hang the rest!" Do you think that the poet has a specific social responsibility? To educate and enlighten? To inspire compassion for others? To comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable? To bring about social improvement, in a Lyrical Ballads kind of way? Is it legitimate to write only for oneself and to publish only for one's ego? And does that effect what you choose to write?

In a puff of smoke...

2008-07-19T15:12:00.001+01:00

... she reappears.

And, not only that, she reappears with photos of her trip: here, here and here.

Once I've typed it up, there will also be a Mozambique journal for your amusement.

I've been back over a week already. Sorry you've not heard from me - I had a month's worth of correspondence and so many little fiddly things to sort out. I was also dealing with culture shock and getting over a stomach infection. I'm okay now, though!

I'm Off

2008-06-11T18:25:00.001+01:00

A quick note to let you know that I won't be posting for at least a month - I'm off to Mozambique! Just in case anyone pops by and wonders if I've died or something.

Reading Much

2008-06-01T01:21:00.007+01:00

One thing I love about the holidays is the sheer unadulterated indulgence of reading for pleasure. I do it lots, when my studies are, for once, not clamouring for my attention instead.

The Medievalists among you may want to check out this review I wrote on one of my other blogs just now. It's my (totally unbiased) opinion on a book by a friend of mine, about East Berkshire from the fifth to twelfth centuries.

But here I wanted to write briefly about a couple of books I've read recently. I reread The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which I first read when I was 11 or 12. I thought it was underrated. I mean, it wasn't a Jane Eyre or a Wuthering Heights, but it was a good enough book in its own right. I think Anne Bronte deserves to have her achievements recognised a bit instead of always being in her sisters' shadow. I can see why Tenant was considered "coarse" and "brutal" at the time it was published, but I think Charlotte Bronte was wrong to call it an "entire mistake." It's controversial for all the right reasons: it highlighted the way in which Victorian women often were trapped and mistreated, by their husbands and by society. A bitter pill for society, no doubt, and little wonder it was shouted down, but I still feel it was a brave thing to write. That said, the book does have flaws. The ending is unsatisfactory and the character of Arthur Huntingdon has awesome potential but is sadly underdeveloped. Yet it was a good read.

I've also, since then, read The Favoured Child by Philippa Gregory, which is the middle installment of the Wideacre trilogy. I need to hunt down Wideacre and Meridon now. I chose The Favoured Child because it's set in my beloved 1790s. There are references to what was going on then, but, knowing the period as I do, I can't help feeling that more could have been made of it. One can tell that The Favoured Child was written earlier in Philippa Gregory's career. I loved it - some great invention - and, yet, I hated it at the same time. Everything was just too awful. It was one catastrophe after another and it turned into a depressing read - so much that I had to put it aside for a few days. It was painful, too painful, and it crossed the line where the empathy wasn't useful or helpful anymore. Plus it was that classic plot device of lots of secrets being kept for no real reason, secrets that only had to be told to make things a whole lot better. That makes me want to scream in frustration. I don't like secrets. I see how they propel a plot, but this was just ridiculous. That said, I enjoyed the little world of Wideacre and I want to know what happens in Meridon. Hopefully baby Sarah will have more luck than her mother and grandmother and pretty much her entire family.

Wish List

2008-05-21T17:01:00.002+01:00

Walking in the footsteps of The Little Professor. Apologies for the haphazard capitalisation, etc - this is pasted from Notepad and was originally just a point of reference for me. I'm too lazy to sort it out.

cds

ted hughes reading poems
sylvia plath reading poems
no, virginia by the dresden dolls
American Doll Posse by Tori Amos

books

the habit of being by flannery o'connor
the dead and the living/the wellspring by sharon olds
i wish someone were waiting for me somewhere by anna gavalda
the microcosm by maureen duffy
journal by katherine mansfield
angel by elizabeth taylor
the bone people by keri hulme
piece by piece by tori amos
Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs
Finding Alice - Melody Carlson
Several Perceptions - Angela Carter
Unholy Ghost - Nell Casey
The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden - Joanne Greenberg
Touched by Madness - Kay Redfield Jamison
Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women - elizabeth wurtzel

band merchandise

Medieval baebes tambourine - http://www.mediaevalbaebes.com/market.html
medieval baebes songbook - http://www.mediaevalbaebes.com/market.html
medieval baebes shopping bag - http://www.mediaevalbaebes.com/market.html
kate rusby shopping bag - http://shopping.katerusby.com/category-19-Canvas_Bags.aspx
the dresden dolls companion - http://www.jsrdirect.com/bands/dresdendolls/

misc

amelie on dvd
cranford on dvd
psaltery
new hard disk

Well Done, Me

2008-05-15T17:41:00.003+01:00

I sorted my blogroll out: deleted a lot of stuff. Go look! It's pretty much limited to friends' blogs, which is probably what a blogroll should be after all. Gosh, I love having free time to sort out all these little niggly things. I'm also in the process of making a new one, Miss Medieval, so I can get all my Medieval stuff together and focussed for next year, when it'll be half my degree, and the year after, when I may well be doing a Medieval Studies MA.

That said, spending pretty much entire days online isn't entirely healthy.

Frustrations

2008-05-14T20:37:00.002+01:00

Hello. Guess what: my exams are finished. Woot. This means I can actually spend some time online and maybe even blog. I must sort out the blogroll here at some point. It's hideously out of date. I need some way to organise it into categories. Maybe I will have several blogrolls. I need a website, but I'd want a decent one and I haven't the know-how to make it.

With my new-found free time, I went to a conference today. It was on the Odyssey, "Homer to Hollywood," connected by video to two academics in Kentucky. You can see the advertisement here. It was really worthwhile but incredibly frustrating, having this fascinating debate going on all around and being unable to participate. Technically I was allowed to speak but it was near impossible. The only people who spoke were lecturers and one PhD student. I did wave my hand in the air tentatively a couple of times but this was either ignored or not noticed. Those who got a word in were the ones who had the confidence to just start talking loudly, quite often over someone who was already talking. I really didn't feel I had the authority to do that.

I also felt that it was sort of assumed that we wouldn't speak. There was just a hint of the academic snobbery that I've found to be quite prevalent in some places, the suggestion that only people with postgraduate degrees ever have thoughts or opinions worth listening to. I actually find that quite offensive. It's rather like the wicked looks you get as an undergraduate if you venture into the British Library and dare to occupy a seat. Nevertheless, the conference did make me think about the Odyssey in new ways and I enjoyed that. I'm going to go on to articulate some of the thoughts I had, things I would liked to have said. Blogging is a tremendous solace, you know, when you feel that no one's remotely interested in what you have to say. You just say it anyway. Who cares if anyone's listening?

Firstly, the weather and the seasons. Odysseus returns to Ithaca in winter and spring comes on as he enacts his revenge and restores order to the kingdom. The significance is obvious but it's an unobtrusive detail in the poem. Why, then, it was asked, does it turn up in pretty much every film of the Odyssey ever made? The simple answer, which Edith Hall said, is that weather's good in films. Doubtless whoever makes the films goes through the poem with a fine toothcomb, looking for things that will work well visually and atmospherically in a film. A discussion ensued about pathetic fallacy, all well and good. But one really vital thing that was left out was how the weather reflects not only the situation but what is happening inside the characters. On a simplistic level, someone did mention Tess of the d'Urbervilles: it rains when she cries, etc. But I was surprised that no one mentioned King Lear. The storm in Lear not only represents Lear's inner turmoil but is instrinsically connected with what it going on both inside Lear and in the kingdom. It is not merely a weather phenomenon: it is a process. The storm rages and calms. The seasons are processes in the same way. So, likewise, when Odysseus returns in the winter, the kingdom is barren, unfruitful and stagnated. The characters there are despairing. The coming of spring is a process, as is the re-establishment of a fruitful, ordered kingdom, the restoration of Odysseus' identity and the return to happiness of his friends and family. That's why it's such an important detail, and that's why film-makers are right to pick up on it. Not necessarily the same as why they do pick up on it, but relevant nonetheless.

Another question discussed was why is the Odyssey so influential to everything afterward, and why is it so culturally ingrained? Edith Hall and Ahuvia Kahane had a nice little argument about whether Joyce was influenced by Homer or Homer by Joyce (in our perceptions, I think he meant), which was quite entertaining to watch. I would argue, though, that it is not the Odyssey itself but its motifs, which are such an integral part of our collective human subconscious and so resurface again and again. These motifs - monsters, journeys, revenge, etc. - even in the quite specific forms that they take in the poem, predate Homer. The Odyssey just happens to be our earliest source for them. The interesting question, though, is why are these motifs a part of the human psyche, across all ages and cultures? I'd really like to put this to the chaps in Kentucky, who were very insightful and knowledgable, but I doubt I could find e-mail addresses. They may well tell me to sod off anyway. I'm only an undergraduate, after all ;o)

In spite of how much I enjoyed much of the seminar's content, I came away fairly disgruntled because of aforementioned frustrations. A friend of mine, who has been having a hard time lately and so is taking it out on anyone who comes within three feet, snapped at me for the fiftieth time today and I'm ashamed to say I snapped back and went off on one of my confrontational rants. After I stomped away fairly childishly and was struggling to deal with my feelings of anger, another frustration resurfaced. As I puzzled over how to express my anger in the least destructive way possible, I started thinking about how society makes it difficult for women to express rage. Anger in a woman is almost a taboo, it seems. Boys, when angry, are expected to have fights in the playground, but what is an angry girl to do? Women have been wrestling with this problem for centuries. I think it's why we have a reputation for bitching. I also think it's why self-injury and eating disorders are so much more common in girls. We turn our anger on ourselves because we have no outlet. Or at least I do.

This women's justice issue got me thinking about the dreadful case linked to on Rachel's blog. Although I'm not an especially ranty feminist type (I have my moments), I do agree that our culture is, to a large degree, a rape-apologist culture which thrives on blaming the victim. This I know from experience. We still have a long way to go for gender equality. Which sucks.

On a completely unrelated note, Julie Carter has just opened a new poetry forum. Looks like it's gonna be good.

NaPo Questions

2008-05-03T17:08:00.002+01:00

1) What made you want to do it?
It's become a yearly tradition. It's fun, in a perverse kind of way. And I like the comeraderie (sp?) of it, "we're all in this together" type thing. More importantly, though, speaking of someone who can go months without writing anything, it forces me to sit down and write.

2) What do you feel you got out of it?
A reassurance that I haven't "lost it" or outgrown writing poetry. And a few good poems-in-the-making.

3) Do you think the poems you produced are necessarily worse what you would normally write?
Some are, simply because they're stuff I would usually destroy but that I post to meet the deadline. But, usually, no.

4) Did it prompt you to write different kinds of poems to the sort you normally write? In what way?
Yes, I tried out the sevenling, because other people were writing them. I discovered a new form and I was happy.

5) Do you feel it goes against any principle of writing poetry, or definition of poetry, or somehow cheapens poetry or anything like that?
I'd never considered it, but, now I do, no.

6) What are you going to do with the poems you've written during the month?
Destroy some, and keep some for when I learn how to revise.

Still Alive

2008-05-02T23:08:00.003+01:00

Just a quick note. It's exam time. Much crazy. Brain fried. NaPo incomplete again, but I was quite pleased with some stuff. I need to redo the links here at some point.

Sublimity

2008-05-02T23:06:00.000+01:00

Discuss the treatment of one of the following topics in relation to a selection of the literature you have studied for this course: domesticity, power, the sublime, morality, emotion, restraint.

In order to discuss the treatment of the sublime, it is necessary first to define the sublime. The concept originated in the first century rhetorical treatise On the Sublime, attributed to Longinus.[1] Kant writes that the sublime “raises the soul above the height of vulgar commonplace.”[2] Blackburn describes it as “great, fearful, noble, calculated to arouse sentiments of pride and majesty, as well as awe and sometimes terror.”[3] While the sublime has been widely discussed over the centuries, particularly in terms of aesthetics, I have chosen to focus primarily on the definition outlined in Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), as it was enormously influential on the concept of the sublime as it was understood in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Ann Batten Cristall’s ‘An Ode’ (1795), Mary Robinson’s ‘Sonnet. To Liberty’ (1806) and Felicia Hemans’ ‘The Rock of Cader Idris’ (1839) typify the sublime according to Burke’s definition.

Burke’s understanding of the sublime is based largely on the idea of terror, on which he put a new emphasis.[4] He writes that one source of the sublime is “whatever is in any sort terrible”[5] because terror is “the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.”[6] Terror is very obviously apparent in ‘The Rock of Cader Idris’ in a number of different ways. The scene itself is terrible, as a “midnight of shadows all fitfully streaming” (line 5). The darkness here heightens the fear, as Burke writes: “To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes.”[7] The visions, the phantoms, are, naturally, very frightening: they are described as “dread beings” (line 13) and their being “unearthly” (line 11) adds to their obscurity and thus their fearfulness. The narrator is very clearly afraid, but, more than that, he is overcome: “a strife was within me of madness and death” (line 16). Yet what typifies the sublime here is a strange enjoyment of this fear: “There was light on my soul, but my heart's blood was chill” (line 24). Terror is likewise apparent in ‘Sonnet. To Liberty,’ though implicitly, with its “tyrant tempest” (line 8) and “sanguinary demons” (line 9), although the subject is a positive one, thus proving how terror is seen in the sublime as to be perversely enjoyed.

Nature is also key both to the sublime and to ‘An Ode,’ ‘Sonnet. To Liberty’ and ‘The Rock of Cader Idris.’ The connection between nature and the sublime was described at length by Burke but established originally in On the Sublime, in which, as Baldick writes, the author “refers to the sublime as a loftiness of thought and feeling in literature, and associates it with terrifyingly impressive natural phenomena such as mountains, volcanoes, storms, and the sea.”[8] Cristall personifies nature and sees it as able to communicate directly with the individual: “strongly Nature's truths conviction bring” (line 9). Nature in this poem communicates on an emotional as well as an intellectual level, as the narrator is taken up in raptures: “Stupendous Nature! rugged, beauteous, wild!” (line 25), and describes himself as “impress'd with awe” (line 26). It is this awe as a human response to nature which characterises the sublime. In ‘The Rock of Cader Idris,’ the narrator’s vision of the phantoms is inextricably linked with his natural surroundings. The phantoms themselves are declared to be “the powers of the wind and the ocean” (line 17), which move like “the sweep of the white-rolling wave” (line 19). Nature is again personified, though interestingly not capitalised this time, and is tied into the sense of a glorious resurrection at the end of the poem: “what new glory all nature invested, / When the sense which gives soul to her beauty was won!” (line 31,32) In ‘Sonnet. To Liberty,’ liberty is seen as inseparable from nature, often wandering “by the billowy deep, / Scatt'ring the sands that bind the level shore” (lines 5,6). Nature is, in fact, the source of liberty, “born in the mountain's solitary crest” (line 2). Both nature and liberty are personified, as nature is described as liberty’s “nurse” (line 3), being that which nurtures it and makes its existence possible. The personification of nature, awe at its grandeur and intellectual engagement with it are, then, significant characteristics of the sublime in these poems.

The sublime, in these poems and in general, also has a strong spiritual element. Weiskel writes that this is because, in the sublime, “spirit and matter are differentiated in principle but not yet in the fact of perception or intuition.”[9] A key example of this is Mary Woolstonecraft. For her, the physical matter of nature, combined with human love, reveals the spiritual, God, as her essay ‘On Poetry’ describes: “Love to man – leads to devotion – grand and sublime images strike the imagination – God is seen in every floating cloud.”[10] As with Woolstonecraft, it is in nature’s “wondrous book” (line 26), that the narrator of ‘An Ode’ is lead to anticipate the spiritual “realm” (line 27) of Heaven. There are strong Christian references also in ‘Sonnet. To Liberty,’ with its “sanguinary demons” (line 9) and apocalyptic expectation: “'Till chaos reigns - and worlds shall be no more!” (line 14). The sublime, then, is both external, in that it is a response to natural surroundings, and internal, in that it is a spiritual and emotional experience.

One of the leading reasons for criticism of the sublime is that it can be seen as selfish and egotistical, focussing purely on the experience of the individual in response to his surroundings. As Jones writes, “The object of feeling, the focus of the ‘sublime’ experience, is dissociated from communal aspirations to become the exponent of personal, often nostalgic, emotion.”[11] However, Helen Maria Williams refuted the view that the sublime is essentially self-absorbed in 1798; she describes sublime meditation as “a tranquil rapture, remote from all that is selfish, or sensual… we forget ourselves, and have scarce a consciousness of existence.”[12] ‘The Rock of Cader Idris’ does seem to be excessively focussed on the self, though: it describes the sublime experience of an individual; tellingly, the first word of the first line is “I,” and the pronoun is repeated eleven times throughout the poem. Nevertheless, the narrators of both ‘Sonnet.To Liberty’ and ‘An Ode’ are far more concerned with society than themselves. ‘Sonnet.To Liberty’ begins “Ah! liberty!” and is focussed throughout on this subject, which was a contemporary social concern in light of the American and French Revolutions. ‘An Ode’ is concerned with the fate of mankind in general, pleading with God to “look with mercy on man's misery” (line 4) and expressing dismay that men “pierce the fraternal breast” (line 18). It is difficult to dismiss this kind of interest in universal human welfare as in any way selfish or immoral.
Returning to Burke’s definition of the sublime, he emphasises the importance of sound: “Sounds have a great power in these as in most other passions.”[13] The sounds heard by the narrator contribute greatly to his terror in ‘The Rock of Cader Idris,’ with the “voice of the mountain-wind, solemn and loud” (line 4) and “wild waves and breezes, that mingled their moan” (line 6). This is also the case with the frightening noises imagined in ‘Sonnet. To Liberty,’ such as “the desolating roar, / That bids the tyrant tempest lash the steep” (line 7, 8) and the animalistic “low’r” of the demons (line 9). The sounds are not only communicated because they are stated; they are recreated in the poems themselves. As Burke writes, “Descriptive poetry operates chiefly by substitution; by the means of sounds, which by custom have the effect of realities.”[14] The motion of the aforementioned “wild waves” is recreated sonically by the alliteration, and all three poems suggest a living, changing natural world with its own rhythms by employing regular rhyme schemes and metrical patterns. Impressions of the sublime, then, are as aural as they are visual.

In conclusion, the sublime as understood by Burke and others can be clearly traced in the three poems discussed. It is such a fascinating concept because, inspired by external stimulus but contained in the mind, it encapsulates so many contradictory ideas. It is pleasure in pain, both the pain of terror and of confronting an object, whether a mountain, a deity or an abstraction such as liberty, which exceeds the human capacities of perception. As Phillips writes, it includes “the sacred and the serious, the transcendent and the aristocratic, the privilege of an ‘incomprehensible darkness’ that reason cannot… dispel.”[15] It is thus supremely flexible, and lends itself to a wide range of subjects, and both to political commentary and aesthetic delight, a capacity of which these three poems take full advantage.

Bibliography

Baldick, Christopher, ‘sublime, the,’ in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Royal Holloway, University of London. 18 February 2008 (http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t56.e938)
Blackburn, Simon, ‘sublime,’ in The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Royal Holloway, University of London. 18 February 2008 (http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t98.e2273)
Burke, Edmund, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 1998).
Cristall, Ann Batten, An Ode [from Poetical Sketches, by Ann Batten Cristall (1795)] (http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk/searchFulltext.do?id=Z300650529&divLevel=3&area=Poetry&DurUrl=Yes&forward=textsFT)
Drabble, Margaret and Stringer, Jenny (eds.), ‘sublime, the,’ in The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Royal Holloway, University of London. 18 February 2008 (http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t54.e5890)
Hemans, Felicia Dorothea Browne, The Rock of Cader Idris [from The Works (1839)] (http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk/searchFulltext.do?id=Z300391418&divLevel=3&area=Poetry&DurUrl=Yes&forward=textsFT)
Jones, Chris, Radical Sensibility: Literature and ideas in the 1790s, (London and New York: Routledge, 1993).
Robinson, Mary, Sonnet to Liberty [from The Poetical Works (1806)] (http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk/searchFulltext.do?id=Z200475849&divLevel=2&area=Poetry&DurUrl=Yes&forward=textsFT)
Weiskel, Thomas, The Romantic Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology of Transcendence, (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1976).

[1] Christopher Baldick, ‘sublime, the,’ in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. (http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t56.e938)
[2] Ibid.
[3] Simon Blackburn, ‘sublime,’ in The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. (http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t98.e2273)
[4] Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer (eds.), ‘sublime, the,’ in The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. (http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t54.e5890)
[5] Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 1998), p. 36.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid., p. 54.
[8] Christopher Baldick, ‘sublime, the,’ in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. (http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t56.e938)
[9] Thomas Weiskel, The Romantic Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology of Transcendence, (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1976), p. 54.
[10] Chris Jones, Radical Sensibility: Literature and ideas in the 1790s, (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 187.
[11] Ibid., p.12.
[12] Ibid., p. 158.
[13] Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, p. 75.
[14] Ibid., p. 150.
[15] Adam Phillips, ‘Introduction’ in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Edmund Burke, p. xxii.

Tea and Cake with Homer

2008-05-02T23:03:00.002+01:00

The Odyssey: Trace the use of type-scenes associated with hospitality and feasting.

“Type-scene” is a term invented by critics to describe what Clarke calls “recurring situations which are narrated according to a more or less fixed pattern”[1] in Homeric epic. These recurring situations are not random, but reoccur because they have a particular thematic significance in the poem. They are not entirely rigid: there is a certain amount of flexibility but it is limited. In Jones’ words, “the poet always keeps to the same order of events though he may choose to omit some.”[2] The minutiae of the poet’s variations on the type-scene in the Odyssey are worthy of inspection because they reveal a great deal about the values of Homeric society and the poem as a whole.

The type-scenes I will be discussing in this essay are concerned with xenia, which is the concept of hospitality. The type-scenes of hospitality in the Odyssey follow the observance of a standard protocol: the guest is greeted, shown in, seated, washed (usually the hands, though sometimes a bath and change of clothes is offered) and served food and drink. Only then is it acceptable for the host to question his guest. A bed for the night is then offered if it is needed. There is likewise a protocol for the guest’s departure: the guest excuses himself, the host urges him to stay but then concedes, a final meal is prepared and then the host gives gifts to the guest before he leaves.[3]

These hospitality sequences are central to the Odyssey. In terms of plot, they provide room for Telemachus to find out what happened to Odysseus, they enable Odysseus to get home and they provide a space for stories to be told, thus enabling flashbacks. They also reveal the attitudes behind the customs, expose a character’s true moral “worth” in how well he abides by them and are fundamental to Telemachus’ education. As Griffin writes, they have both an aesthetic and a moral aspect: Telemachus’ elders demonstrate to him how to behave in Homeric society,[4] as his father has not been around to teach him.

That said, the role of host seems to come very naturally to Telemachus, probably on account of his noble parentage. In one of the poem’s earliest scenes, Athene arrives in disguise and, despite being preoccupied, Telemachus jumps up immediately at the sight of a guest: “He made straight for the outer porch, inwardly vexed that a guest should stand at the door so long.”[5] Despite the inconvenience, Telemachus’ greeting is warm and friendly: “Greeting, friend; you shall be made welcome here; afterwards, when you have had your meal, you shall tell us what service you require.”[6] Telemachus adheres perfectly to the hospitality protocol, in spite of his inexperience: Athene’s hands are washed and she is fed before Telemachus starts to lament his situation or ask her anything.[7] Likewise, when she says she’s going, he asks her to stay for the traditional farewell rites of the final meal and giving of a gift, called a xeinon, to be passed down as an heirloom and symbolise the bond between the families.

The particulars of this hospitality sequence reveal far more than the fact that Telemachus has inherited his father’s sense of decorum. He shows a tremendous thoughtfulness and care for the comfort of his guest, seating her away from the boisterous suitors and seating himself lower in a show of deference.[8] The poet provides a stark contrast between this and the behaviour of the suitors, who ignore both the prince and the guest, seat themselves uninvited and help themselves to food and drink, flouting all conventions. This reflects their disrespectful attitude for which they are so sorely punished towards the end of the poem. Another aspect of hospitality conventions is also revealed. Athene says: “I claim guest-friendship with your family from days long past.”[9] This tells us that these bonds between families, based on xenia, could have been formed generations before. Jones elaborates: “They lose nothing of their hold over the xenoi because of this.”[10]

The second hospitality type-scene in the Odyssey is Telemachus as a guest at Nestor’s palace. This is, again, central to the poem’s themes: it contrasts the disorder of Odysseus’ kingdom in his absence with Nestor’s ideal, well-run kingdom, which is perfect in its hospitality and honours both the gods and the king himself. Telemachus arrives during a sacrifice to Poseidon. Everyone is preoccupied, as they were when Athene arrived at Odysseus’ palace. Yet at the first sight of a guest, the entire party gets ready to welcome him and integrate him into sacrificial feast: they “all flocked towards them with friendly gestures, bidding them be seated.”[11] We see in this scene that hospitality in the Odyssey is integrally linked with honouring the gods. The sacrifice is Athene which follows her flying off is described in exacting detail.

Nestor’s hospitality is indeed impeccable, and a perfect example to Telemachus. He is bathed and dressed by Nestor’s “lovely” daughter.[12] He is seated in the privileged position near Nestor himself and “on soft fleeces.”[13] Nestor tells Telemachus all the relevant information he has about the homecomings of the Trojan heroes, gives him advice and offers his chariot. Like Telemachus himself, he not only obeys the hospitality customs but demonstrates genuine interest in his guest and does everything to ensure his comfort.

Nestor also demonstrates one of the key aspects of Homeric hospitality: personal pride. He won’t hear of Telemachus’ returning to sleep on his ship, saying, “Zeus forbid – and the other deathless gods forbid – that you should go to a ship and away from me, as from some poor unprovided man who had not rugs and blankets enough in his house for guests and himself to sleep softly in.”[14] Zeus is especially important here because one of his names was “Xenios:” he was the patron of guests and supplicants. The Homeric hero was thus under a religious and moral obligation to treat guests and supplicants well.

Telemachus, accompanied by Pesistratus, one of Nestor’s sons, then goes on to stay with Menelaus and another hospitality type-scene ensues. Again, Telemachus arrives at an inconvenient moment, a feast for the wedding of one of Menelaus’ illegitimate sons and the bridal send-off of his daughter Hermione. Menelaus is told of Telemachus’ and Pesistratus’ arrival by Etoeneus, who suggests sending them away, but Menelaus, as a worthy Homeric hero and thus the perfect host, will not hear of it. He is even angered at the suggestion, telling Etoeneus, “You speak with the foolishness of a child.”[15]

The usual hospitality customs follow: the guests receive a bath and new clothes and are told, “When you have had your meal, we will ask you who are.”[16] Menelaus, like Telemachus and Nestor, takes a personal interest in the care of his guests, despite everything else that is going on, and goes beyond what is required of a host. He sees that Telemachus’ and Pesistratus’ horses are fed and stabled and gave them the food “that had been reserved as his own portion,”[17] thus making a personal sacrifice.

This pattern continues at the guests’ departure. Telemachus asks to go and Menelaus consents but, according to custom, asks to host a final meal and collect gifts.[18] He also offers an escort and displays the perfect host’s desire to oblige when he says: “Too much warmness to guests, and too much coldness, are both things that I blame in others. Measure is best in everything; to press departure on one who is loath to go, to hinder it for one who is loath to stay – either thing is as bad as the other.”[19] He offers gifts of horses and a chariot,[20] which Telemachus cannot accept as they are not practical on Ithaca’s landscape.[21] Menelaus is gracious rather than offended, and offers a mixing bowl instead.[22] Helen’s gift, a wedding robe for Telemachus’ future wife,[23] likewise displays the thoughtfulness which characterises the ideal Homeric host.

The hospitality type-scenes in the Odyssey become more varied when we see Odysseus as a guest of the “hypercivilised” Phaeacians. Everything here is done on a larger scale. Menelaus’ palace was grand, but Alcinous’ is magnificent. Odysseus is sat in Alcinous’ favourite son’s glittering chair[24] and, the following day, games and athletic contests are held in his honour. Odysseus impresses the king so much that he is offered his daughter, Nausicaa’s, hand in marriage.[25] The hospitality of the Phaeacians is excessive; even the parting gifts are incredibly lavish. Odysseus is given clothes and gold, amongst others things, by the Phaeacian elders, and everyone in Alcinous’ hall is told to give him a “massive” tripod and cauldron.[26]

Yet, at least initially, there is reluctance in the Phaeacians’ hosting of Odysseus. He is not immediately welcomed in, as Telemachus was, but must put his hands around the queen’s knees in supplication.[27] Even then, Alcinous does not immediately decree that Odysseus should receive the traditional hospitality sequence. This happens at Echenaus’ recommendation, and it is necessary for him to remind the king of the proper way to treat a guest: “It not decent, that a guest should stay sitting upon the ground, in the ashes by the fire.”[28] Alcinous calls an assembly of the elders in order to decide that Odysseus’ request to be returned home should be granted: he does not see it as a duty. Even the games in Odysseus’ honour are marred by Eurylaus’ taunts, and they seem to be more of an opportunity for the Phaeacians to show off than organised for Odysseus’ pleasure. It seems, then, that the Phaeacians, with all their wealth and grandeur, are not as civilised as first appears.

The hospitality sequence of the Phaeacians is starkly contrasted with that of Eumaeus, and the comparison is to Eumaeus’ advantage. Eumaeus is poor, yet his hospitality has all the eagerness which the Phaeacians’ lacked. He ushers in Odysseus, transformed into a humble and fairly unappealing beggar, and calls him “old friend.”[29] When Odysseus later suggests leaving to wander and beg, Eumaeus won’t hear of it and is “much hurt.”[30] Like Menelaus and Nestor, he takes a personal interest in his guest and becomes emotionally involved. Unlike Alcinous, he sees it as his duty to entertain his guest to the best of his ability. He puts down brushwood and his own goat skin coverlet for Odysseus to sit on,[31] and at night he gives him his own cloak and makes his bed by the fire.[32] Eumaeus’ personal sacrifice for the sake of his guest makes his hospitality more valuable. Yet he’s constantly apologising for not being able to offer more.[33] When the other herdsmen come, he tells them to slaughter the best hog on Odysseus’ account. The sacrifice here shows again the inter-relation between hospitality and religious duty in Homeric culture: Eumaeus “did not forget the Deathless Ones, for he was a right-minded man.”[34]

In conclusion, Homer goes to great length to provide variation among these formulaic type-scenes. We see the young, inexperienced but right-minded host amidst a kingdom in turmoil, Telemachus, the older hosts, Nestor and Menelaus, in their ordered and flourishing kingdoms, the luxuriant but reluctant hosts, the Phaeacians, and the humble but affectionate host, Eumaeus. The hosts, and the guests’ experiences, are dramatically affected by the wealth and state of order in their environment. We have also seen how complex and significant a theme hospitality is in the Odyssey, tied into ideas of personal pride and religious duty. These hospitality sequences, and the patterns they provide, are an essential part of the poem’s structure as a narrative.

Bibliography
Fowler, R. (ed.) (2004) The Cambridge Companion to Homer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Griffin, J. (2004) Homer: The Odyssey, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jones P. (1992) Homer’s Odyssey: A Commentary, Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.
Schewring, W. (trans.) (1980) Homer: The Odyssey, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[1] Clarke, “Formulas, metre and type-scenes” in Fowler, The Cambridge Companion to Homer, p.134.
[2] Jones, Homer’s Odyssey: A Commentary, p. 9.
[3] Jones, Homer’s Odyssey: A Commentary, p. 14.
[4] Griffin, Homer: The Odyssey, p. 86.
[5] Schewring, Homer: The Odyssey, p. 4.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid., p. 4-5.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., p. 5.
[10] Jones, Homer’s Odyssey: A Commentary, p. 13.
[11] Schewring, Homer: The Odyssey, p. 23.
[12] Ibid., p. 34.
[13] Ibid., p. 24.
[14] Ibid., p. 31.
[15] Ibid., p. 36.
[16] Ibid., p. 36.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid., p. 179.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid., p. 48.
[21] Ibid., p. 49.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid., p. 180.
[24] Ibid., p. 80.
[25] Ibid., p. 83.
[26]Ibid., p. 154.
[27] Ibid., p. 79.
[28] Ibid., p. 79-80.
[29] Ibid., p. 165.
[30] Ibid., p. 185.
[31] Ibid., p. 166.
[32] Ibid., p. 177.
[33] Ibid., p. 167.
[34] Ibid., p. 174.

Some Suggested Reading

2008-03-28T13:50:00.004Z

This list is actually compiled for a friend of mine, but, hey, it needs to go somewhere and this is as good a place as any. I don't know if anyone else is interested, but she's a fellow Austen fan. This is basically some of the context (1780-1830), focussing especially on the French Revolution and the gothic.

Some Misc. Critical Works:

Abrams, M. H. Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York: Norton, 1971).
Butler, Marilyn, Romantics, Rebels and Revolutionaries: English Literature and Its Background (Oxford University Press, 1981).
Clery, E. J. Women's Gothic from Clara Reeve to Mary Shelley (Manchester: Writers and Their Work, 2000).
Jones, Chris, Radical Sensibility: Literature and Ideas in the 1790s (London, 1993).
McCalman, Ian et al, eds., The Oxford Companion to Romanticism and Revolution (Oxford University Press, 1999). [This is excellent but far too expensive to buy. I don't know if you have any decent libraries near you.]

Influential Women Poets

Ashfield, Andrew, ed., Romantic Women Poets 1770-1838: An Anthology (Manchester University Press, 1995).
Curran, Stuart, ed., The Poems of Charlotte Smith (New York, 1993).
Kelly, Gary, ed., Felicia Hemans, Selected Poems (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2002).
Pascoe, Judith, ed., Mary Robinson: Selected Poems (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2000).
Wu, Duncan, ed., Romantic Women Poets: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997).

There's also that biography of Robinson that I told you about, very readable and enjoyable:
Byrne, Paula, Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson (Suffolk: Harper Perennial, 2005).
And don't forget Ann Radcliffe's The Italian (or similar gothic novel) for Northanger Abbey.

As for the Revolution...
I'd recommend reading some of what was written about it at the time. There's Edmund Burke's famous Reflections on the Revolution in France (1791). And, for the other side of the argument: The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine; Vindication of the Rights of Men by Mary Woolstonecraft and Impartial Reflections on the Present Situation of the Queen of France by a Friend to Humanity by Mary Robinson.
Much of this is online.

Other fantastic web resources:
Romanticism on the Net: http://bbk.ac.uk/english/ac/wrew.htm
University of Virginia e-texts: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu.modeng/modeng0.browse.html
The French Revolution: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/topic_3/welcome.htm
And you'd love The Republic of Pemberley.

Books, though, can be cheaper than you think. There's eBay and Amazon, of course, but also Blackwells and Play.com where you don't have to pay postage (in the UK, at least - I don't know about the US).

Good luck!

Hey

2008-03-27T15:13:00.003Z

I'm afraid this is going to be one of those annoying drop-by-and-say-hey posts. My blogging, like everything else I do, is sporadic. So, yes, I'm still alive. I'm on Easter hols now, and revising my dutiful little socks off for exams whilst watching plentiful daytime TV. I have more essays to post but they're on my laptop which won't have internet for another month or so.

I made yet another blog; this one's for blathering, pointlessness, random crap and keeping up with the friends who use LJ. Here I feel obliged to be intelligent, and on Maybe Mozambique I feel obliged to be spiritual or Africa-related. To be honest, I'll probably set up a Medievalism blog next year as well.

I've set up this year's NaPo thread, fun and games there. But don't expect anything much: I'm not writing ambitiously anymore, just to please myself. And, on that note, I'm out. Will probably post at some point. And tidy this place up a bit in terms of links and stuff. Universal good wishes.

The Fantasy of Being Thin

2008-02-07T03:18:00.000Z

by Kate Harding

Once you’ve really started believing in fat acceptance — as opposed to thinking it sounds nice for other people, but you still need to lose X lbs. before you’ll be acceptable — it can be hard to remember how you thought about these issues before (just as it can be hard to imagine what it would really be like to accept your fat body before you’ve done it). I’ve written several times about how I spent ages in the cognitive dissonance phase, thinking it made perfect sense that the OBESITY CRISIS hype was way overblown, and even if it weren’t, dieting doesn’t work anyway — but still wanting to lose weight, still feeling like I, personally, needed to be a size 10, max, before I could really get started on my fat acceptance journey. The thing is, that memory is almost totally intellectual now; I don’t really recall what it felt like to believe those two contradictory things simultaneously.

But then, the other day, I got to thinking about a particular kind of resistance that shows up every single time anyone dares to say that dieting doesn’t work — the kind that comes from other fat people and amounts to, “DON’T YOU TAKE MY HOPE AWAY!” Those of us in the anti-dieting camp are frequently accused of demoralizing fat people, of sending a cruelly pessimistic message. I’ve never quite gotten my head around that one, since the message we’re sending is that you’re actually allowed to love your fat body instead of hating it, and you can take steps to substantially improve your health without fighting a losing battle with your weight. I’m pretty sure that message is both compassionate and optimistic, not to mention realistic. But there will always be people who hear it as, “I, Kate Harding, am personally condemning you to a lifetime of fatness! There’s no point in trying, fatty! You’re doomed! Mwahahaha!”

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. *headdesk*

And then I started thinking about what it was really like before I’d actually made peace with my body. And what it was really like was this: The Fantasy of Being Thin absolutely dominated my life — even after I’d gotten thin once, found myself just as depressive and scattered and frustrated as always, and then gained all the weight back because, you know, diets don’t work. The reality of being thin didn’t even sink in after all that, because The Fantasy of Being Thin was still far more familiar to me, still what I knew best. I’d spent years and years nurturing that fantasy, and only a couple years as an actual thin person. Reality didn’t have a chance.
We’ve talked a lot here about how being fat shouldn’t stop you from doing the things you’ve always believed you couldn’t do until you were thin. Put on a bathing suit and go waterskiing. Apply for that awesome job you’re just barely qualified for. Ask that hot guy out. Join a gym. Wear a gorgeous dress. All of those concrete things you’ve been putting off? Just fucking do them, now, because this IS your life, happening as we speak.

But exhortations like that don’t take into account magical thinking about thinness, which I suspect — and the quote above suggests — is really quite common. Because, you see, the Fantasy of Being Thin is not just about becoming small enough to be perceived as more acceptable. It is about becoming an entirely different person – one with far more courage, confidence, and luck than the fat you has. It’s not just, “When I’m thin, I’ll look good in a bathing suit”; it’s “When I’m thin, I will be the kind of person who struts down the beach in a bikini, making men weep.” See also:

When I’m thin, I’ll have no trouble finding a partner/reinvigorating my marriage.
When I’m thin, I’ll have the job I’ve always wanted.
When I’m thin, I won’t be depressed anymore.
When I’m thin, I’ll be an adventurous world traveler instead of being freaked out by any country where I don’t speak the language and/or the plumbing is questionable.
When I’m thin, I’ll become really outdoorsy.
When I’m thin, I’ll be more extroverted and charismatic, and thus have more friends than I know what to do with.

Et cetera, et cetera. Those are examples from my personal Fantasy of Being Thin, but I’m sure you’ve got your own. (Please do share in comments!)

In light of that, it’s a lot easier to understand why some people freak out when you say no, really, your chances of losing weight permanently are virtually nil, so you’d be better off focusing on feeling good and enjoying your life as a fat person. To someone fully wrapped up in The Fantasy of Being Thin, that doesn’t just mean, “All the best evidence suggests you will be fat for the rest of your life, but that’s really not a terrible thing.” It means, “You will NEVER be the person you want to be! All the evidence suggests you will never find a satisfying relationship or get a promotion or make more friends or feel confident trying new things!”

So if that’s what you hear when I say, “Diets don’t work,” then yeah, I can see how that would be a major bummer.

Overcoming The Fantasy of Being Thin might be the hardest part of making it all the way into fat acceptance-land. And that might just be why I’d pushed that part of the process out of my memory: it fucking sucked. Because I didn’t just have to accept the size of my thighs; I had to accept who I am, rather than continuing to wait until I magically became the person I’d always imagined being. Ouch.

That is, of course, a pretty normal part of getting older. You start to realize that yeah, this actually is it, and although you can still try enough new things to keep anyone busy for two lifetimes, you’re pretty much stuck with a basic context. There are skills, experiences, and material things you will almost certainly never have, period. It’s a challenge for all of us to understand that accepting this fact of life does not necessarily mean cutting off options or giving up dreams, but simply — as in the proverbial story about the creation of the David — chipping away all that is not you. But for a fat person, it can be even harder, because so many fucking sources encourage us to believe that inside every one of us is “a thin person waiting to get out” — and that thin person is SO MUCH COOLER.

The reality is, I will never be the kind of person who thinks roughing it in Tibet sounds like a hoot; give me a decent hotel in London any day. I will probably never learn to waterski well, or snow ski at all, or do a back handspring. I can be outgoing and charismatic in small doses, but I will always then need time to recharge my batteries with the dogs and a good book; I’ll never be someone with a chock-full social calendar, because I would find that unbearably exhausting. (And no matter how well I’ve learned to fake it — and thus how much this surprises some people who know me — new social situations will most likely always intimidate the crap out of me.) I might learn to speak one foreign language fluently over the course of my life, but probably not five. I will never publish a novel until I finish writing one. I will always have to be aware of my natural tendency toward depression and might always have to medicate it. Smart money says I am never going to chuck city life to buy an alpaca farm or start a new career as a river guide. And my chances of marrying George Clooney are very, very slim.

None of that is because I’m fat. It’s because I’m me.

But when I was invested in The Fantasy of Being Thin, I really believed that changing this one “simple” (ha!) thing would unlock a whole new identity — this totally fabulous, free-spirited, try-anything-once kind of chick who was effortlessly a magnet for interesting people and experiences. And of course, the dark side of that is that being fat then became an excuse not to do much of anything, because it wouldn’t be the real me doing it, so what was the point? If I wouldn’t find the right guy until I was thin, why bother dating? If I wouldn’t have a breakthrough on the novel until I was thin, why bother writing? If I wouldn’t be the life of the party until I was thin, why bother trying to make new friends? If I wouldn’t feel like climbing a mountain until I was thin, why bother traveling at all?

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Accepting my fat really wasn’t the hard part. Accepting my personality — and my many limitations that have jack shit to do with my thighs — was. But oddly enough, once I started to do that, my life became about a zillion times more satisfying. I found the right guy, I took up yoga, I started taking my writing more seriously, I stopped apologizing for taking vacations in the U.S. and Canada instead of somewhere more exotic, etc. And lo and behold, things got a lot more fun around here. The thin person inside me finally got out — it just turned out she was actually a fat person. A reasonably attractive, semi-outgoing fat person who has an open mind and an active imagination but also happens to really like routine and familiarity and quiet time alone.

That was never who I expected to be — it was just always who I was.

So giving up dieting and accepting my body didn’t just mean admitting I would never be thin; it meant admitting I would never be a million things I might have been. (Which, I’m told, is a phenomenon sometimes known as “maturity.”) I am absolutely not one for settling — which is where the confusion about pessimism comes in, I think — but I am one for self-awareness and self-forgiveness. Meaning, there’s a big difference between saying you can’t be anything other than what you are right now, and you don’t have to be anything other than what you are right now. You will probably never be permanently thin, unless you are already, but other than that, the sky’s the limit. You can be anything or anyone you want to be, in theory.

The question is, who do you really want to be, and what are you going to do about it? (Okay, two questions.) The Fantasy of Being Thin is a really convenient excuse for not asking yourself those questions sincerely — and that’s exactly why it’s dangerous. It keeps you from being not only who you are, but who you actually could be, if you worked with what you’ve got. And that person trapped inside you really might be cooler than you are right now.

She’s just not thin.

Maybe Mozambique

2008-02-06T17:00:00.000Z

New blog, mainly God-stuff, focussing on a mission trip to Mozambique I may be going on this summer. Check it out.

Achilles: Mummy's Boy

2008-02-06T16:57:00.000Z

Discuss Mother-Son Relationships in the Iliad.

The mother-son relationships in the Iliad which I have chosen to examine are those between Achilles and Thetis, Andromache and Astynax and Hector and Hecuba. These relationships reveal a great deal about the values concerning motherhood in the world of Homeric epic. The aspects of this on which I have chosen to focus are those concerning maternal duty, the mother’s attitude towards her son, the mother’s identity and the desired behaviour of a son towards his mother.

The Iliad was one of the major pieces of literature to come out of its era and so would have been greatly influential on later Classical societies. Its values would often have been adopted because, in many ways, Homeric heroes and their female relatives served as role models, something to which men and women could aspire. Silk goes as far as to say that Homeric heroes were “not men like us” but were “remote from ordinary humanity” and “mightier.”[1] They were largely a product of Homer’s contemporaries’ belief in the decline of mankind, and their looking back to a so-called “golden age.” A “golden age” is naturally something that one would want to retrieve and so it is likely that the values of the Iliad would have been upheld and the behaviour of its noble characters ideally imitated.

The first aspect of maternal duty in the Iliad which would have been seen as so desirable is the mother’s sympathising with the son in his distress. Women in the Iliad are frequently seen as sorrowful characters, powerless victims of war and sharers in their sons’ troubles. Thetis is a prime example. She is seen weeping[2] and lamenting her son’s ill-fated life[3] in the first book; in the eighteenth she weeps because he will die soon.[4] She does not tell him of Patroclus’ death[5], despite telling him her prophecy about his own:[6] it is almost as if she cannot bear to do so. As Achilles mourns for Patroclus, we see Thetis in her cave mourning for Achilles’ grief.[7] Her words are particularly poignant: “he has / sorrows, and though I go to him I can do nothing to help him.”[8] This tenderness is also evident as, when Achilles is distressed and angry over losing Briseis to Agamemnon, Thetis “came and sat beside him as he wept and stroked him / with her hand.”[9]

Andromache shows a similar sympathy with her son’s plight. When Hector dies, she says: “and the boy is only a baby / who was born to you and me, the unfortunate.”[10] She goes on to enter imaginatively into Astynax’s future sufferings, picturing him having to work hard, begging, with his inherited lands taken away. She is unable to bear the contrast between this unhappy, inglorious existence and his privileged position when his father was alive.[11] She sorrowfully imagines Astynax’s future again at Hector’s funeral: she doubts that he will live to come of age, and pictures him in slavery at the mercy of the Greeks, who will not be inclined to show mercy after his father’s part in the Trojan War.[12]

Maternal duty in the Iliad requires that the mother does not merely passively sympathise with her son’s troubles but seeks to actively help him if she can. Andromache, like Hecuba, is unable to do anything for her son, but Thetis has the advantage of being a goddess and thus having influence over the other gods. Even Thetis is unable to alter her son’s final destiny, but she is tireless in her mission to help him wherever she can. It is she who suggests that she go to Zeus to plead Achilles’ cause,[13] and her eagerness to do so is reflected by her going “early / in the morning.”[14] She also gets armour for Achilles from Hephaestus.[15]

Behaviour of sons towards mothers in the Iliad is, however, more varied. Achilles tends to run to Thetis at the first sign of trouble and cry on her shoulder. After losing Briseis, the first thing he does is go to the beach and “many times stretching forth his hands he called on his mother.”[16] He then complains to her of what has happened[17] and provides a highly detailed, personalised account of events.[18] Later it is to her that he confides his pain at Patroclus’ death.[19] Achilles’ and Thetis’ intimacy is emphasised throughout the poem, but it comes with a sense that Achilles is a little spoilt. He is quick to grow impatient with his mother: “since you know why must I tell you all this?”[20]

Hector’s relationship with Hecuba, though her grief demonstrates that it was deeply loving, seems somehow more formal. He refuses the drink she offers politely, addressing her as “my honoured mother” and excusing himself on religious grounds.[21] This respect is clearly mutual, as she obeys when he tells her to go and make sacrifice to Athene.[22] Obedience between mothers and sons is a complex issue in the Iliad. Hecuba demonstrates that mothers are to obey their adult sons, and yet it is Achilles who obeys Thetis when she tells him to hand over Hector’s body.[23] Thetis, of course, has added authority because she’s a goddess and is acting on Zeus’ command. Thetis’ divinity makes her relationship with Achilles in many ways a special case.

The Iliad also provides models for the ideal mother’s attitudes towards her son. One of the chief characteristics of this is the mother’s putting the son before herself. Thetis is more than willing to humble herself in supplication[24] to Zeus for Achilles’ sake. Andromache’s putting Astynax first is reflected in the structure of her sentences when pleading with Hector. She says: “You have no pity / on your little son, nor on me,”[25] and begs him: “Stay here on the rampart, / that you may not leave your child an orphan, your wife a widow.”[26] In both instances, she refers to Astynax before herself. Another characteristic of the mother’s attitude towards the son in the Iliad is her sense of maternal pride. Thetis’ expressions of this are particularly moving: “the bitterness in this best of child-bearing, / since I gave birth to a son who was without fault and powerful… and I nurtured him, like a tree grown in the pride of the orchard.”[27] This maternal pride is tragic rather than joyful, since the mothers in the Iliad all see their sons killed or left fatherless by the Trojan War.

Finally, I would like to discuss the way in which a woman’s identity in the Iliad is largely based upon her male relatives, including sons. For this reason, a mother is dependent upon her son, even after he has grown up and ceased to be dependent upon her. In a sense, Astynax is so important to Andromache because, after Hector’s death, he is all the family she has. Hecuba describes Hector as “my glory in the town:”[28] the son determines the mother’s social identity, her status, and thus affects her interactions with everyone in her life. Crotty goes so far as to say that the Homeric woman is merely “a part of the warrior’s tragic conception of himself.”[29]

In conclusion, then, sons are an enormously significant part of the lives of the mothers of the Iliad. The sons’ appearance and behaviour affect the mother’s identity and how she is perceived by others. Mothers wholly share in their sons’ difficulties and sorrows, and help practically whenever they can. They have a strong sense of maternal pride and frequently put their sons before themselves. Sons, in return, treat their mothers with affection and respect. This state of affairs in the world of the Iliad gives us an idea of what may have been expected or encouraged in mothers and sons in Classical Greece and Rome, since the Iliad was so fundamental in their canon of literature.

Word Count: 1304

Bibliography

Crotty, K. (1994) The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Lattimore, R. (trans.) (1951) The Iliad of Homer, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Silk, M. (2004) Homer: The Iliad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wilcock, M. (1976) A Companion to the Iliad, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[1] Silk, Homer: The Iliad, p. 62.
[2] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 68. (1.413 )
[3] Ibid. (1.413-8 )
[4] Ibid, p. 377 (18.94-6 )
[5] Ibid, p. 365 (17.409)
[6] Ibid, p.209 (9.410-6)
[7] Ibid, p.376 (18.34-7)
[8] Ibid. (18.61-2 )
[9] Ibid, p. 68 (1.360-1 )
[10] Ibid, p. 448 (22..484-5 )
[11] Ibid. (22.486-507 )
[12] Ibid, p. 494 (24..726-39 )
[13] Ibid, p. 68 (1.419-27 )
[14] Ibid. (1.496-7)
[15] Ibid, p. 378-9 (18.136-44 )
[16] Ibid, p. 68 (1.351 )
[17] Ibid, (1.352-6)
[18] Ibid, p. 69-70 (1.366-412)
[19] Ibid, p. 377 (18.78-93)
[20] Ibid, p. 68 (1.365)
[21] Ibid, p. 160 (6.264-8)
[22] Ibid, p. 160-1 (6.269-312)
[23] Ibid, p. 478-9 (24.137-40)
[24] Ibid, p. 72 (1.500-10 )
[25] Ibid, p. 164 (6.407-8 )
[26] Ibid, p. 164 (6.431-2 )
[27] Ibid, p. 376 (18.54-7 )
[28] Ibid, p. 446 (22.433 )
[29] Crotty, The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, p. 86.

Merchant of Venice: Commentary

2008-02-06T16:51:00.000Z

It is vital, when commenting on this passage, to be aware that it was not meant to be read in silence, but to be performed on the stage. This makes such a difference because characters on a stage literally come to life: they are embodied, close and present. Their positions on the stage are also very important, and so I have drawn a rough sketch of how I imagine this scene:

This highlights how Shylock is alienated from the other characters: he is the only one standing alone, apart from Portia, who has the power over the situation in her role as the judge. This hints at Shylock’s impending humiliation. In her position of power and in the tension of the scene, the playful aspect of Portia’s cross-dressing is lost, as Palfrey notes:[1] unlike Rosalind in As You Like It, she makes no asides about her hidden identity. A closer look at the text itself also reveals how it would sound vocally on the stage, which likewise influences the audience’s impression of the characters. Portia’s speech, beginning “The quality of mercy is not strained…,”[2] is even and measured in tone. This reflects her control, both over herself and over the fates of Antonio and Shylock. Shylock’s words, however, include a caesura in almost every line and frequent exclamations. The fractured intensity of his speech reflects how he is rapidly losing control over both himself and also the situation, though he does not yet realise it.

This passage, and the scene from which it comes, are vital to the play as a whole in terms of symbols. The characters both embody symbols and are themselves, which is unsurprising as Shakespeare wrote at a time between the purely symbolic characters of medieval morality plays and our own often non-symbolic, character-based modern plays. Put simply, Shylock, as the Jew, stands for the Old Testament and for justice: he says “I crave the law,” (4.1.201) and demands the pre-determined punishment and recompense of Antonio’s “pound of flesh” (4.1.227). Portia, on the other hand, stands for the New Testament and for mercy, as she says earlier in the scene: “I stand for sacrifice.” (3.2.57) She understands the law: “There is no power in Venice / Can alter a decree establishéd,” (4.1.213-4) but she requests that Shylock be merciful and accept pecuniary recompense instead. This is linked thematically with God’s mercy to mankind, made possible by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

These themes are reflected in the ubiquitous religious language of Portia’s speech. She describes mercy as like “a gentle rain from heaven” [my italics] (4.1.180): soothing, nourishing, peaceful and essentially divine. Mercy, like Christ, is both “gentle” (4.1.180) and “mightiest,” (4.1.183) and the link is continued with language pertaining to royalty: “it is enthronéd in the heart of kings.” (4.1.189) God himself is mentioned a number of times, as is salvation and prayer. She uses the verb “to bless” in her assertion that it benefits both the giver and the recipient, an argument which is particularly interesting because it almost seems to encourage a selfish motive, rather than a Christian one. Shylock is, after all, a Jew, and so is not to be persuaded by any talk of being Christ-like or indeed any other Christian argument. Portia, it seems, is blind to this: she even tells him: “We do pray for mercy, / and that same prayer should teach us to render / The deeds of mercy.” (4. 1. 195-6) Another failing in Portia’s argument is that she contradicts herself, since she claims that mercy “is not strained” (4.1.179) and yet she has just told Shylock that he “must” (4.1.177) be merciful.

This echoes how, throughout the play, the behaviour of the Christians is far from perfect. It is impossible to comment on this passage without considering what comes so soon afterwards: Shylock is humiliated and forced to convert. This forced conversion not only robs Shylock of his identity, it is ultimately pointless: forced love is not true love, and there is something distressing about disguising humiliation as mercy. This passage is particularly significant in respect to this, as we see Portia steadily getting Shylock’s hopes up: “lawfully by this the Jew may claim / A pound of flesh,” (4.1.226-7) which suggests a certain relish in the cruelty she is planning. Shakespeare was perhaps engaging in social commentary here, subversively likening Portia to the powerful and supposedly Christian state of the time.

That is not to say that Shylock is to be entirely sympathised with here, though there is a kind of perverse heroism in his turning down money for revenge. Shylock’s demanding a pound of Antonio’s flesh is disgusting, yet fascinating, and real dramatic tension is created when it seems that Portia is about to let him have it. This “pound of flesh” is surely symbolic too. Ryan believes that it reflects the concealed nature of the Christians: being near the heart, it is a literal expression of the heartlessness of Venice.[3]

The audience is also prevented from sympathising, at least wholeheartedly, with Shylock in this passage because he is presented as a deeply unpleasant character. One of the great ambiguities in this play is that Shylock is the miserly Jewish stereotype, which was an iconic figure at the time, and a fully rounded character. Palfrey speculates that he may have been dressed as a typical stage Jew, perhaps even wearing a ‘Jew mask.’[4] Shakespeare thus seems to be endorsing that image. Yet he includes these poignant words:

“I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?” (3.1.49-55)

Yet Shylock ensures in the passage that he is not pitied, not only by his demands, but by his being generally difficult to like. He seeks to further his cause by flattering Portia as the judge, calling her a “wise young judge” (4.1.219), a “worthy judge” (4.1.231) and “a Daniel” (4.1. 218), after the Old Testament king who showed great wisdom in his youth. His final speech in this passage is also sickeningly self-righteous in tone: “I charge you, by the law / Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar” (4.1.234).

I would like to conclude by pointing out that the trial scene, of which this passage is part, is actually an alternative ending to the play. As a comedy, The Merchant of Venice is required to have a happy ending, but the final scene seems to me to be almost the ghost of a happy ending as it is far less powerful than this scene. Whether or not the trial scene ends happily depends on one’s point of view, but Shylock’s destruction, cruel as it is, seems necessary to The Merchant of Venice’s ending happily. Shylock is sacrificed to the teleology of the play. Perhaps it is he, after all, who stands for sacrifice.

Word Count: 1195

Bibliography

Greenblatt, S., Cohen, W., Howard, J. E and Maus, K. E. (eds.) The Norton Shakespeare (New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Ltd., 1997).
Palfrey, Simon, Doing Shakespeare, (London: The Arden Shakespeare, 2006).
Ryan, Kiernan, Shakespeare, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002).

[1] Simon Palfrey, Doing Shakespeare, (London: The Arden Shakespeare, 2006), p. 200.
[2] Stephen Greenblatt, Water Cohen, Jean E. Howard, Katharine Eisamann Maus, (eds.) The Norton Shakespeare (New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Ltd., 1997), p. 1132. Subsequent references are to this edition.
[3] Kiernan Ryan, Shakespeare, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 19.
[4] Palfrey, Doing Shakespeare, p. 192.

This one damn near killed me

2008-01-08T15:37:00.001Z

1. Compare the use of at least two of the following sources on at least two texts studied on this course: Boethius; Celtic and French source material; the gospel of Nicodemus; the influence of pagan gods and ideas.

The texts I have chosen to examine for this essay are The Knight’s Tale, Piers Plowman Passus XVIII and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Fitt IV, and the sources are Boethius and The Gospel of Nicodemus. Broadly speaking, Boethius influenced The Knight’s Tale, The Gospel of Nicodemus influenced Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, to a lesser extent, was influenced by both sources. I would argue that Chaucer, Langland and the Gawain-poet used sources from antiquity to engage with ideas as a means of social commentary. Citing such sources, or “auctoritees,” was common practice in medieval debate. Indeed, we are reminded of Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale, in which the merchant cites Seneca and Theofrastus as evidence for the misery of married life. The three aspects of life in the late fourteenth century on which I will base my comparisons of the use of Boethius and The Gospel of Nicodemus on these texts are death, kingship and chivalry, thus proving that the use of these sources was a means of engaging with contemporary issues.

Before comparing the use of these sources on these texts in terms of social commentary, it would be helpful to look briefly at the sources themselves and also to compare their use on the texts more generally.[1] It is unsurprising that Langland chose The Gospel of Nicodemus as a source, since, as Kim writes, it was “one of the most popular and influential of the New Testament apocrypha,”[2] and so would have been widely known. Furthermore, the Gospel was “widely held to be a sacred document, almost equal in authority to the canonical Gospels,”[3] and so would have given greater weight to Langland’s points of view.

Langland’s retelling of the Harrowing of Hell is fairly faithful to the Gospel, but he does make a few alterations. He omits the characters of Karinus and Leucius, two men risen from the dead who narrate the story, presumably because he wishes Piers to see the events in his dream first-hand. He does still use the idea of a resurrected body speaking, though, as immediately after Jesus’ death, Langland provides a brief word of explanation from one of the bodies come out of the graves. Langland also omits the focus on the souls in Hell and their experience: “the golden heat of the sun and a purple and royal light;”[4] the description of Hell itself: “the obscurity of darkness;”[5] and the speech from individual souls in Hell.

In contrast, while many of the ideas within The Knight’s Tale are from Boethius, the story is not. Instead it is based on another source altogether, Boccaccio’s Il Teseida. Plot-wise, it would be Piers Plowman, if anything, which resembles Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae. As Burrow has observed, the Holy Church’s instructing Will through a dream is rather like Philosophia’s instructing Boethius, a style called the “magister and discuplus convention.”[6] In De Consolatione Philosophiae, it is the philosophy rather than the story which is important. The dialogue between the prisoner Boethius and Philosophia, who comforts him with the order of universe and the importance of virtue, is merely a vehicle for Boethius’ assertions of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God who created the world and knows the future. Like The Gospel of Nicodemus, De Consolatione Philosophiae would be a natural choice of source for a medieval writer, as it was one of the principal classics of the Middle Ages. Minnis demonstrates how popular it was: Chaucer translated it into English around 1380, then de Meun translated it into French, and Walton produced a metrical version in 1410. [7]

The influence of De Consolatione Philosophiae on The Knight’s Tale is primarily in the form of ideas. Inspired by Boethius, Chaucer is preoccupied with the concept of fate: Theseus is told that “Fortune” has granted him victory (line 915) and Arcite tells Palamon, “Fortune hath yeven us this adversitee.” (1086) Such personification, indeed deification, of Fate seems strangely at odds with Boethius’ and Chaucer’s Christianity. Boethius’ philosophy also asserts that God knows the future and therefore the future is fixed. Palamon echoes this in lines 1305-6 of The Knight’s Tale: “And writen in the table of atthamaunt / Youre parlement and youre eterne graunte.”[8]

The Gawain-poet also seems to have been familiar with this philosophy, and he comes at it from a new perspective: that our choices affect the workings of fate. The beheading game can be as an extended metaphor for this, since Gawain realises afterwards that Bercilak’s actions were dependent upon his behaviour. For keeping his word, he has been let off the beheading, and he receives the cut in the neck for flinching and not living up to knightly ideal: “At the third thou fayled thore, / And therefore – that tappet a the!” (Fitt IV, line 2355-6).[9] The internal rhyme and abundance of dental sounds beyond the requirements for alliterative verse provide emphasise the aural nature of the text itself and so that, unlike Boethius’ philosophical work, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is plot-focussed, and the poet was as much aiming to entertain as to teach.

One aspect of life in the second half of the fourteenth century which relates to the use of sources on these texts is the outbursts of plague. By 1380, between a third and half of the population had died of the plague. Add to this the numbers killed in the peasants’ revolt of 1381, and it is a wonder that anyone at all survived the fourteenth century! Both Langland and Chaucer used their sources to address theological issues arising from this, but they chose different issues to address.

Langland saw that, as death was ubiquitous at that time, people were obsessive about the afterlife, about salvation and how to achieve it. Within the Christian Church, baptism was the key, but what happened to those who were excluded because of chronology or geography? The “virtuous pagans” of most interest to medieval thinkers were the patriarchs of the Old Testament and the writers of Classical Greece and Rome.[10] One suggestion which was widely accepted was that Jesus went down to Hell to convert all the souls there.

Langland made this, the Harrowing of Hell, the climax of Piers Plowman. There is still confusion within the text, however, as to exactly who is saved. In The Gospel of Nicodemus, the angel says that in Heaven will be Adam and “all his children that are holy and righteous.”[11] This suggests that “virtuous pagans,” who live their lives as best they can without knowing Christ, will be saved. Langland omits this, but he may only be doing so because it is part of Karinus’ and Leucius’ trip to Heaven rather than the Harrowing of Hell. Langland has Jesus say something similar to the Gospel’s angel: “Lo! Here my soule to amendes / For alle synfulle soules, to save tho that ben worthi” (Passus XVIII, lines 328-9).[12] However, Langland’s Jesus does seem to directly contradict himself: on the one hand, He says He will lead out of Hell “Tho [leodes] that I lovede and leved in my comynge,” (Passus XVIII, 403), on the other hand, He says He will have “out of helle alle mennes soules” (Passus XVIII, 373). The issue, then, seems to be unresolved.

Chaucer’s use of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae in The Knight’s Tale as a means of exploring issues arising from the omnipresence of death in his time is very different. For him, it raises the age-old philosophical question of the problem of evil: why does an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God allow bad things to happen? Instead of using his source to explore opposing possibilities as Langland does, Chaucer takes Boethius’ philosophy and puts it in the mouth of his characters. In fact, in some instances it correlates directly. Palamon, like Boethius in De Consolatione Philosophia 1.m5[13], cries out against cruel gods who allow suffering and injustice: “O crueel goddes that governe…What is mankynde moore unto you holde / Than is the sheep that rouketh in the folde?” (1303-8). It is Arcite who provides the answer: evil comes of pursuing happiness through other means than God. In his words, “We seken faste after felicitee, / But we goon wrong ful often, trewely,” (1266-7). Likewise, part of Gawain’s sin in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is that he wears the girdle “to saven himself,” Fitt IV, 2040) instead of relying on God. Theseus provides the rest of the answer in his speech about “The First Moevere of the cause above” (2987) who made the world in harmony: as it says in De Consolatione Philosophiae 4.p6, m6, men must submit to the divine plan for higher good.[14] Chaucer, using a philosophical work as a source, appears much more certain of the answers than Langland.

Another aspect of current affairs in the latter half of the fourteenth century to which the poets used their sources to respond was the monarchy. Richard II reigned from 1367 until 1400, and was deeply unpopular. Brewer writes that he was incapable and capricious,[15] held a “loose and amorous” court[16] and, during the peasants’ revolt, met the peasants, promised a general pardon and then had them all punished.[17] Langland and Chaucer both respond to this and explore the theme of kingship but they do so very differently, and while Langland sticks closely to The Gospel of Nicodemus, Chaucer and the Gawain-poet are independent of Boethius in this respect.

Langland picks up on the Gospel’s portrayal of Christ as the perfect ruler and makes this theme his own. Christ is portrayed as an ideal ruler because, firstly, He is feared by disobedient subjects. The Gospel stages a conversation between Hell and Satan, with the former questioning and the latter acknowledging Christ’s position, as device to explain the situation. Langland makes this livelier and injects the devils’ fear into it. Satan says, “Care and combraunce is comen to us alle!” (Passus XVIII, 267) and “I me soore drede,” (Passus XVIII, 265), while Gobelyn suggests that they flee (Passus XVIII, 300). Like Nicodemus, Langland balances out Jesus’ being feared by the devils with His being loved by people. This is demonstrated with the character of Longeus, or Longinus in the Gospel, the blind man who is forced to wound Jesus on the cross with a spear, and whose name, incidentally, comes from the Greek longkhē, meaning “spear.”[18] Longeus is broken-hearted at wounding Jesus; weeping, he says, “Soore it me athinketh!” (Passus XVIII, 89-91). Langland also develops Jesus’ kingliness by making Him give commands, such as “Dukes of this dymme place, anoon undo thise yates, / That Crist may come in, the Kynges sone of Hevene!” (Passus XVIII, 320-1). Finally, Jesus is the perfect king because He saves His people and is merciful, as He says, “Ac to be merciable to man thane, my kynde it asketh,” (Passus XVIII, 376). This seems somehow less intimate than in the Gospel, where instead Jesus says, “Come unto me, all ye my saints which bear my image,”[19] and seems almost to embrace them. Therefore I would argue that Langland believed that a king, in his superiority, should keep a certain distance from his subjects.

Chaucer examines the idea of kingship without referring back to Boethius, and his portrayal of a king, Theseus, is much more ambiguous and complex than Langland’s portrayal of the ruler Christ. Theseus appears to be the “virtuous pagan” described earlier. He is described as “worthy” Theseus, but I detect a touch of irony there. While has pity on the widows of his enemies in Thebes, the reader cannot help but consider that he is indirectly the cause of their grief. The knight is keen to stress that Creon was a “tirant” (961) and deserved his fate (964), but Chaucer seems more reluctant to endorse him. Chaucer adds the telling detail of Palemon’s and Arcite’s being discovered by pillagers, not by the Greeks looking for their dead, as in Boccaccio’s version. Likewise, the portrayal of King Arthur in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as Gawain returns to court, seems positive: Arthur “kisses” (2492) Gawain on his arrival and “comfortes” him (2513) in his mortification at his own behaviour. Yet as he “laghen loude” (2514) at Gawain’s wearing the girdle as a sign of penance, one cannot help but feel that he fails to empathise. The rulers in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and in The Knight’s Tale, being human, seem more realistic as models. No human ruler could live up to Christ and so using a gospel as a source for an example of ideal kingship, as Langland did, seems to be expecting rather a lot.

One aspect of life in the late fourteenth century which all three poets have used the sources alike to engage with is the notion of chivalry. Chivalry is a specifically Medieval concept and so does not appear in either The Gospel of Nicodemus or De Consolatione Philosophiae explicitly. Chaucer and the Gawain-poet both take the ideas from their sources and update them by placing them in a modern, chivalric setting, and Langland uses chivalric language to describe theological concepts. The verb to “juste” is used four times within eleven lines (Passus XVIII, 16-27); God is described as having “auntrede hymself” (Passus XVIII, 221) and Satan calls Jesus the “champion chivaler, chief knight” (Passus XVIII, 99). Chaucer, the Gawain-poet and Langland also update their sources with the inclusion of notions of chivalry in their work because the chivalric code redefined what it was to be virtuous.

In conclusion, then, I would determine that the Gawain-poet, Chaucer and Langland all combine being educated with being socially and politically aware, which enabled them to apply old texts to modern situations in innovative ways. These innovative ways were all very different, however. Langland retells an apocryphal gospel, unpacking contemporary theological issues within it, bringing out the relevant issues of kingship and colouring the whole thing with the courtly chivalric language of the day. Chaucer retells a story from another source altogether but interweaves the philosophy of Boethius, particularly in how it was relevant to contemporary circumstances, discusses kingship separately and places the whole thing in a courtly, chivalric setting. The Gawain-poet provides another chivalric setting, Arthurian this time, and subtly brings in philosophical ideas from these sources, almost as if trying to escape notice. All three texts, then, are aiming to teach their audience and to encourage them to view their own life circumstances in a more enlightened manner.

Bibliography

Anderson, J. J. (ed.) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, (London: Everyman, 1996).
Benson, L. D. (ed.) The Riverside Chaucer, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
Brewer, D. S. Chaucer, (London: Longmans, 1953).
Burrow, J. A. Medieval Writers and their Work, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Burrow, J. A. Ricardian Poetry: Chaucer, Gower, Langland and the Gawain-Poet, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971).
Cooper, H. Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
James, M. R. The Apocryphal New Testament – Translation and Notes, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924).
Jefferson, B. L. Chaucer and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius, (New York: Haskell House, 1965).
Kim, H. C. (ed.) The Gospel of Nicodemus, (Toronto: The Hunter Rose Company, 1973).
Langland, W. The Vision of Piers Plowman, ed. A. V. C. Schmidt (London: Everyman, 1995).
Minnis, A. ‘Aspects of the Medieval French and English Traditions of the De Consolatione Philosophiae’ in Boethius: His Life, Thought and Influence, ed. Margaret Gibson, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), pp.333-49.
Spearing, A. C. The Gawain-Poet: A Critical Study, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
Vitto, C. L. The Virtuous Pagan in Middle English Literature (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0065-9746%281989%292%3A79%3A5%3C1%3ATVPIME%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V).

[1] H. C. Kim, (ed.) The Gospel of Nicodemus (Toronto: The Hunter Rose Company, 1973), p. 1-2.
[2] Ibid., p. 1.
[3] Ibid., p. 2.
[4] M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), from worksheet.
[5] Ibid.
[6] J. Burrow, Ricardian Poetry (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), p.38.
[7] A. Minnis, “Aspects of the Medieval French and English Traditions of the De Consolatione Philosophiae” in Boethius: His Life, Thought and Influence, ed. Margaret Gibson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), p313.
[8] L. D. Benson, (ed.) The Riverside Chaucer, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Subsequent references are to this edition.
[9] J. J. Anderson, (ed.) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, (London: Everyman, 1996). Subsequent references are to this edition.

[10] C. L. Vitto The Virtuous Pagan in Middle English Literature (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0065-9746%281989%292%3A79%3A5%3C1%3ATVPIME%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V), p. 1.
[11] James, The Apocryphal New Testament, from worksheet.
[12] Langland, W. The Vision of Piers Plowman, ed. A. V. C. Schmidt (London: Everyman, 1995). Subsequent references are to this edition.
[13] B. L. Jefferson, Chaucer and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius, (New York: Haskell House, 1965), p. 131.
[14] Ibid.
[15] J. A. Burrow, Medieval Writers and their Work, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 186.
[16] Ibid., p. 176.
[17] Ibid., p. 58-9.
[18] Kim, (ed.) The Gospel of Nicodemus, p. 4.
[19] James, The Apocryphal New Testament, from worksheet.

Love, Life and Folk

2007-12-31T02:00:00.000Z

I don't think there's going to be time for proper thinky academicky type blog posts this holiday after all, since I'm going back to uni on Friday and I still have acres of work to do. But I shall visit my friends' blogs and I shall do a proper update, if a brief one, rather than just whinging like I did in my last post.

I'm back with my boyfriend from nearly six years ago. His name's Jon; he's nearly 24; he's a programmer for Clara.net. Here we are back in 2002:

Other local news.... I got confirmed a month before Christmas. That was very special. (That sounded sarcastic, wholly unintentional.)

I went to see The Imagined Village, a project - including Billy Bragg, Martin and Eliza Carthy, Benjamin Zephaniah and various people - combining traditional folk and world music for a multicultural Britain in exciting and innovative ways. Benjamin Zephaniah's modern-day rap version of Tam Lin was a little disconcerting at first but their version of Cold Haily Windy Night, dare I say it, trumped even Steeleye Span.

Last term I did a Middle English Poetry course, focusing on The Knight's Tale, Piers Plowman Passus XVIII and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Fitt IV. I also developed a positive obsession with Middle English language and Medieval Literature. And I'm so happy now, I have so much of it to read, should I ever have the leisure. I'm also happy to have found my "niche" in English Literature studies. Everyone seems to have a particular period that they're interested in, and now I have mine. I also started attending Old English Reading Group, reading Anglo Saxon riddles, which I find terribly difficult. It's fun too, though, because we eat biscuits and Jenny is very patient and encouraging.

I have a massive essay to write. Not massive in terms of length, but in terms of work involved, and it's worth 80% of my Middle English Poetry mark, which counts toward my final degree. All scary stuff. Which I guess is why I'm procrastinating by hiding under my duvet and watching House all day.

A Late-Night Case of the Blahs

2007-12-17T23:30:00.000Z

I came home for the holidays this evening. I have been reading Ted Hughes in bed, and am overcome with the urge to write poems. And yet I can’t, and, believe it or not, I am in tears for it. It’s been months and months since I wrote a poem. I’m turning the half-finished modernisation of The Rape of Lucrece that I wrote last year into a play script, and I’m typing out extracts of my thirteen-year-old diaries to be drastically edited and become a Jacqueline Wilson-esque diary-novel. But I only write a little for both projects now and then. Perhaps I’ll finish them, but I’ve realised not much will happen after that.

I am consumed now with a longing for poetry. But I can’t write it anymore, because I know that nothing I write is any good. And nothing I write will be any good because I don’t "get it" somehow. Kind people will take time out to critique and will tell me all the things I need to cut out. But it’s somehow not my poem anymore. My poem, imperfect as it undoubtedly was, was finished, because it reached the level of my comprehension, my "best," as it were, at the time I wrote it. The moment has passed. Any more interference and it’s not mine. I am unable to learn from critique. I am too stupid. And that truly breaks my heart, but there it is. So I have resolved to write only for myself. I will write my bad poems and show them to nobody. I will give birth to my deformed babies and I will love them, and everyone else can fuck off. I really thought I would publish poetry, properly, one day. With adulthood comes reality checks and I am relinquishing that dream, painfully. I seem to be relinquishing lots of dreams. I have traded my imaginary intellectual poet-giant Ted Hughes husband for a computer programmer, who looks anorexic and shares next to none of my interests, but whom I think I love. I am slowly learning to look forward to a more realistic future, though it’s depressingly ordinary.

I am getting old. In one day and ten minutes I shall be twenty, which is half way to forty.
I wonder if anyone reads this anymore. I doubt it. I hardly update often and I’ve been shamefully neglectful of friends’ blogs. I will go through my blogroll this holiday, and write another post with a proper update rather than whining. But it doesn’t really matter. Again, I’m writing for myself. Such egotism! I remember being mortally offended when my mother referred to my writing as a "hobby." Such a trivialising word for what then was my life. Now I guess it is a hobby, really. How depressing. This post is quite depressing. But I shan’t apologise for it. I write for myself. If you don’t like it, there are lots of other sites on the internet.

Ah, blog, I have missed you. Only really time to copy-paste my essays in during term-time. But it isn’t term-time now so I hope to do some proper blogging (and blog-reading/commenting) over the next few weeks, along with much reading and admin and other odds and ends. Not that time is in abundance now! But at uni I seem to have no time at all: it vanishes in a haze of study, extra-curricular stuff and pissing about. As ever, I lament my own lack of discipline and productivity. Another reason why I’m no proper writer. So much time wasted, so much writing and reading and self-selected study I want to do, but don’t, for some reason. And now I really feel motivated to write, and I’ve accidentally left my bloody folder with all my notes at university. I also forgot my pink cardigan, which I am sorely missing.

It’s been too long since I’ve read Hughes. Such force and such beauty and such horror. Amazing. And yet so frustrating: I have poems like that in me. I have a story to tell. I have my own horror. I have a whole mythology. And I have no way of getting any of it onto paper! It’s buried too deep at the moment: I can’t access it. All I have right now is an image of an owl, a furious owl with a bleeding worm in its beak. Nice. Do worms bleed? I wouldn’t be so sadistic as to cut one up and see. Never mind.

I have lots to write about. It’s been months. It’ll have to wait until later, though. I am very sleepy, very sleep-deprived. I can’t talk about sensible things, only the crap that spills from head to fingers to keyboard. My keyboard has a key missing. My fingers are cut and burnt, my hair is greasy, my glasses are broken and scratch the bridge of my nose. I am deeply unattractive, a fact which my vanity will never stop railing against. And my head… well. I stopped taking my meds these last couple of weeks because I was so fed up with the weight gain. Much craziness ensued. Vague memories of talking to a hedge. I’m taking them again over Christmas because if anything goes wrong at home then I’m screwed. In January, I have four options:

1. Take my meds and try to overcome my exercise phobia. Find a way to go to the gym without crying. (Fairly difficult, as I cry just thinking about it.) I hate crying in public. So - problematic, and unpleasant.
2. Try and do without meds. - Fucking scary.
3. Start on lithium, which is the only one which won’t make me gain weight but is also really fucking toxic and can have all sorts of complications. Plus if I overdose I’ve had it, and I do have a bit of a history there. So - dangerous.
4. Take meds, be fat and put up with it. What I’ve been doing so far. - Not working.
Eeee, bed time, I think. Or rather, turn off laptop and attempt sleep time. More later.

Homeric Heroics

2007-12-16T22:05:00.000Z

What are the problems with the term “heroic code?”

Before we can examine the problems with the term “heroic code,” we must first seek a definition. Perhaps this itself is the first problem, as “heroic code” is a complex and multi-faceted term. It describes a series of laws or guidelines for behaviour which are, by definition, unwritten, as they are assumed to be understood by those to whom they apply. This makes it difficult to pinpoint an exact definition. Generally, though, the guidelines of the “heroic code,” concerning what is acceptable and praiseworthy behaviour for the Homeric warrior-kings, are centred on notions of justice and masculinity. The nearest modern equivalent of some aspects of the Homeric code concerning justice would perhaps be our own unwritten codes of what we might call “fair play” or “common decency,” like those written down in the Geneva Convention. Less formalised examples would be “don’t kick a man when he’s down,” or even “don’t kick a man in the balls.”[1]

The “heroic code” is much more complex than this, however, and this complexity can present problems. The Homeric “heroic code” is obsessive about notions of masculinity. This is apparent on examination of the Greek text: as Clarke writes, “The Homeric equivalent to our word ‘heroism’” would be agēnoriē literally meaning “having abundant or excessive manhood.”[2] The antithesis of this in the Iliad is the character of Paris. Not only does he break the code by running off with Menelaus’ wife, his effeminacy is constantly mocked. A key example of this is his duel with Menelaus in Book 3: his exotic dress[3] seems to be linked with his losing the fight.

The “heroic code” is also concerned with piety and reverence for the gods. Agamemnon breaks the code when he insults Chyrses, Apollo’s priest, by refusing to return his daughter. This rejection of a supplication is duly punished with a plague. Diomedes, on the other hand, upholds the code by refusing Sthenelus’ suggestion of retreat in Book 5: not only does he display courage in battle but he honours his commitment to Athene. Silk affirms that the heroic ideology is “celebrated and affirmed by the poem, in that it is what the heroes in general live by, while the poem unquestionably celebrates them.”[4] I disagree that the heroes of the Iliad are always celebrated: Agamemnon, for example, causes all sorts of trouble by refusing to give up Chryseis and then taking Briseis from Achilles. The heroes are only condemned, however, when they break the code, so it is undoubtedly true that the code itself is endorsed by the Iliad.

Several problems with the term “heroic code” are of a temporal nature. In a sense, the term is archaic: the “heroes” to whom it applies are warrior-kings who were obsolete in Homer’s time. They are largely a product of Homer’s contemporaries’ belief in the decline of mankind, and their looking back to a so-called “golden age.” Silk goes so far as to say that the Homeric heroes “are not men like us” but are “remote from ordinary humanity” and “mightier.”[5] Unlike Homer’s contemporaries, “they have the opportunity, the ability and the courage” to risk their lives for glory.[6] While Homer’s contemporaries seem to have aspired to the values of the “heroic code,” it was not something that they had a notion of explicitly. Paradoxically, then, the term “heroic code” is simultaneously archaic and too modern, because it is an invention of modern scholarship.

The term’s being essentially a modern one is deeply problematic because there is a danger of its being interpreted according to modern ideas of heroism. Modern heroism is largely concerned with the “greater good:” it carries connotations of individual sacrifice to benefit other people. The Homeric heroes’ going off to fight the Trojan War clearly does not fit in with this concept: such a war would have had enormous social and economic consequences for all nations involved. It would result in a tremendous number of bereaved families and a plethora of widows and unmarried women, which would later cause a dramatic decrease in population. The Homeric heroes do not fight to benefit others, but rather to gain spoils from war and glory for themselves. As Clarke writes, they are essentially “driven to action by a need for social validation: status, respect, honour in the eyes of other men.”[7] The Homeric “hero” is not a hero is modern terms at all: Clarke describes him as “defined as such by one thing alone: his membership of a specific generation or race of men, belonging at a particular point among the scale of human history.”[8] Perhaps, then, a better name for the “heroic code” would be the “Homeric warrior code.”

To prove this point further, I have chosen three examples from the Iliad, in which a character behaves in a way which would seem to a modern reader to be breaking a code upholding ideals of heroism, but in which the character actually upholds the Homeric “heroic code.”

The first concerns Achilles’ withdrawal from the fighting and his refusal to return until the war is almost over. Although this is not due to cowardice, it seems to the modern reader essentially unheroic because Achilles is willing to allow hundreds of his comrades, and even Patroclus, to die without his intervention. Achilles’ refusal to accept Agamemnon’s bounteous compensation in Book 9 is likewise seen as breaking the “heroic code” by Ajax. Crotty explains that Ajax perceives Achilles to be breaking the aspect of the “heroic code” for which the Greek term is aidōs. Crotty describes aidōs as connected with shame and “the willingness to compromise and to accommodate others.”[9] He writes that it “curbs the individual’s egotistic demand that his merit be acknowledged and rewarded.”[10] This leads us, however, to the perspective from which we see that Achilles, in fact, keeps the “heroic code” in refusing to fight. Homer’s culture was founded on reciprocity, a system of honours and rewards. Achilles agreed to risk his life in someone else’s war in exchange for material and intangible tokens of respect. Agamemnon withheld both of these in his abduction of Achilles’ favourite and “prize,”[11] Briseis, as compensation for his own loss of Chyreis. The word “prize” in Greek is geras: booty publicly allocated and a sign of respect and worth. We can see in Achilles’ reply to Agamemnon’s offer his belief that Agamemnon has broken the code and he, Achilles, is upholding it in his subsequent refusal to co-operate with him: Achilles claims that “there was no gratitude given / for fighting incessantly forever against your enemies,”[12] and so Agamemnon, whom he describes as “wrapped forever in shamelessness,”[13] has “swindle(d)” him.[14] Silk summarises Achilles’ attitude perfectly: he refuses “not out of anti-heroic disaffection with heroic combat itself, but in heroic protest against the dishonour done to him.”[15] Achilles, then, is upholding the “heroic code” without behaving in what a modern reader would describe as a “heroic” manner.

Similarly, in Book 22, Hector’s insistence on duelling with Achilles, in spite of his parents’ pleas may not seem heroic to a modern reader. As Priam says, many people will grieve for Hector’s death, [16] and Priam himself, who has suffered so greatly, will suffer still further.[17] In this light, Hector’s decision seems selfish, and he himself seems cold-hearted. Both Priam’s tearing his hair out and Hecuba’s weeping[18] “could not move the spirit in Hector,” a phrase which, repeated, makes Hector seem even more unfeeling. The fact that Achilles is clearly stated to be more powerful[19] also makes Hector’s decision to fight him seem fairly stupid to a modern reader, but he is actually upholding the Homeric “heroic code.” As Crotty writes, “the code of the warrior” dictates that “whether he is to be victorious or defeated must have no effect on the dedication of his fighting or the intensity of his effort”[20]

Hector’s keeping of the “heroic code” again seems somewhat unheroic to the modern reader in Book 6. Andromache begs Hector not to fight, as he may well leave her a widow, when she’s lost all other family, and her son fatherless. [21] Again, in Andromache’s case, the cost of war is emphasised: her grief in Book 22 takes up over 60 lines. [22] Felson and Slatkin claim that, in this scene, “Homer gives priority to marital devotion over even filial or warrior bonds.”[23] I disagree: although Hector is presented in this scene as the “family man,” he still leaves his family to an uncertain fate and goes off to fight. This proves that, in Homeric warrior society, responsibility to war overrides responsibility to family. Although the thought of Andromache’s suffering after his death “troubles”[24] Hector and his prayer for his son[25] is deeply moving, Hector’s concerns for his family are overridden by the fact that he’d feel “deep shame”[26] if he didn’t fight. To a modern reader, this seems selfish, but in terms of the “heroic code,” it would be seen as noble. Crotty writes that this shame, aidōs, was a social pressure, “intended to ensure that members of the warrior society behave in accordance with that society’s codes.”[27]

Another instance of the inadequacy of the word “heroic” to describe the code because of its modern interpretation lies in the fact that heroism can be displayed by women just as much as men, and yet the “heroic code” applies only to men. It is thus extremely limited, as it applies generally only to a war situation and excludes not only women but the gods also, who live according to their own rules. Women are portrayed in Homer primarily as victims of war, as with the grief of Hecuba and Andromache in Book 22, and with Briseis’ lament for Patroclus, in which she recounts losing three brothers and her husband.[28] As Crotty writes, women are “powerless”[29] in the face of war. They share the greatest intimacy with the Homeric warriors because they do not present competition. The Homeric woman is merely “a part of the warrior’s tragic conception of himself.”[30] Andromache, for example, exists in the Iliad only in respect of how she relates to Hector: she is described in Book 6 as “his perfect wife.”[31] The nearest the Homeric woman gets to a “heroic code” is a code concerning notions of honour and fidelity. Fundamental to this is the character of Helen: she has transgressed this code in running of with Paris. Attitudes to her in later Greek writers are varied but treatment of her in the Iliad is surprisingly positive. Her behaviour is certainly not condoned but the reader is encouraged to join with Priam in blaming the gods[32] and she is portrayed as suitably repentant: she misses Menelaus,[33] reproaches herself[34] and calls herself a “slut.”[35] In Book 24, she declares: “I should have died before I came with (Paris).”[36] When Aphrodite calls her to sleep with him, she says it would be “too shameful”[37] (though she does, for fear of Aphrodite’s anger[38]). It is clear, then, that although women in the Iliad have their own codes of behaviour to keep to, they are excluded from the “heroic code,” which renders the term confusing to a modern reader, since women are as capable of heroism as men are.

My final problem with the term “heroic code” lies not in its name but in the concept it describes. This code of behaviour amongst the Homeric warriors, because it is unwritten and essentially undefined, is subject to interpretation: even within the Homeric definition of “heroic,” one man’s keeping it is another man’s breaking it. I have chosen two examples from the Iliad to demonstrate this.

The first concerns Achilles’ treatment of Hector’s corpse. The importance of the corpse in Homeric epic is apparent in the Iliad in Book 16, when Sarpedon’s corpse is teleported home, and in the effort made by Aphrodite and Apollo to protect and preserve Hector’s corpse. Achilles’ dragging the corpse behind his chariot, both in public and privately, is the greatest dishonour that Achilles can do to Hector and would have been seen by some as a breakage of the “heroic code.” Yet Achilles sees himself as keeping the code because it is his act of revenge for Patroclus’ death and therefore, in his eyes, a means of honouring his friend. We see this in Achilles’ speech in Book 23:

“All that I promised you in time past I am accomplishing,
that I would drag Hector here and give him to the dogs to feed on
and before your burning pyre to behead twelve glorious
children of the Trojans for my anger over your slaying.”[39]

A similar dual interpretation of the “heroic code” is possible in Book 10 with Diomedes’ and Odyseeus’ treatment of Dolon. Odysseus tells an implied lie with “let no thought of death be upon you,”[40] and Diomedes decapitates Dolon in the act of supplicating him.[41] Such behaviour seems in direct opposition to the values of the “heroic code,” and yet several devices are employed to soften this and even to present Diomedes and Odysseus as upholding the code. Dolon himself is portrayed as distinctly unattractive and unheroic: he begs to be spared and ransomed;[42] he betrays his comrades by providing information;[43] and he is described as physically ugly,[44] which is significant because the Greeks equated good looks with virtue. His fear of death is also emphasised, in such a manner as to inspire disdain rather than pathos:

“And Dolon stood still in terror
gibbering, as though through his mouth came the sound of his teeth’s chatter
in green fear.”[45]

It is also explicitly stated that Dolon’s death is necessary: Diomedes and Odysseus cannot risk leaving him alive if they are to prevent endangering their own men.[46]

In conclusion, then, the term “heroic code” is deeply problematic. This is partly due to the complex nature of the code itself, and the fact that it is assumed to be generally understood by those to whom it applies, rather than being written down. For this reason, it is extremely subjective. This subjectivity is rendered much more difficult by the application of the word “heroic” to describe the code, because the code can easily become confused with modern ideas of heroism. A modern understanding of heroism is centred on individual sacrifice for the benefit of others, which is different to and less complex than the system of values on which Homeric warrior society is based, and it is also more inclusive. Anybody can be heroic by the modern definition, while the Homeric “heroes” were a specific group of people. For this reason, I would like to repeat my suggestion that many of the problems with the term “heroic code” could be overcome if we replaced it with the term “Homeric warrior code.”

Bibliography

Crotty, K. (1994) The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Emilyn-Jones, C., Hardwick, L. and Purkis, J. (1999) Homer: Readings and Images, London: Gerald Duckworth and Co.
Fowler, R. (ed.) (2004) The Cambridge Companion to Homer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lattimore, R. (trans.) (1951) The Iliad of Homer, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Silk, M. (2004) Homer: The Iliad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[1] James Templeman, in conversation.
[2] Clarke, “Manhood and Heroism” in Fowler, The Cambridge Companion to Homer, p. 80.
[3] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 109. (Book 3, lines 330-7)
[4] Silk, Homer: The Iliad, p. 84.
[5] Silk, Homer: The Iliad, p. 62.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Clarke, “Manhood and Heroism” in Fowler, The Cambridge Companion to Homer, p. 77.
[8] Clarke, “Manhood and Heroism” in Fowler, The Cambridge Companion to Homer, p. 78.
[9] Crotty, The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, p. 33.
[10] Crotty, The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, p. 33.
[11] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p.64. (Book 1, line 185)
[12] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p.206. (Book 9, line 316, 317)
[13] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 208. (Book 9, line 372)
[14] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 208. (Book 9, line 371)
[15] Silk, Homer: The Iliad, p. 62.
[16] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 436. (Book 22, line 54, 55)
[17] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 436-7. (Book 22, lines 59-65)
[18] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 437. (Book 22, lines 77-81)
[19] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 436. (Book 22, line 40)
[20] Crotty, The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, p. 42.
[21] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 164. (Book 6, lines 404-39)
[22] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 447-449. (Book 22, lines 451-515)
[23] Felson and Slatkin, “Gender and Homeric Epic” in Fowler, The Cambridge Companion to Homer, p. 100.
[24] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 165. (Book 6, line 454)
[25] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 165-6. (Book 6, lines 476-81)
[26] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 165. (Book 6, line 441)
[27] Crotty, The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, p. 30.
[28] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 400. (Book 19, lines 291-4)
[29] Crotty, The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, p. 86.
[30] Crotty, The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, p. 86.
[31] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 163. (Book 6, line 162)
[32] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 104. (Book 3, line 164, 165)
[33] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 104. (Book 3, lines 139-40)
[34] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 104-5. (Book 3, lines 172-6)
[35] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 105. (Book 3, line 180)
[36] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 495. (Book 24, line 764)
[37] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 111. (Book 3, line 410)
[38] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 111. (Book 3, line 418)
[39] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 450. (Book 23, lines 20-24)
[40] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 228. (Book 10, lines 383)
[41] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 230. (Book 10, lines 454-7)
[42] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 228. (Book 10, lines 378-81)
[43] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 229-30. (Book 10, lines 412-445)
[44] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 226. (Book 10, line 316)
[45] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 228. (Book 10, lines 374-6)
[46] Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, p. 230. (Book 10, lines 449-53)

Executive Transvestites

2007-11-21T12:14:00.000Z

“What shall I call thee when thou art a man?” (As You Like It)
How fixed is identity in the plays?

The two plays I have chosen to discuss in relation to this question are As You Like It and Twelfth Night. These two plays have some striking similarities in terms of plot, both exploring identity and its fluidity in terms of gender with cross-dressing heroines, and more generally with other disguises, such as Celia as Aliena in As You Like It and Feste as Sir Topas in Twelfth Night. This is reflected in terms of the play’s titles: Twelfth Night’s alternate title is What You Will, meaning essentially the same as As You Like It. Both As You Like It and What You Will place emphasis on the identity of the individual “you” and the idea of choice, which can be read as a sense of control over the altering of one’s own self.

Gender is fundamental to an individual’s identity, and the cross-dressing heroines of both plays guarantee that this is by no means fixed. As Howard writes, this transvestitism “makes problematic how natural are the gender distinctions that supposedly separate man from woman.”[1] This is complicated further by the fact that, in Elizabethan theatre, female characters were played by boys. Gender distinctions blur still further in As You Like It, Howard explains: in the 1590s, Shakespeare wrote four plays featuring cross-dressing women: Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Of these, Rosalind’s case is “arguably the most complicated”[2] because she’s Rosalind pretending to be Ganymede pretending to be Rosalind. “A woman disguised as a man thus makes her own identity into a fiction she performs!”[3]

This transformation of identity achieved through transcendence of gender has both advantages and disadvantages for Rosalind and Viola. It appears at first glance that Viola’s transvestitism is painful and Rosalind’s joyful, but the situation is actually far more complicated than that. Both adopt “the privileges as well as the dress of the supposedly superior sex”[4] but they are paralysed as well as freed by their new identities. They are left unable to speak their true feelings, other than in equivocation or asides, and are prevented from pursuing their own romantic interests. For Viola this is doubly hard, as she is forced to court another woman on behalf of the man she loves. Nevertheless, particularly in As You Like It, there is an atmosphere of adventure, of venturing into new territory in terms of selfhood. As Palfrey writes, disguise enables characters to “more fully realise their own possibilities and more faithfully express their ‘true selves.’”[5]

There is danger in this, however: identity can become so fluid that characters can become confused as to who they actually are, or can seem to become the persona they enact. As Viola says, “I am not what I am.” (3.1.129-135) Palfrey writes that disguise can make it difficult to define “where a particular character begins and ends.”[6] The boundaries between self and other, between the true identity and assumed disguise, merge. For this reason, disguise is “a challenge to the very idea of coherent individuality.”[7] Shakespeare’s exploration of disguise in terms of identity is fuelled by the possibility, in Malcolmson’s words, “that external forms can determine internal states;”[8] or, put more simply by Howard, “clothes here make the man – or woman.”[9] It is perhaps no accident then, that when Viola asks the Captain to help her dress as a man, her words “Conceal me what I am” (1.2.49) sound more like “Conceal from me what I am.”

In this case, then identity is both fixed and not fixed: the individual in disguise seems almost to split into two. For Viola, this also is extremely painful. She calls herself “poor monster” (2.2.32) because she has become, effectively, both male and female:

“As I am man,
My state is desperate for my master’s love.
As I am woman, now, alas the day,
What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!” (2.2.34-7, my italics)

Shakespeare explores this further in Twelfth Night through the phenomenon of male and female twins. In the final scene, in which the twins confront one another while Viola is still dressed as Cesario, Shakespeare forces the audience to see this duality of self visually. As Orsino remarks:

“One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons,
A natural perspective that is and is not” (5.1.208-9)

Shakespeare deliberately drags this out, as the twins grope through their family history in order to place themselves. (5.1.208-256) Shakespeare demonstrates then, that identity is only fluid to a certain degree, and experimentation comes at a cost.

The characters in Twelfth Night and As You Like It who adopt transvestite disguises experiment not only with their own identities but with those of other characters, particularly those with whom they are romantically involved. This is because identity is inseparable from sexuality. Shakespeare highlights this to his audience in As You Like It with Rosalind’s choice of name. Ganymede was a boy desired by Jupiter and taken to Mount Olympus to be his cupbearer and so, as Howard writes, the name “had long-standing associations with homo-erotic love.”[10] In the final scene, though, “Rosalind reassumes her female clothes and Ganymede disappears,”[11] and so the play ends with the traditional union of man and woman – except, of course, that on the Elizabethan stage, Rosalind was played by a boy. For Viola and Orsino, this is even more subversive: Viola does not change her clothes and Orsino continues to call her Cesario. Both Olivia in Twelfth Night and Phoebe in As You Like It pursue women in disguise as men, and as Howard writes, it is unclear whether each desires “the man she thinks she sees or the woman beneath.”[12] However, we must remember that “in the early modern period, people were not assumed, as they often are today, to have a fixed sexual identity,”[13] to be heterosexual or homosexual, so these homosexual overtones are not perhaps so significant in terms of identity as they would be in a modern play.

Of course, identity is multi-faceted and does not rely purely on gender or sexuality. It is also worth exploring its fluidity in terms of status. Social mobility is something of which Shakespeare would have been acutely aware: between 1500 and 1700, the population doubled but the upper classes trebled.[14] Perhaps the fullest examination of this lies in the character of Malvolio. His fantasies are of power, extravagance and fulfillment of lust: he imagines himself: “sitting in (his) state” in a “branched velvet gown” whilst “having come from a day-bed where (he has) left Olivia sleeping.” (2.5.39-44) All this starkly demonstrates his Puritanical hypocrisy, for which he is punished and humiliated. This would seem to suggest that, in Shakespeare’s plays, status is fixed, and aspiration is condemned. However, closer examination reveals that this is not the case. Olivia would have married the servant Cesario. Shakespeare himself was socially mobile: as Greenblatt reminds us, he was the son of a glover, who acquired a coat of arms and second largest house in Stratford.[15] As Malcolmson writes, it is not Malvolio’s ambition which is punished, but rather his “desire to establish his superiority and to impose his will on others.”[16]

In conclusion, then, Shakespeare’s love of experimentation with identity as a concept is ubiquitous in these two plays. Both plots are essentially based on cross-gender disguises, and Twelfth Night is also full of mistaken identities used for comic purposes. This fluidity of identity is not complete, however: it leads to a fractioning of the self, confusion and heartache in general. This is not only the case for Viola: Celia’s choice of a name, Aliena, reflects her sense of alienation, functioning in a society without a fixed identity. Experimentation with gender identity leads to experimentation with sexual identity, which can be both exciting and confusing. The self in these plays can be warped and explored, but it cannot ultimately be escaped.

Bibliography
Callaghan, D. ‘And all is semblative a woman’s part:’ Body Politics and Twelfth Night in White, R. S. (ed.) Twelfth Night (London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1996)
Greenblatt, S. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980).
Greenblatt, S., Cohen, W., Howard, J. E and Maus, K. E. (eds.) The Norton Shakespeare (New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Ltd., 1997).
Malcolmson, C. ‘What You Will:’ Social Mobility and Gender in Twelfth Night in White, R. S. (ed.) Twelfth Night (London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1996)
Palfrey, S. Doing Shakespeare (London: The Arden Shakespeare, 2005).

[1] J.E. Howard in Stephen Greenblatt, The Norton Shakespeare, p. 1595.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Simon Palfrey, Doing Shakespeare, p. 200.
[6] Simon Palfrey, Doing Shakespeare, p. 199.
[7] Simon Palfrey, Doing Shakespeare, p. 200.
[8] Malcolmson, C. Social Mobility and Gender in Twelfth Night, p. 170.
[9] J.E. Howard in Stephen Greenblatt, The Norton Shakespeare, p. 1595.
[10] J.E. Howard in Stephen Greenblatt, The Norton Shakespeare, p. 1596.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] J.E. Howard in Stephen Greenblatt, The Norton Shakespeare, p. 1597.
[14] Malcolmson, C. Social Mobility and Gender in Twelfth Night, p. 167.
[15] Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, p. 7.
[16] Malcolmson, C. Social Mobility and Gender in Twelfth Night, p. 178.

Why Were Women Attracted to Early Christianity?

2007-11-20T01:41:00.000Z

Why Were Women Attracted to Early Christianity?

Christianity spread rapidly from the first century C.E. onwards, and many converts were women. We have numerous accounts of women hearing Christian teaching from missionaries, such as Paul, and being baptised. Examples include Lydia in Acts 16:12-16 and St. Thecla in Acts of Paul and Thecla 7-35.[1] The pagan critic Celsus in the second century C.E. describes Christianity as “a religion of women, children and slaves,”[2] which opens up the question of whether women were “disproportionately represented”[3] in Early Christianity. It is clear that Celsus was seeking to disparage Christianity by asserting that it was the choice of the intellectually inferior, and his bias must be considered when assessing the truth of his statement. In the book of Acts, the women who convert to Christianity are, Kraemer writes, “frequently free, aristocratic, affluent and respectable, if not also demonstrably educated and intelligent women.”[4] St. Luke, who is generally accepted to be the author of Acts, had the opposite intention of Celsus: to create a positive impression of Christianity by portraying it as the choice of the intellectually superior: he was biased also. Perhaps we would expect him, then, to omit female converts, since women were believed to be intellectually inferior to men in most cultures at that time. The fact that both Christians and pagans describe women converting to Christianity means that we can assume that Christianity was reasonably popular with women in the early centuries C.E.

Initially, it seems strange that Greco-Roman women would choose to abandon their pagan religion in favour of Christianity. As Pomeroy writes, in Greco-Roman society, “religion was the major sphere of public life in which women participated.”[5] Religion was also remarkably slow to change,[6] so we can deduce that women’s customs described centuries before the birth of Christ were still active in something similar to their original form. Likewise, the establishment of the Roman Empire did not necessarily stop them, as the Romans incorporated Greek religion into their own. For these reasons, it is of use to consider earlier Greek sources as well as those which date from the time of Christ and afterwards. Greco-Roman religious customs provided ample opportunity for women to be involved. Women carried out the Thesmophoria fertility ritual in honour of Demeter[7], and there were several other festival roles for women, largely based on age, such as making cakes, carrying procession items, dances and choral performances. For example, Aristophanes’ Lysistrata 641-47 reads:

“When I was seven, I was an arrephoros [a carrier of mystical objects]. At ten I made cake for Athena’s offering, and wore the saffron to be a bear for Artemis at Brauron. And once as a fair young girl, I was a kanephoros [basket-carrier]….”[8]

It is worth noting, however, that such roles were often reserved for the nobility and always for women and girls of unblemished reputation. Christianity, however, is largely focused around the forgiveness of sins, or the erasing of past transgressions, as if they never were. Women who were excluded from participating in Greco-Roman pagan religious events may have been inspired by early Christian figures such as Mary Magdalene, the ex-prostitute who found acceptance in Jesus (Luke 7:3-50) and went on to be significant in his ministry.

It may also be seen as surprising that Greco-Roman women, particularly those of high status, chose to convert to Christianity because their pagan religion seems to have offered more to which they could aspire, in terms of becoming priestesses. Evidence clearly shows that Greco-Roman society respected its priestesses enormously. The Leucippides (unmarried girl priestesses at sanctuary of Phoebe and Hilaeira at Amyclae, near Sparta) are described by Pausinas in his Guide to Greece 3.16.1-2 as “like the goddesses themselves.”[9] Likewise, a number of tombstones of priestesses have survived, praising them lavishly.[10] We also know that priestesses were called by their own name as a mark of respect, instead of being referred to by the significant man in their life (ie. “mother of…” or “wife of…” or “daughter of…”) as was customary.[11] The nearest Early Christian equivalent was the role of deaconess. Deaconesses are mentioned in Pliny’s Letters 10.96.8[12] and also in Romans 16:1, but we know little about them because, as Fantham, Foley, Kampen, Pomeroy and Shapiro state, “many of the church fathers who wrote in those years had little interest in women except as martyrs or objects of theological debate.”[13] We do know, though, that a deaconess’ role was “to serve the orthodox church by assisting the priest in ministering to the sick and needy, counseling women, and even occasionally giving sermons.”[14] While deaconesses “must have held positions of significant authority,”[15] they were “by no means priestesses.”[16] It must be remembered, however, that priestesses were a very small minority.

It could be argued that, while Christian women did not have the celebrated status of a pagan priestess, all Christian women could have that closeness to the divine, as Christians believed that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross enabled everyone to have a personal and intimate relationship with God. The lack of a goddess in Christianity, like the Bona Dea[17] in Roman religion, could make it seem unlikely that women would want to convert, as one would assume that women would find it easier to relate to a goddess than a god or the male Jesus. However, the Christian God is not, in fact, male, but spirit, so effectively neither gender, or both. The Christian concept of God the Father is based on the Jewish one, but there are also passages in the Old Testament describing God as female. In Isaiah 42:14, God is “like a woman in labour” and, in Isaiah 49:15 and Isaiah 66:13, God is compared to a nursing mother. Early Christian converts may well have become acquainted with these texts, and comparing God to a woman is surely the greatest compliment that can be paid to the female sex.

Another reason that it may seem surprising that women were attracted to Early Christianity is the persecution that occurred before Constantine made Christianity fully legal in his Edict of Toleration in 311-12 CE.[18] Lefkowitz and Fant describe Christianity as “for the Romans, another foreign religion… to be regarded with suspicion.”[19] Fantham, Foley, Kampen, Pomeroy and Shapiro write that women who converted “sometimes lost position and even families and lives through their involvement with their church.”[20] They must have been reminded of Luke 9:61-2, in which a man is called to follow Jesus, but asks first to say goodbye to his family. Jesus replies, “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.” Perhaps they were comforted and encouraged also by Luke 6:22-23: “Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.”

It is possible that women were attracted to the excitement and danger of being a part of an illegal movement. Fantham, Foley, Kampen, Pomeroy and Shapiro continue: “whether because of overt persecution or simply through the loathing of Christianity that came from stories about cannibalism and incest, only the lowliest or most privileged in Roman society could afford to openly and with impunity admit to being a Christian.”[21] Martyrdom was very much a possibility. There is evidence for a great number of female Christian martyrs, such as St. Perpetua at Carthage in 203 C.E., whose death is described in Acts of the Christian Martyrs 8.2-10, [22] and those whose death is recorded in Acts of the Christian Martyrs 22.[23] If the prospect of martyrdom were itself not unattractive enough, many women, like St. Perpetua, left behind children and saw their families suffer for their beliefs. We know, then, that whatever attracted women to Early Christianity must have been extraordinarily powerful, for them to face the prospect of martyrdom, and for many to endure it without backing down.

I propose that we look in the Christian message itself for Early Christianity’s appeal to women. To do this, I suggest we examine the gospels on which it was founded. As Kraemer writes, “great caution… must be exercised in the attempt to extract any reliable historical data about women from earliest Christian sources, especially literary works such as the canonical gospels.”[24] The Church in its first centuries was still deciding where it stood on the issue of women and Christian literature was still being edited and may not have been as we know it today in the New Testament. This does not, however, make the gospels in their current form valueless.

Stanton describes Jesus’ attitude to women in these gospels as “striking,”[25] and this is particularly the case in the gospel of Luke.[26] Luke’s gospel promotes unheard-of gender equality. It claims that Jesus included women among his disciples (Luke 8:1-3), and Stanton writes that, in fact, “a number of traditions show that Jesus was able to mix freely and naturally with women of all sorts and to accept them into his wider circle of followers.”[27] Luke’s gospel makes women a central part of the resurrection narrative: they the first to discover that Jesus had risen and it was to them that the angels appeared and announced the news (Luke 24:1-8). The story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10: 38-42 also demonstrates Jesus’ encouragement of women’s learning and not devoting themselves entirely to household tasks. Luke also employs a female-male parallelism throughout the gospel: between Zechariah and Mary (1:10-20, 26-38), Simeon and Anna (2:25-38), the centurion and the widow (7:1-7), and man with a hundred sheep and the woman with ten silver coins (15:4-10).[28] A similar pairing between men and women occurs in the book of Acts, also traditionally written by Luke.

Kraemer argues, though, that this pairing, instead of endorsing gender equality, is because of Luke’s “pervasive concern to demonstrate that Christian women are properly associated with and subordinated to men in accordance with Greco-Roman norms.”[29] She argues that Luke’s interest in women “may be deceptive” because D’Angelo has demonstrated that Luke’s stories about women are actually there to suit other agendas.[30] Even if this is the case, the female readers of the time would not have necessarily known that, and would have seen an acceptance of women in Luke’s portrayal of Jesus.

Whether or not women would have found a similar acceptance in the early Church is debatable. As Stanton writes, “the early church did not always follow the example of Jesus toward women.”[31] Records of the early Church are reasonably scarce because of persecution: much of what we have is Christian literature, such as what is now in the New Testament, and these may well have been subject to alteration. What we do have appears divided. On the one hand, Galatians 3:28 reads: “there is no difference… between men and women… you are all one in union with Jesus Christ,” and 1 Corinthians 7:4 reads: “a woman does not have authority over her own body; it belongs to her husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body; it is his wife’s,” thus promoting equality within marriage as well as generally.

On the other hand, this seems to be contradicted with “I wish you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is her husband” (1 Cor. 11:3). Some epistles, or some parts of the epistles, seem to endorse the suppression of women. 1 Timothy 2:8-12 reads: “In every church service I want the men to pray… women should learn in silence and all humility. I do not allow them to teach or to have authority over men: they must keep quiet,” and 1 Corinthians 14:33b reads: “In all the churches of the faithful, let women be silent in the congregation, for it is not appropriate for them to speak. They should be obedient, as the law states. If they want to learn something, they should ask their own husbands at home, for it is a disgrace for a woman to speak out in the congregation.” Some of the theology in the epistles seems to directly contradict Jesus’ attitudes in the gospels toward women. How women were treated in the early Church, then, remains something of a mystery, so we cannot know if this was part of the appeal.

In conclusion, in spite of there being several reasons why early Christianity would seem undesirable to women, most of these can be counteracted, at least in part. The treatment of women in the early Church is uncertain, but the gospels are clearly very positive about women and thus would have attractive for them. This essay has explored why early Christianity was attractive to women in particular, but it must be remembered that Christianity was attractive to women for many of the reasons that it was attractive to men. It offered the promise of Heaven, a joyful and unending afterlife: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away (Revelation 21:4).” In contrast, Roman concepts of the afterlife were varied and sometimes vague. Roman gods were also deeply fallible and their attitudes to humans ambiguous, while Christianity promised a perfect, loving god. The word “gospel” does, after all, mean “good news,” and it’s not surprising, then, that women as well as men were attracted to it.

Bibliography

Books:
Fantham, E., Foley, H. P., Kampen, N. B., Pomeroy, S. B. and Shapiro, H. A. (1994) Women in the Classical World: Image and Text, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Golden, M. and Toohey, P. (2003) Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Green, J. B. (1995) The Theology of the Gospel of Luke, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kraemer, R. S. (1992) Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religions Among Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lefkowitz, M. R. and Fant, M. B, eds. (2005) Women’s Life in Greece and Rome: A source book in translation, London: Gerald Duckworth and Co, Ltd.
Pomeroy, S. B. (1975) Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity, London: Pimlico.
Stanton, G. N. (1989) The Gospels and Jesus, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The Holy Bible, New International Version.

Lectures:
Richard Hawley, Playing the Bear: Women in Classical Greek Religions, 30th October 2007.

[1] Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, p. 311-12.
[2] Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings, p. 128.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings, p. 129.
[5] Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves, p. 75.
[6] Hawley, Playing the Bear, 30th October 2007.
[7] Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves, p. 77.
[8] Hawley, Playing the Bear, 30th October 2007.
[9] Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, p. 301.
[10] Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, p. 302-6.
[11] Hawley, Playing the Bear, 30th October 2007.
[12] Fantham, Foley, Kampen, Pomeroy, Shapiro, Women in the Classical World, p. 383.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, p. 291.
[18] Fantham, Foley, Kampen, Pomeroy, Shapiro, Women in the Classical World, p. 383.
[19] Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, p. 307.
[20] Fantham, Foley, Kampen, Pomeroy, Shapiro, Women in the Classical World, p. 383.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, p. 313-18.
[23] Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, p. 318-23.
[24] Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings, p. 131.
[25] Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, p. 202.
[26] Green, The Theology of the Gospel of Luke, p. 91.
[27] Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, p. 202.
[28] Green, The Theology of the Gospel of Luke, p. 92-3.
[29] Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings, p. 129.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, p. 202.

Said Chaucer to Boccaccio

2007-11-19T00:39:00.000Z

Show how a comparison with Boccaccio’s Il Teseida can add to your reading of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale.

When Chaucer rewrote Boccaccio’s Il Teseida for his Knight’s Tale, he made some fundamental alterations. As Burrow writes, Chaucer was “deeply impressed” by the poetry of Boccaccio, but there were also aspects “which he could or would not imitate.”[1] Chaucer’s positive and negative reactions to Boccaccio’s work “reveal a great deal about Chaucer himself, and also about the literary culture of England in his day.”[2] Chaucer’s additions and omissions tell us a great deal about his own interests and opinions, and the audience for which he was writing. They also reflect the interests and purposes of the different narrators in this multi-layered narrative: Chaucer the writer, Chaucer the pilgrim and the knight.

Observing the form and style of Il Teseida sheds new light on Chaucer’s choice of style for the Knight’s Tale. Il Teseida, Burrow writes, is “the first full-scale attempt by a vernacular writer to imitate Classical epic.”[3] Like Virgil’s Aeneid and Statius’ Thebiad, it comprises twelve books, and Boccaccio was keen to imitate “the epic feats of arms” with “high, epic style: invocations, long epic similes, catalogues of warriors, oratorical speeches” and other defining features of Classical epic.[4] Unlike any Classical epic, however, Il Teseida’s main plot is the conventionally Medieval romance of young love.

It was perhaps for this reason that Chaucer chose not to attempt to re-create the epic style in his Knight’s Tale. As Salter writes, he treats the story “predominantly, as a courtly romance.”[5] This is reflected in his compression of the first two books of Il Teseida, about Theseus’ conquests, into a mere two hundred lines. Burrow claims that Chaucer is typical of Middle English writers in his willingness to freely borrow ideas, stories and images from Classical literature, but refusal to follow its genre-system.[6] This perhaps reflects the tastes of an English audience. Ward writes that Chaucer meant the style of the Tales to be “above all things popular.”[7] The question is: popular with whom? Burrow claims that The Knight’s Tale is a tale of chivalry and a romance, aimed at the English courtly classes, while The Miller’s Tale, which has a similar plot but is funnier and cruder, was aimed at the lower classes.[8] However, it is unlikely that the lower classes, even if they were literate, would have had access to The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer wrote primarily for his educated contemporaries in England and his experimentation with higher and lower styles, displaying his versatility, reflects this.

A comparison with Il Teseida also reveals how drastically Chaucer changed the characters of Palemon and Arcite and their relationship. As Minnis notes, in Il Teseida, Palemon “continually insists on fighting a reluctant Arcita,” who “acts reasonably and with superhuman patience towards the cousin who cannot control his passion for the same woman.”[9] Yet, as Salter observes, Chaucer’s lovers are “distinguishable mainly for their allegiance to differing gods.”[10] This shows us that, for Chaucer, it is not the characters themselves that are important, but what they communicate. The key to what it is that they communicate in The Knight’s Tale lies in the cousins’ relationship. In Il Teseida, they do not quarrel over Emilia, but rather “converse, each consoling the other with his words” (Book III).[11] They greet each other “warmly” (Book V)[12] when they are reunited in the grove. Chaucer, however, changes their attitudes completely. In The Knight’s Tale, as soon as the cousins become rivals, they are hostile to one another. Indeed, Palemon tells Arcite, “I am thy mortal foo” (line 878). This demonstrates Chaucer’s, or perhaps the knight’s, interest in the destructive quality of love, and how it makes people act out of character. As Theseus says, “Who may been a fool but if he love?” (line 1799)

Theseus himself is a character whose alterations from in Il Teseida to The Knight’s Tale demonstrate Chaucer’s interests. Interestingly, Minnis writes that Chaucer makes Theseus “even more noble than he was in Il Teseida.”[13] Minnis goes on to claim that Theseus in The Knight’s Tale is “a paragon of ethical and political virtue” and “the closest Chaucer ever got to portraying a hero.”[14] In my opinion, Chaucer actually makes Boccaccio’s Theseus less virtuous. For example, Boccaccio’s Theseus gives Palamon and Arcite a room in the palace and everything they need, whilst Chaucer’s Theseus puts them both “in prisoun” (line 1023). Minnis argues that “Theseus’ subsequent generosity to the cousins dispels any doubts that the reader may have concerning his treatment of them.”[15] Chaucer undermines this, however, with his description of the war on Thebes. Its position at the opening of the tale means that it overshadows all that comes after it. Theseus has pity on the widows of Thebes, and yet the reader cannot help but consider that he is indirectly the cause of their grief. The knight is keen to stress that Creon was a “tirant” (961) and deserved his fate (964), but Chaucer is more reluctant to endorse him. Chaucer adds the telling detail of Palemon’s and Arcite’s being discovered by pillagers, not by the Greeks looking for their dead, as in Boccaccio’s version. There is perhaps a touch of irony is calling him “worthy” Theseus, and Chaucer may be making a wider comment on war-mongering in general.

Chaucer’s treatment of Emilia, when compared with Boccaccio’s, can also be seen to reveal something about his attitude to women. Boccaccio’s Emilia is a vibrant character; in Minnis’ words, she has “a positive and quite forceful personality.”[16] Salter describes her as an “ideal” and “innocently vain.” [17] Emilia’s vanity, though, is not entirely innocent: “although she was a maiden as yet unready for love’s fulfillment, she was nonetheless aware of what it implied.” (Book III) Emilia embraces this: “she rejoiced in being found attractive and thought herself lovelier and made herself look fairer.” (Book III) This sexual awakening of sorts is entirely omitted in Chaucer, as is most else concerning Emilia’s feelings and thoughts. As Salter writes, “Chaucer’s Emelye exists only to provide the immediate cause of the lovers’ rivalry. We know little of her feelings and her reactions to the melodramatic scenes in which she is involved; even her physical beauty is conveyed distantly to us, in courtly images.”[18] This is not to say that Chaucer is uninterested in women – The Wife of Bath’s and other Canterbury Tales are proof to the contrary – but it once again shows that, in Chaucer’s version of this particular story, character is secondary to plot and to wider commentary.

The final aspect of The Knight’s Tale emphasised by a reading of Il Teseida is the care taken by Chaucer to ensure a happy ending, or at least a reasonably happy one. This, again, is partly a question of genre: the element of tragedy in the story is far more suitable to Boccaccio’s Classical epic than Chaucer’s courtly romance. Chaucer is keen to soften the blow of Arcite’s death, in spite of his added description of Arcite’s illness, and to make Emilia’s remarriage to Palemon more palatable. Chaucer omits Emilia’s marriage to Arcite; he delays Palemon and Emilia’s marriage for a decent mourning period; he removes Palemon’s and Emilia’s qualms; and he has Palamon see Emilia first rather than Arcite, thus removing the latter’s prior claim on her. Additionally, as Minnis writes, “Boccaccio had regarded Arcita as being far superior to Palemon, so that his loss of life and of Emilia was all the more tragic…. By contrast, in The Knight’s Tale Arcite and Palamon are of equal merit; there is no suggestion that one deserves Emelye more than the other.”[19] Chaucer’s version, although it has serious overtones, is altogether more lighthearted, and instead of lamenting Arcite excessively, the reader is encouraged to see that, as Minnis says, “one man’s downfall is another’s opportunity.”[20]

In conclusion, then, Chaucer’s choice of style and his editing of Boccaccio’s characters reveal a great deal about his own motives and interests. However, this essay is by no means a complete list of alterations made by Chaucer to Il Teseida, or a full exploration of what they tell us. For example, Chaucer also took up Boccaccio’s theme of fate and made it his own, and altered the role of the gods in the story to suit his own ends. Chaucer’s imagination would not have let him assume the role of mere translator, and he clearly invested much of himself in his reworking of Arcite’s and Palemon’s story.

Bibliography

Benson, L. D. (ed.) The Riverside Chaucer, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987)
Brewer, D. S. Chaucer, (London: Longmans, 1953).
Burrow, J. A. Medieval Writers and their Work, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
Havely, N. Chaucer’s Boccaccio, (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer Ltd., 1980).
Minnis, A. J. Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity, (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer Ltd., 1982).
Salter, E. Chaucer: The Knight’s Tale and The Clerk’s Tale, (London: Edward Arnold, 1962).
Ward, A. W. Chaucer, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1879).
[1] J. A. Burrow, Medieval Writers and their Work, p. 57.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] J. A. Burrow, Medieval Writers and their Work, p. 57-8.
[5] Elizabeth Salter, Chaucer: The Knight’s Tale and the Clerk’s Tale, p.10.
[6] J. A. Burrow, Medieval Writers and their Work, p. 58.
[7] A. W. Ward, Chaucer, p.122
[8] J. A. Burrow, Medieval Writers and their Work, p. 78.
[9] A. J. Minnis, Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity, p.111.
[10] Elizabeth Salter, Chaucer: The Knight’s Tale and the Clerk’s Tale, p.10.
[11] N. Havely, Chaucer’s Boccaccio, p.114.
[12] N. Havely, Chaucer’s Boccaccio, p.119.
[13] A. J. Minnis, Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity, p.109.
[14] A. J. Minnis, Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity, p.121.
[15] A. J. Minnis, Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity, p.122.
[16] A. J. Minnis, Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity, p.131.
[17] Elizabeth Salter, Chaucer: The Knight’s Tale and the Clerk’s Tale, p.11.
[18] Ibid.
[19] A. J. Minnis, Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity, p.28.
[20] Ibid.

What Have We Learned From History?

2007-10-16T21:50:00.000+01:00

Another theft from Got Medieval.

The Sound of Silence

2007-10-09T19:42:00.000+01:00

Sorry this place has been as dead as a dead thing lately. My life has been consumed by... well, real life. Shock horror. I'll be back at some point.

Inner Libraries

2007-09-17T00:42:00.000+01:00

"I think we internalise the poems we have by heart and they operate by osmosis to influence the writers we become. I favor the iambic tetrameter line, instilled in me by James Russell Lowell and sharpened by my later infatuation with Auden. Mostly, though, I am grateful for those old-fashioned teachers who revered the poems of a bygone era and by exacting from us twenty-odd lines a week gave us an inner library to draw on for the rest of our lives."
~ Maxine Kumin

I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. My English teacher, a wonderful woman, used to give us merit points for memorising set passages. One which has remained with me is Jacques' Seven Ages of Man from As You Like It. It's actually one of my favourite Shakespeare passages now. I still know every word, seven years later, and I recite it to myself when I have to have injections or fillings in my teeth. It's incredibly effective at taking one's mind off things.

I would argue, though, that a piece doesn't have to be memorised in order to influence our writing hugely. In my early teens I was a bit of a stereotype and I carried a battered copy of Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath with me everywhere I went. Perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to say that those poems saved my life. I read those poems over and over, to the point that I have scraps memorised unintentionally, but I never set down and learnt them. And yet, they have been hugely influential.

Another poet who has influenced my writing greatly without my sitting down and memorising any of her work is Carol Ann Duffy. My favourite poem of hers is called The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High. It's rare for me to get so absorbed in such a long poem: I find that reading poetry requires immense concentration, so intense, in fact, that I can't sustain it for long and so tend to only read short poems! Stafford Girls' High is addictive, though - it carries you along. It's the rhythm especially, the same rhythm which causes me to memorise bits unintentionally. Lines like: "How do you expect to become the finest of England's mothers and daughters and wives after this morning's assembly's abysmal affair?" or "Bad words ran in her head like mice."

Ah, Duffy. Let us all pay homage, and let the little children bring flowers.

Stop! Sin!

2007-09-12T00:41:00.000+01:00

I'm particularly enjoying this blog at the moment, and I'm also enjoying stealing the owner's posts (his pointy-outy-look-at-this posts, not his own writing, because that would be naughty) for my blog. I was really tickled by the flowchart he posted, from James A. Brundage's book Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe. I couldn't let you miss out. This supposedly lets you know when/if it's safe (theologically speaking) for you to have sex in the Middle Ages. Here's the link to the Flickr post.

Feeling randy? Yes: continue. No: Stop! Sin!
Are you married? Yes: continue. No: Stop! Sin!
Is this your wife? Yes: continue. No: Stop! Sin!
Married more than three days? Yes: continue. No: Stop! Sin!
Is wife menstruating? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is wife pregnant? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is wife nursing a child? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it Lent? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it Advent? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it Whitsun week? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it Easter week? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it any other feast day? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it a fast day? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it Sunday? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it Wednesday? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it Friday? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it Saturday? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Is it daylight? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Are you naked? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Are you in church? No: continue. Yes: Stop! Sin!
Do you want a child? No: Stop! Sin! Yes: GO AHEAD! But be careful: No fondling! No lewd kisses! No oral sex! No strange positions! Only once! Try not to enjoy it! Good luck! And wash afterwards!

Say Yay for You Today

2007-09-06T13:05:00.000+01:00

"I suppose the first thing I learn when I finish a poem is that I was able to finish a poem... I mean that I genuinely fear when I write a poem that that there won't be another one. I gather this is a very common experience, even among writers so distinguished and prolific that you'd never guess they had such fears. The second thing I usually feel is elation that the poem is a good one. I don't see how you can go on as a writer if you don't allow yourself this brief luxury of elation... That's a personal wisdom to strive for, apart from learning new ways with language."
~Mary Jo Salter

Rob made a post recently, talking about the need for humility in poets. As he said, it's necessary to promote one's own work and also necessary not to come across as arrogant when doing so. And there's a fine line between pro-active and positive, and attention-seeking and arrogant. The same arrogance is to be avoided in the writing process itself, of which self-critique is probably the main componant. This is something you learn quickly at PFFA, or end up in the dreaded Outside with everybody laughing at you. Rob outlined the following four statements to be remembered at all times:

1. "You are not as good as you think you are" (Scavella’s mantra).
2. "Never believe in your own propaganda" (John Peel).
3. Never dispose of a rejection slip.
4. When people, especially famous poets, say something nice about you, accept that with good grace. But listen even more carefully when people you respect criticise your writing.

I especially agree with number four, though I think you'd have to be superhuman not to be thrilled if a famous poet started praising your writing. And I do get rid of rejection slips, because for me it's part of the putting-it-behind-me-and-moving-on process. If I kept my rejection slips, I'd just sit and weep over them instead of trying again.

I will say, though, that, because of all the reasons why it's vital not to get arrogant, there seems to be a fashion in poetry communities for going too far the other way. We need to be aware that what we've written isn't perfect, is probably far from perfect, but that doesn't mean it's terrible. A sort of self-flagellation seems to have become trendy, to not only be encouraged but pushed onto people, probably because it's the perfectionistic, self-critical people who tend to make good poets. Being perfectionistic and self-critical to a degree is necessary in poetry, but take it too far and you never finish anything. What's more, it's seriously unhealthy. We need to congratulate ourselves sometimes, or we'll end up unbalanced and unhappy individuals.

:o(

2007-08-26T15:34:00.000+01:00

I came back from Cornwall to an envelope from Iota, containing my poems and a polite, uninterested rejection letter. Rob offered to look at the poems, if they came back, so I might take him up on that. On the other hand, though, these NaPo poems, of which I was so fond, have come back enough times now for me to know that they're no good. Nothing I've written has ever been any good. Perhaps it's time now for me to put publishing down as a childhood dream rather than an ambition to pursue. Maybe I should focus my energies in the future on church and family. I believed I had a talent, something really special. Perhaps I was deluded. Perhaps I'm a very ordinary sort of girl, who should put her mind to ordinary things. Perhaps I'll just be one of the thousands reading the books and wishing, rather than one of the few writing the books.

I'm doubting my vocation too. I mean, you can't very well have a priest who's terrified of people, one who sometimes can't even sit through a service without having a panic attack. I can't see any future for myself at all of late. It's a very low sort of day for me.

The Beginning of Terror

2007-08-17T00:15:00.000+01:00

"I'm after something that will make some sense out of the chaos in the world and within us. The result should be something that is, well, 'beautiful,' but beauty isn't merely the pretty, or harmony, or equilibrium. Rilke says beauty is the beginning of terror."
~Frank Bidart

And on the subject of beauty, I'm going to Cornwall. See ya :o)

The Third Declension Song

2007-08-15T00:30:00.000+01:00

(courtesy of Latin Camp; to the tune of The Locomotion)

Everybody's working on their nouns and verbs now.
Come on, baby, do the third declension.
Like canis, canem, canis, yeah, that's how it goes now.
Come on, baby, do the third declension.
A little bit of vocab and a lot of sweat,
And you haven't even started on subjunctives yet.
So, come on, come on, do the third declension with me.

You've got to conjugate, yeah baby, come on, come on.
And then subordinate, yeah yeah, woh, woh, woh, woh.

Everybody's working on a brand new tense now.
Come on, baby, do the perfect passive.
Like missus sum and captus sum, that's how it goes now.
Come on, baby, do the perfect passive.
You give up for the present - it just don't make sense,
But it'll all be perfect in the future tense.
So, come on, come on, do the perfect passive with me.

You've got to conjugate, yeah baby, come on, come on.
It's just imperative, yeah yeah, woh, woh, woh, woh.

Everybody's working on a brand new clause now.
Come on, baby, do indirect question.
You just need a subjunctive and a who, what, where, how.
Come on, baby, do indirect question.
Conditional clause and final clause are easy stuff.
It's only that one Santa Claus that I find tough.

So, come on, come on, do the third declension,
Come on, come on, do the third declension,
Come on, come on, do the third declension with me.

A Sudden Intense Clarity

2007-08-13T00:58:00.000+01:00

"Poetry... shows with a sudden intense clarity what is already there."
~ Helen Bevington

PostSecret Video

2007-08-12T18:36:00.000+01:00

Wake Up Pill

2007-08-11T18:18:00.000+01:00

A certain Dr. Mark Frye has done a study on a drug called modafinil, originally used to treat people with sleep disorders. He says: "There are very few treatments for the depressive phase of bipolar disorder and as a result there is an urgent need to evaluate potential new therapeutics. Mood stabilisers in general are better at treating mania than depression, but the depressive phase of the illness is far more common. We really need continued research in this area." (I strongly agree!)

Modafinil is used to treat patients with excessive sleepiness associated with narcolepsy, obstructive sleep apnea and shift work sleep disorder. During the depressive phase of bipolar disorder, symptoms include excessive sleepiness ("hypersomnia") and fatigue, (boy, do I know it), so researchers wondered if modafinil could address these symptoms in patients with bipolar disorder.

Half of the patients in the study were given modafinil and the other half were given a placebo over a six-week period. At least 44% of the participants given modafinil said they felt better, while 39% said their symptoms were in remission after six weeks. This compares to 23% and 18% of those taking the placebo. Modafinil was not associated with any greater risk of the manic and depressive mood swings associated with bipolar disorder. How exactly modafinil works isn't known but research is continuing.

Read the full article here. I want me some modafinil! Actually, I'd quite like not to need the damn drugs in the first place.

Charity

2007-08-10T01:59:00.000+01:00

Does any kind, generous soul, blessed with the wisdom of Photoshop, feel like making me a header/banner thing for this blog? Sometimes I just sit and weep because it looks so uninspiring. I would send you a present to say thank you. Please. *puppy dog eyes*

Latin and Fudge

2007-08-09T19:07:00.000+01:00

Well, it should be fairly obvious by now that I'm back from Geek Camp! Translated a lot of Latin, ate a lot of fudge, and all in the shadow of Wells Cathedral. What with all that Latin and fudge, and the cathedral, and the pretty, pretty town, and all the oldy-worldiness, and cream teas, I was a very happy girl. I've also realised that I just can't give up Latin for good. I'm hoping I'll be allowed to sit in on the Latin Language and Reading course next year, maybe take it unofficially. I'm also hoping I might be able to sneak into the back of a few lectures in the English department which I'm missing out on because of course restrictions. It all depends on time, really. I have an astonishing knack for wasting time, and for sleeping too much, and I am planning to do Chapel every morning, the Christian Union, CU cells, Old English Reading Group, be secretary of the Classical Society and help put on the play, run the Writers' Circle, be Head of Writing in the Creative Arts Society, join the History Society, and maybe even have something resembling a social life.

In terms of vocation, things have come on quite a long way. It's actually tremendously exciting and proving to be a really joyful process. I mean, I'm beginning to see something of the future God might have planned for me and I think, wow, could I possibly be any more blessed than... well, than I thought I was already? I read on the Church of England website that if you're discerning, you need to read a lot of books about ordination, etc. I stumbled on this wonderful church in Wells called St. Cuthbert's, and they had a few books out on sale, and one was The Life and Work of a Priest by John Pritchard. So I bought that. I'm reading it now and it's very good.

I also spoke to the chaplain in the cathedral at length. He said some three very helpful things in particular:

1. Imagine you're in a corridor, with closed doors on either side of you and a succession of closed doors in front. Walk ahead, opening doors as you go. You may have to push for some of them. But, in the end, if God doesn't want you to go through a door, you won't get through it. I found this so reassuring because it takes a lot of the pressure off me: I worried that I would mistakenly become ordained, when it wasn't God's will at all, just myself being fanciful.
2. The chaplain told me that, the day before his ordination, the bishop asked him if God wanted him to be a priest because he couldn't trust him as a layman!
3. The chaplain also said that he still wasn't entirely sure, after 40 years of ministry! You will never be 100% sure. Of course it needs a lot of thinking and praying and talking to other Christians about, but at some point I may just have to go for it, because God is unlikely to send down a big banner with flashing lights.

I also did quite a bit of reading while I was away. Wells is brilliant for charity shops and book shops and things. I found an antique shop, where I bought Revelations of Divine Love by Mother Julian of Norwich - a Medieval anchoress who claimed to have had a vision from God - and a book of sermons for 50p each! I found a copy of the latest Phillippa Gregory novel, The Boleyn Inheritance, for 99p as well, which I was dead pleased with. I read it in about five minutes, as I always do with Philippa Gregory, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Her Tudor books are a little samey, but samey's fine with me if I like it enough. I finished Asta's Book by Barbara Vine as well. It was a little slow to catch my attention but by the end I was captivated - it was a really good plot.

I also bought some really ancient Latin school texts for practising, a selection of poetry and a biography of Hannibal by Nepos. I mustn't let my Latin slide again. And I must start on my Old English, though there's time enough for those. I've started another new novel, just a few ideas really, about a group of Classics students at Oxford. I met so many in Wells! I've settled into what I guess you'd call "a gentle pace of life," been picking blackberries in the garden and making crumble, sewing, planning next term's schedule for Writers' Circle... but I feel a bit like I'm retired. I get so frustrated with myself for being so lethargic and getting so little done. I do actually have things to do, and I can go a whole day and achieve nothing. That's one precious day of my life gone. And I know I'll never write well, or indeed do anything well, if I continue to waste time instead of using it to learn.

Facebook Groups

2007-08-06T00:20:00.000+01:00

It is so freaking hot. The kind of heat that keeps you up at night when you're knackered and makes your mosquito bites itch like mad. The one on my left leg is the size of a saucer. I kid you not.

I've got a proper entry in the pipeline, but I'm way too tired now. Instead I thought I'd share some of the Facebook groups I'm in, seeing as Facebook has pretty much taken over my life now.

"I'm a sociopath" "No, you're a dyke": The Official Lisa Rowe Fan Club
Facebook: Making Stalking Easy
'Get Off My Stage' - a Jeremy Kyle appreciation group
A Cornucopia Of Love!!!! (Potter Puppet Pals ROCK!!!)
A Cup of Tea Solves Everything
A good Latin student never declines Sex (VI)
A nice cup of tea and a sit down
Admit It - You Love Bellatrix Lestrange
All the Cool Kids Know Dead Languages
Bipolar Pride: the Crazy Ones Have all the Fun
Caecilius Est In Horto
Campaign for lecturers to have their own entrance music
Campaign for the Return of Prince Charles' Moustache
Carol Ann Duffy is the High Priestess
Christians CAN make good music... honest!
Classical Greek Ruined My Personal and Social Life (I started this!)
Classicists Make Better Lovers
Down With This Sort of Thing: Fans of Father Ted
Dumbledore's Army
Edward Monkton is a Genius
Enid Blyton Nostalgists
Enough postmodernism: I just want to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Etymologies are sweet
Facebook whores...
Guylian Chocolate Sea Shells Appreciation Society
Hooray for Those Nice Biscuits with "Nice" on Them! (me again)
Hots for the Smarts (me)
I actually CAN'T wake up in the morning..
I am a classicist, therefore I am pretentious and proud of it!
I am just a girl... interrupted.
I can't accept that fictional characters aren't real
I Can't Stop Listening to Regina Spektor
I can't wait to be mummy! (me)
I did Latin A-Level. That makes me cleverer than you.
I Hate It When the Greek Verb I'm Searching for is Another Verb Entirely
I judge you when you use poor grammar.
I like to pilfer and accumulate music from choirs I belong to
I Love Books About Crazy People
I study English. I rock.
I Used To Be Good At French, Now I'm A Bit Rubbish
I want to be in the Medieval Baebes
I'd Marry the Beast if I Could Have a Library Like That...
I'd Sail With Captain Jack Sparrow!
I'm an ear with feet... aka a Tori Amos Fan (Global)
If this group reaches 1,000,000 maybe Jesus will come back
It's 4am, why the hell am I on Facebook???
It's Pimms O'clock
Literary Crushes (me)
My Friends Are Getting Married. I'm Just Getting Drunk
Odysseus is a Legend
Orange Smarties - four is not enough!!
People who don't sleep enough because they stay up late for no reason
People Who Set Off Fire Alarms at 4am Should Be Shot (me)
People's Front of Judea
Petition to revoke the independence of the United States of America
Physics doesn't exist, its all gnomes
Pirate University Fallback Plan
Psychiatric Hospitals Drive Me Crazy!!!!
Raving Lunatics Make the World a Better Place (Global Chapter)
Reading is Sexy
Sex, Drugs and Aristophanes
Shakeaway Makes Life Worth Living
Spider-Pig Appreciation Society
Spinsters united
Stephen Fry's Friendship Proxy Group
The 'Word Count' Button is EVIL
The Erotic Voice of Marks And Spencer Food Adverts Appreciation Society
The Lecture Doodling Society for the Chronically Bored
The Pedants' War on Error
The Tyrannosaurus Alan Appreciation Society
We Must Take Our Tablets Or Else We Will Go Mad! (me)
Weasel, Weasel! . . . aka the Eddie Izzard Appreciation Society
Why Yes, I Do Frequently Burst Out in Song
Writing Papers Single Spaced First Makes My Double Spaced Result Climactic

And I've separated these two for Harry Potter 7 spoilers, though shame on you if you haven't finished it yet.

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The Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks Memorial
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" : Mrs. Weasley Appreciation Group (Molly Weasley makes Chuck Norris eat his vegetables.)

Well, that was an entirely pointless entry, wasting both my time and yours. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and sleep in the fridge.

A Universal Message

2007-08-03T18:22:00.000+01:00

"We spend so much time being divided from one another. I like the idea of a universal message from poetry, from the rhythm in poetry, which is visceral and deeply ingrained."
~Rafael Campo

Local News

2007-07-20T03:06:00.000+01:00

Just to let you know, this blog will be sad and empty with tumbleweed blowing across it for a little while: I'm off to Latin Summer School for ten days on Monday. Maybe I'll squeeze in one or two more posts before then. As a joint honours Classics student, I'm only doing half the course, so I couldn't do Latin and Greek last year, unless I did nothing but languages. So I chose Greek; and now I'm going to brush up on my Latin. Not that I need it for anything - I just miss it. I'm not doing any languages next year, so I've taken up teaching myself Old English, using this and this. The English department at uni has an Old English Reading Group, so I'm hoping they'll have me.

Mslexia didn't publish those poems after all, so I've sent them to Iota. Fingers crossed. I've also started a novel, based on my diaries from when I was thirteen. It focuses on my thirteen-year-old Christianity, bereavement and - the main issue - self-harm. I'm hoping that, if I ever get it finished and decent enough for the possibility of publication, it'll be of use to youth workers in the Church and to people who work with teenagers generally. I'm also aiming for a Jacqueline Wilson sort of vibe, for it to be readable by teens, particularly those who struggle with the same issues.

I've also had a radical change in life direction. For some years now I had been intent on going into academia, but recently I've been questioning whether the reality of that is really what I want, whether I'm able enough to do it and whether it is, in fact, possible at all. A friend's been talking to me at length about the practical and financial difficulties. Even if I get my PhD or DPhil or whatever, there's no guarantee of a university teaching post afterwards. It's a lot of money to spend, as well, when I'm not even sure that it's what I want anymore.

I've been feeling lately that maybe God was calling me to the Church. I stumbled, pretty much by coincidence, onto a website for a Bible college and also onto a description of a job I hadn't heard of before, that of Deaconess. You can also read an article about her ministry by a Deaconess here. It sounds like something I'd love to do and I've been getting really fired up about it. I've even narrowed it down to five Bible colleges: London School of Theology, Cliff College, King's, Moorlands and St. John's. I'm really excited about those as well. They sound like really lovely communities. The only thing is, how does one know when one is being called by God and when one is just being fanciful and getting carried away? That's the difficult thing. Of course, I can always pursue academia in Theology with my qualification if I decide not to be a Deaconess.

From a child's essay

2007-07-17T23:05:00.000+01:00

"Poetry is the stuff in books that doesn't quite reach the margins."

The Robed Heart

2007-07-16T01:01:00.000+01:00

They come in white livery bringing the sun,
the Robed Heart astride her white mount,
crowds lining the royal road in anticipation.
Ahead, the castle flying the new colors,
a queen's great labors come to an end.
A shout, and the cord is cut,
the crown placed upon my head.

And I am, Mother, I am!

~Elizabeth Spires

I fell in love with this poem initially because of its wonderful, regal, almost Medieval imagery. A sort of a fairytale, but more a Phillippa Gregory novel. Gregory always describes these royal processions on horseback, often the high point in the heroine's life. Always a sense of triumph. So striking that it is with this that the experience of childbirth is compared. Is that what it feels like, once the painful bit's over? I wouldn't know: I've never had a baby.

It's interesting that it is in being a mother that the narrator sees herself as becoming a queen. I think the reality of motherhood is rather different! In fact, it is in being a mother than the narrator sees herself as existing at all, which I find rather depressing and horribly out-of-date, but there we go. And who is the "Mother" that she addresses? Her own mother, or a spiritual Mother-Earth fertility goddess type thing, or both?

Either way, it's a beautiful and intriguing poem. I wish I'd written it, especially since so many of my poems document the experience of living as a woman. It would go nicely in my Tall Lighthouse manuscript. Shame plagiarism is illegal. And dishonest and just plain wrong.

Bonny Black Hare

2007-07-15T13:18:00.000+01:00

One song I particularly enjoy from Steeleye Span's latest album, Bloody Men, is called Bonny Black Hare. The sexual double entendre is so obvious and so explicit that I must confess on a first hearing I was shocked. Then I was amused. I'll treat you to the lyrics:

On the fourteenth of May, at the dawn of the day,

With me gun on me shoulder, to the woods I did stray,

In search of some game, if the weather prove fair,

To see can I get a shot at the bonny black hare.

I met a young girl there, her face like a rose,

And her skin was as fair as the lily that grows.

I says, "My fair maiden, why ramble you so?

Can you tell me where the bonny black hare do go?"

The answer she gave me, oh, the answer was "No,

But under me apron they say it do go,

And if you'll not deceive me, I vow and declare,

We'll both go together to hunt the bonny black hare."

I laid this girl down with her face to the sky.

I took out me ramrod, and me bullets likewise,

Saying, "Wrap your legs round me, dig in with your heels,

For the closer we get, love, the better it feels."

The birds, they were singing in the bushes and trees,

And the song that they sang was, "She's easy to please."

I felt her heart quiver and I knew what I'd done.

Says I, "Have you had enough of me old sporting gun?"

The answer she gave me, oh, the answer was, "Nay,

It's not often young sportsmen like you come this way,

And if your powder is good and your bullets are fair,

Why don't you keep firing at the bonny black hare?"

"Oh, me powder is wet and me bullets all spent,

And I can't fire a shot, for it's choked at the vent,

But I'll be back in the morning, and if you are still here,

We'll both go together to hunt the bonny black hare."

There are lots of things I like about this song. I like how the girl isn't seduced or ravished but is in control of her own sexual destiny. She takes the initiative and is not condemned for that. And, while I'm not advocating it in real life or promoting it in a moral sense, I like the promiscuity in this song. I'm not saying that promiscuity should be celebrated, but this kind of song must've made such a refreshing contrast to all the hymns and the ballads about maidens and their virtue. There's something joyful in its recklessness. I found an older version too:

One morning in autumn by the dawn of the day,

With my gun in good order I straight took my way,

To hunt for some game to the woods I did steer,

To see if I could find my bonnie black hare.

I met a young damsel, her eyes black as sloes,

Her teeth white as ivory, her cheeks like a rose.

Her hair hung in ringlets on her shoulders bare.

"Sweet maiden," I cried, "Did you see my bonnie black hare?

"This morning a-hunting I have been all around,

But my bonnie black hare is not to be found."

The maid she then answered and at him did stare,

"I never yet heard of, or saw, a black hare."

"My gun is in good order, my balls are also,

And under your smock I was told she did go,

So delay me no longer. I cannot stop here,

One shot I will fire at your bonnie black hare."

His gun he then loaded, determined he was,

And instantly laid her down on the green grass.

His trigger he drew, his balls he put near,

And fire one shot at her bonnie black hare.

Her eyes they did twinkle and smiling did say,

"How often, dearest sportsman, do you come this way?

There is few in this country can with you compare,

So fire once again at my bonnie black hare."

His gun he reloaded and fired once more.

She cried, "Draw your trigger and never give o'er!

Your powder and balls are so sweet, I declare.

Keep shooting away at my bonnie black hare."

He said, "My dear maiden, my powder is all gone.

My gun is out of order, I cannot ram home.

But meet me tomorrow, my darling so fair,

And I'll fire once more at your bonnie black hare."

Interesting to see the changes here. The woman is now passive, as we'd expect for the older version. She also seems to enjoy it more, as she's exclaiming in delight and almost begging for him to continue. In short, the man is back in his position of power - sexual power, as well as all his other advantages - over the woman. Interesting, though, there also seems to be more attachment: he calls her, "My darling so fair." Perhaps this is to soften the blow of the promiscuity, but it's hardly credible as such because they've only just met.

Over at A Traditional Music Library, they've got a whole collection of "bawdy" folk songs. A lot of fun to read and, as I said, refreshing after a heavy dose of "Maiden, guard thy maidenhead." It seems that morally dubious things things are always more fun.

Taste the Rainbow

2007-07-14T01:00:00.000+01:00

As I believe I said before somewhere, I feel that, in modern Christianity, poetry and the poets have been rather eclipsed by the music and musicians, particularly what my friend Corny describes as "middle of the road rock music." One thing I really admire about Druidic Paganism is the bardic tradition, of which poetry was a vital part. We have the Psalms, of course, but nothing more recent than that is used in services, while new hymns or "worship songs" are popping up all the time. I think that's a good thing - the Church needs to move and change with the times and with its members, but where's the new poetry? Not only is there no poetry used in worship, but there seem to be precious few decent Christian poets around at the moment. The last I can think of is Gerald Manley Hopkins. Sure, there's trite, twee little rhyming ditties about, the kind that make me inclined to murder (not Christian), but where's "the world is charged with the grandeur of God?" Like music, poetry is a wonderful way to reach people, and I feel that's being wasted at the moment.

I had a brief discussion over at PFFA with Little Skittle on the subject. Skittle said some very worthwhile stuff:

"I certainly draw my conclusions or ponderings from my understanding of biblical revelation. Poetry was a means of prophecy - it was a means of praise. Though many seem to imagine praise as simply singing - praise involves far more than that. Praise greatly involves the fulfillment of relationship with God. One can note this often within the Psalms as they often speak of seeking God's presence or experiencing God's presence. I see language as a means of communication with God, especially considering we often think in language. That's why prayer becomes so meaningful, especially meditative and repetitious, simple phrases."

"I would agree - music has taken a certain monopoly in worship. I am a Lutheran, and though the music does comprise much of the service, the liturgy is essentially important as well, and I find a good balance between the two at times, especially during Holy Week. Every Sunday service we recite a psalm, either through contemporary re-wordings of translations, direct translations focused on the parallel forms of Hebrew poetry, or as hymns. Christianity, of course, focuses greatly on scripture.That, of course, is not the same as Paganistic bardic traditions. Those Scots just amaze me sometimes (the Irish only occasionally). I certainly should be interested to see some of their techniques adapted or incorporated into a Christian service."

"Poetry, for me, furthers this relationship but also shares this relationship with others. Through the expression of this relationship with God, we share the experience with each other and contribute to the 'relationship triangle' between the neighbour, God, and us."

"Sir Phillip Sydney, in his "Defence of Poesy", certainly speaks to poetry as a prophetic art, and the classic roles of poets as prophets, intellectuals, etc. in communities. Scops, acting as the community library for small groups in the middle ages, certainly acted as the wise counsel for the community."

Clever Skittle. :o)

Hyacinths and Biscuits

2007-07-13T21:30:00.000+01:00

"Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits."
~Carl Sandburg

Hots for the Smarts

2007-07-12T18:25:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd share some Richard Thompson lyrics with you:

I like a girl in satin,
Who talks dirty... in Latin,
A girl who’s flirty,
When she quotes Krishnamurti.
If she likes to be goosed
While reciting from Proust,
I’ll know she’s my kind of creature.
Among her delectables,
Her intellectables
Must be her sexiest feature.

I’ve got the hots for the smarts,
The hots for the smarts,
IQ off the charts.
Give me brains over hearts;
I’ve got the hots for the smarts.

I like a girl from Mensa
With a furrowed brow.
When the tenses get denser,
She gets it – and how?
I need a polymath
Called Cindy or Cath,
Who likes her Plato not too platonic,
An autodidact,
Who can add and subtract
While sipping her Tolstoy and tonic.

I’ve got the hots for the smarts,
The hots for the smarts,
IQ off the charts.
Give me brains over hearts;
I’ve got the hots for the smarts.

I need a girl with a feel
For Faraday’s wheel,
A girl who’ll drool
For Fleming’s Left Hand Rule.
Now you may like pin-ups
Of girls who do chin-ups
Like Xena the Warrior Princess,
But I’ll take to dinner
My Nobel Prize winner
With plutonium stains down her dress.

I’ve got the hots for the smarts,
The hots for the smarts,
IQ off the charts.
Give me brains over hearts;
I’ve got the hots for the smarts.

I like a girl who knows loadsa
Kierkegaard and Spinoza,
Who likes to play chess,
Humming Porgy and Bess.
She must be able,
From her logarithmic table,
To find all those decimal places,
And what do I care
That she’s nothing to wear
And her teeth are imprisoned in braces?

I’ve got the hots for the smarts,
The hots for the smarts,
IQ off the charts.
Give me brains over hearts;
I’ve got the hots for the smarts.

I want a girl with a brain
The size of Siberia,
With a haughty disdain
Of all things inferior.
I don’t want a learner
With a Bunsen burner.
She must be the finished article,
Who sees our attraction
As chemical reaction
And charm as merely a particle.

I’ve got the hots for the smarts,
The hots for the smarts,
IQ off the charts.
Give me brains over hearts;
I’ve got the hots for the smarts.

I want a PHD
Who reads Linear ‘B’,
Who applies her lotion
With a Brownian motion.
Now some men may favour
A girl who’s a raver,
A tease or a saucy young minx.
But I’ll get undressed with
The girl I’m impressed with,
Who’s tunnelling under the Sphinx.

I’ve got the hots for the smarts,
The hots for the smarts,
IQ off the charts.
Give me brains over hearts;
I’ve got the hots for the smarts.

If a stone could read

2007-07-11T13:05:00.000+01:00

"If you could keep going deeper and deeper, you'd finally not be a person... you'd be a blade of grass or ultimately perhaps a stone. And if a stone could read, poetry would speak for it."
~Galway Kinnell

Body Positive

2007-07-10T01:01:00.000+01:00

After yesterday's weight whinge, I feel it's time we had a body positive post.

My friend, Dav, took some photos of me a few months ago and finally got round to sending them by e-mail yesterday. And in some of them I don't look half bad. I'll spare you the semi-clad ones; here's one of me in a pretty dress:

I'd also like to recommend some good body-positive blogs: Every Woman Has an Eating Disorder and fat fu. Smoog also wrote a brilliant entry on the subject.

I'd like to finish with an image nicked from old_man_summer.

This is actually a Brazilian advertisement for low-fat yoghurt. Unfortunately, the text reads, "Forget it. Men's preferences never change. Fit Light Yogurt." It's a spin-off from this image from the film American Beauty:

The point, then, is that the girl in our yoghurt ad obviously looks totally unattractive and unsexy, unlike Mena Suvari from American Beauty. And obviously a woman's perogative is to attract men. So you'd better go and buy some yoghurt so that you'll look like Mena Suvari, because she's clearly the sexier of the two.

If you're a necrophiliac, that is.

Still Fat, Still Bipolar

2007-07-09T10:01:00.000+01:00

For a long while now, I've been intending to post further comments on this entry, the issue concerned being the weight gain that mood stabilisers nearly always seem to cause. Given the choice between being fat and being crazy, I go with being fat, but I still think it's an issue that needs to be addressed. I don't know if research is being done into ways to prevent this side effect, but it should be.

The health risks linked with obesity are obvious. But I think that the psychological effects can be equally harmful, particularly for women, when we live in a culture in which "thin is in." Also, eating disorders are much more prevalent in bipolars than in the general population, something which it doesn't seem anyone's thought about. Significant weight gain isn't going to make anybody feel great about themselves, but, in the case of those whose self-worth is based almost entirely on what they weigh, it can be nothing short of devastating. I speak from experience, having put on approximately four stone (56lbs) in recent years. I am not a happy bunny. I thought I was fat when I had bulimia. Now I am fat, and I don't like it. But what's to be done? Swapping medications is a risky business, and the weight gain is pretty much universal anyway. I hope somebody's looking into it.

You can read more about weight gain and other side effects of mood stabilisers here.

Creep, crawl, flash or thunder

2007-07-08T23:14:00.000+01:00

"The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in."
~Dylan Thomas

Stuffage

2007-07-06T04:30:00.001+01:00

Just thought I should let you know that I haven't been hit by a bus, though I was knocked for the proverbial half dozen by a rather nasty strain of flu. I'm very much on the mend now, though, and also very much settled into my new student house.

It seems an age ago now, but you can view some of my Rome photos here. This album is mostly the arty farty stuff, but I'm afraid it's also also pictures of others on the trip, which I put up because, you know, photos of oneself always hold an interest and these were for sharing on Facebook. So ignore photos of various grinning students doing not much.

I got a phone call from Pendulum magazine, saying they'd published my letter. They said they'd "cut it down a bit," but when I actualy got the issue in the post, they'd done more than that. They'd cut it drastically, reworded it completely and made me sound something of a fool into the bargain. I'm now somewhat embarrassed that my name's at the bottom. Ah, well, won't be writing for them again. I should've got the next Mslexia through the post by now. I'm feeling a bit disappointed with magazines at the moment. Also a bit disappointed that I haven't won the competition, or had one of my entries published. I was proud of those poems - Samson and Persephone and that - thought I stood a chance for once. Mind you, that's probably the surest route to failure. Well, at least I have those poems to try other places, along with Nativity.

I've been doing my reading. I did like Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel very much, though I can't remember all that much of it now, besides factual stuff. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver was brilliant character-wise. It had real psychological depth to it, which kept me thinking for a long time after. Then I moved on to Grace Paley's Collected Stories, which captured a real essence of American Jewishness. Quite a lot of the political stuff went over my head, though. Then I read I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, which I adored, not least because of the castle! I love books with castles or grand houses - Rebecca, Wuthering Heights, The Italian.... such atmospheric novels! The buildings take on a life of their own; they're not just where the novel takes place, they're at its very core, almost characters themselves. I read Roberta Taylor's Too Many Mothers, memoir of "an East End childhood," whilst at my illest. I didn't enjoy it all that much, for the most part, but that may have been because I wasn't enjoying anything. Very memorable characters, though. I'm going to read Asta's Book by Barbara Vine next, and I'm going through Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, making notes, for next term.

I got my exam results through:

Introduction To Ancient Philosophy: 62% - 2:1 - bit of a disappointment
Introduction To Greek Archaeology: 75% - 1st - pleasant surprise, hated that course
Beginners' Greek: 73% - 1st - as expected
Inventing The Novel: 58% - 2:2 - disappointment, worked my socks off for that exam and thought I'd done better than that
Introducing English Poetry: 64% - not too bad, considering how I fluffed it up

Which gives me an average off 66.4%, 2:1. Not bad, not brilliant. Would like to get a First for next year, though, when it actually counts. Funny how I did so much better in Classics. I don't know if this is because Classics is easier here - certainly you needed lower grades to get in. Or perhaps I'm just better at Classics. It's worth considering, though, when I decide what to do for MA. The other funny thing is that my highest mark was for Archaeology, which mostly bored the pants off me, and my lowest was for the Novel, which I thoroughly enjoyed. So do I take courses which are dull but which guarantee me a good First, or do I take the interesting ones and settle for a 2:1? Is it possible to be an academic with 2:1s? Am I clever enough to be an academic and, if not, what the hell else do I want to do?

Oh, and, incidentally, does anyone know how to have a header on your blogger instead of just text as they put it? I can suck up, then, to someone who's good with Photoshop and get myself a pretty, booky header.

Unlearned

2007-06-18T18:23:00.001+01:00

"I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself."
~C.S. Lewis

The Seduction of the Infinite

2007-06-17T23:08:00.001+01:00

"Poetry describes, enacts, is compelled by those moments of supreme passion, insight, or knowledge that are physical yet intuitive, that render us whole, inspired. Among verbal events - which by their nature move horizontally through time, along the lines of cause and effect - poetry tends to leap, to try to move more vertically: astonishment, rapture, vertigo - the seduction of the infinite and the abyss - what so much of it is after."
~Jorie Graham

Sanctuaries

2007-06-15T23:24:00.000+01:00

I hope you recognise my picture to the right as being from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, as it's one of my all-time favourite films. Belle, who is naturally one of my all-time favourite heroines, shares my passion not only for books, but also for libraries. The Beast's library, and its splendour, are actually quite a significant part of the film. Here's the Beast's library:

Somebody once said, "I'd marry the Beast if I could have a library like that!" Personally I like the Beast, and I think he's much more attractive as a Beast. He's a bit of sissy when he becomes a man. Anyway, I love the part when he gives the library to Belle as a gift. It's one of the key turning points in their relationship:

And they've made a real-life copy of the library at Disneyland:

Putting my love of Disney aside for a minute, and as your resident Library Princess, I thought I'd show you some photos of the libraries which have really taken my fancy lately:

This is Melk Abbey.

Queen's College Library, Oxford.

Oxford's Bodleian Library.

This is in Peru!

Theological Hall, Strahov Monastery, Prague.

Philosophical Hall, Strahov Monastery, Prague.

Biltmore Estate, North Carolina.

However poor I am when I'm older (and as a writer/academic, I will be), I am determined that my home will have a library. Even if I have to section off part of a room that's being used for something else. I will have all of my (and hopefully my husband's and childrens') books together, and there will be somewhere to sit. And I will have a desk. I accept that I'm not going to be a wealthy woman, but I must have that. As Cicero said, "To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul."

Little Myths

2007-06-14T23:59:00.001+01:00

"The poem... is a little myth of man's capacity to make life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see - it is, rather, a light by which we may see - and what we see is life."
~Robert Penn Warren

From "In memory of W. B. Yeats"

2007-06-14T00:20:00.000+01:00

II.

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

~ W. H. Auden:

Picture Gallery

2007-06-13T02:37:00.000+01:00

I've been meaning to write this post for months now. I always have several on the "back burner." I can't remember when it was - months ago, anyway - the College opened up its Picture Gallery to the public for a day. The Picture Gallery is full of really wonderful Victorian paintings. We're never allowed in there, which I can sort of understand: you wouldn't want someone graffitti-ing "Gary woz ere"on your very valuable paintings, or running off with them (though I think someone would spot that - most of them are massive). It would be nice, though, if someone could come and guard the place once a week for a few hours so I could get to know the paintings by heart. There must be some other students who like them.

Apparently not, though. I went up that Sunday to see the paintings and, well, I'm always aware that I stand out a little. I don't mind that. I actually rather like it. But I felt as if I were visiting from another planet. Everyone was very posh and very old, except, that is, for the middle-class mummies and daddies dragging their bored teenagers around. All these elderly ladies in pearls, peering at a great, magnificent depiction of a Babylonian wife market, and saying, "Oh, yes, very nice." All very sedate. And there's me, in my full-length paisley coat and trailing purple scarf, feverishly scribbling notes, vaguely aware that I was muttering to myself as I did so, and trying not to gasp audibly when I saw something new. I was half in raptures, but half of me felt a bit... bizarre.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there, really. I looked the paintings up on Google Images for you, but the results were rather disappointing. I have got a few, though:

Briton Riviere - Sympathy, 1877

This is the College's "trademark" painting. It must be quite famous. We have postcards and posters and all sorts for sale. In fact, I've had a poster of it in my room all year. I don't think it's going up in the new house, though. I've kind of gone off it. I mean, yeah, it's very nice. It's cute. She's endearing, and it's interesting to wonder what she's thinking, as I always do with people in paintings. It's the dog that ruins it, I think. I mean, sympathetic, loyal little dog. It's so twee, such a cliche. Maybe it hadn't been done to death in those days.

J. Pettie - A State Secret, 1874

What a fantastic idea for a painting. This has really grown on me, especially since reading Ann Radcliffe's The Italian. There's something truly fascinating about ruthless, cruel Catholic clergy. They make the perfect villains. Perhaps because clergy are supposed to be the opposite, so our expectations and the social order are overturned. And you've got the added mystery that goes with Catholicism, the atmosphere created by the great buildings and the ceremony. The Inquisition, as well, is so scary. The idea of physical torture, dark, dank cells and corridors like the deepest, most primeval parts of the human mind, sadism, something inhuman about the inability or refusal to feel pity, wickedness disguised as righteousness, and the self-deceit that goes with that. I wish this image were close enough for me to see the clergyman's face. It's brilliantly done, the human forms and flames in the background, distant and indistinct enough to be nothing but a mural, flames which link so directly to the burning of the paper. Amazing.

Princess Elizabeth in Prison at St. James', 1879

What I like about this one is that you can almost see into her mind. The discarded books and papers are evidence that she tries to employ herself, to make the time go faster, but she cannot concentrate. She is just a little too pale, having a naturally fair complexion. She is healthy enough, but you can deduce if you look carefully that she's had no sunshine or fresh air in too long, and not enough sleep. There's a dread in her face. This painting is twinned with one of the two princes in the Tower, which you can see here.

Joshua Mann - The Cauld Blast, 1876

It's interesting... the Victorian sentimentality that comes through in so many of the paintings. It's the same sentimentality that Dickens is full of. Where did it come from, I wonder? Life has always been hard for the poor, so why the sudden heartache over it, the sudden romanticising? There have always been children, so why the sudden obsession with them? I vaguely remember, when we were studying Oliver Twist, the philosophical works we looked at, about childhood innocence and whatnot. Obviously these philosophical works got people thinking about childhood, but for me that doesn't quite explain the mania surrounding the Victorian child. Dickens had a passion, obviously. He was on a one-man mission.

Gosh, I wish I could do the Ritual and Society in C19th Fiction and Painting module next year. Unfortunately, because of the way the system works, choosing that option would have left me doing stuff I didn't particularly want to do for the rest of the English Literature half of this year's work. It wasn't quite worth it, to miss out on all the other stuff I want to do.

A Literary Family

2007-06-12T01:00:00.000+01:00

"I feel a part of a literary family, a community of both living and dead poets. In the way of families, I may argue vehemently with other relatives sometimes, but the empathy - the fact of inclusion - is always there... I remember reading Langston Hughes in an anthology when I was in my teens and reading a poem like Dream Boogie, where the language just hops and leaps all over the page, and recognizing a part of my life that I hadn't ever encountered in a poem before. That recognition is incredibly vital to my personal and spiritual identity."
~Rita Dove

The Cat Concert

2007-06-11T01:26:00.000+01:00

"Poetry proves again and again that any single overall theory of anything doesn't work. Poetry is always the cat concert under the window of the room in which the official version of reality is being written."
~Charles Simic

2007-06-11T00:43:00.000+01:00

"In a better world, poetry would need no justification beyond the sheer splendor of its existence. As Wallace Stevens once observed, 'The purpose of poetry is to contribute to man's happiness.'... Aesthetic pleasure needs no justification, because a life without such pleasure is not one worth living."
~Dana Gioia

A picture speaks... several words?

2007-05-26T01:56:00.000+01:00

You may remember that I was harping on a while back about getting a digital camera and pursuing photography. Well, I did, in the end. I thought you might like to see some of the results. Excuse the blue dates on some of these pictures - it took me a while to figure out how to get rid of them.

Taken at my university: Royal Holloway, University of London.

At a park in Southampton.

Taken at my old school, now deserted: Grove Place, Southampton.

Ditto.

Ditto. That's my friend, Alex, there.

Mudeford. That's my baby brother.

Windsor Great Park.

Ditto. My friend, Katie, feeds the ducks.

Aforementioned ducks.

In the New Forest.

And ditto.

Wikipedophile

2007-05-21T23:22:00.000+01:00

You know, I intended this to be an academic weblog. Not very academic of late, is it? More my-life journally type stuff. I will reform my ways after exams are over, and I have more time to read into stuff of an academic interest. Or, rather, read into it and then write about it. I'm still reading. Wikipedia is my friend. Sure, it's biased and often inaccurate, but that's half the fun! I've been reading lots about Neopaganism: Druidry, various types of Wicca; there are all sorts of types of Paganism. Also read about Gnosticism, and Simon Magnus, and all that. Very interesting. I'm currently a Christian Druid! And, yes, that is possible. I'm going through a very spiritual time in my life at the moment. Should lead to some debatey/thinky type posts over the summer.

As usual, I'm also reading novels. Since my last post, I've read The Taxi Driver's Daughter by Julia Darling, which I enjoyed. It managed to be neither superficial nor heavy reading. It also mirrored by own life and upbringing, in the "respectable working class." My dad's a taxi driver too. I also read Knowledge of Angels by Jill Paton Walsh, which I found a little tricky to get into at the start, but certainly worth it. It was both pleasing to the imagination and stimulating to the intellect with its religious/philosophical discussions. I'd have liked a happier ending, though! I'm on to Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel now; will start on the train tomorrow.

There was Adam's pamphlet launch, of course, last Tuesday. It was published by The Tall Lighthouse, which specialises in poets under 30 and provides quite a lot of extra help and guidance, it seems. Perfect. I plucked up courage and spoke to Roddy Lumsden about submitting a manuscript, and I intend to have 30 poems sent off by this time next year. So that's hopeful; what's hopeless (at least until next year) is that I received a rejection letter from Tower Poetry summer school this morning. A lot of muttering under the breath, but, other than that, I'm cool. :o)

Next time I post will probably be after my second trip to Rome! Rome! Woohoo!

Mmmm.... books

2007-05-10T22:27:00.000+01:00

I've been busy with exams and stranded without internet, so this is just a little update from me, really. NaPo died a death about two thirds of the way through, I'm ashamed to say, but, still, I got some good poems out of it. I sent Bee, Sorrento, Persephone and Samson (those of you from NaPo will know which poems those are) to the Mslexia Competition, and I'm looking to send Nativity to some magazine or other.

I've also done quite a bit of very wonderful reading. I adored Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, which seemed to combine my interests as if it were written especially for me: Greek mythology, a woman's perspective, poetry in prose.... Then I went on to Oryx and Crake by the same, which startled me in how different it was: a futuristic tale of survival. How versatile she is, unlike, say, Torey Hayden or Catherine Cookson, who basically write/wrote the same novel over and over again. Then I moved on to Angela Carter, and, oh, I fell in love. The Bloody Chamber is a retelling of fairy tales, and gloriously gothic, all blood and death and sex and roses and wolves and beasts and sex, lavish surroundings, lavish language. And I've just finished Wise Children, which is basically a Shakespeare play narrated by a feisty old lady. That was fantastic, kept me away from my revision, though. I'm about to start The Taxi Driver's Daughter by Julia Darling, because I am a taxi driver's daughter.

Don't forget Adam's pamphlet launch next Tuesday (15th May) at 6.30pm, Foyles Charing Cross!

That girl blew down my house

2007-04-20T15:04:00.000+01:00

"Whatever its actual content and overt interest, every poem is rooted in imaginative awe. Poetry can do a hundred and one things - delight, sadden, amuse, instruct - it may express every possible shade of emotion, and describe every conceivable kind of event, but there is only one thing that all poetry must do; it must praise all it can for being and for happening."
~ W. H. Auden

As I type this, I'm listening to Rugged Fantasia's new album (post about it coming up, it's amazing) - the track "That girl blew down my house," go listen here - Katy's beautiful, matchless voice, singing, "What a wonderful world." It strikes me that writing a poem is an act of worship. I don't mean worship in terms of a deity - though, in my case, it is, as I've recently become a Christian again - it's worship for the world, for life. God is life, in my view, but I know that view is by no means universal. I don't want to preach. I'm just saying that poetry is so important because it's spiritual. Art is spiritual. Life can't be divided into tidy sections.

The Heart of God

2007-04-12T00:40:00.000+01:00

"Poetry... is another way to be hurled straight into the heart of God."
~ Marjorie Holmes

I love this quotation, because it sums up for me the link between poetry (all kinds of art, in fact, but for me, poetry in particular) and spirituality. So far, in my life, I've been a Christian, a Pagan and agnostic, and now I'm a bizarre blending of the three. But poetry, for me, is a big part of spirituality. I think the Druids understood that, which is partly why I'm so drawn to them. I asked the professor who lead my poetry seminars at uni, once, about the way in which poetry elevates us, gives us that spiritual feeling which has no name. What is that, and why do we get it? He said he didn't know, or the hyper-eloquent professor equivalent. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with rhythms... the heartbeat? I don't know. 12:40am isn't the time for deciding these things.

Bipolarama

2007-04-10T17:25:00.001+01:00

I read an article, in the Spring 2007 issue of Pendulum, the other day, about proposed changes in the diagnosis of bipolar, led by Prof. Nick Craddock. He is quoted as saying: "We might move towards talking, for example, about bipolar spectrum disorder which would mean that the person is susceptible to ups and downs - but it might include people at the moment who are variously diagnosed as having bipolar I disorder, severe depressions and schizophrenia."

The bipolar guidelines and specifications at the moment are very rigid. You have to be pretty much exactly what's described in a text book in order to be diagnosed. In fact, I sometimes wonder if anyone could be pulled off the street, given five or six handbooks to work with, and do what our psychiatrists do now.

Bipolar disorder is now generally classified according to six types identified by Gerald Klerman, MD, (Psychiatric Annals 17: Jan. 1987):

Bipolar I: Mania and depression.
Bipolar II: Hypomania (less severe mania) and depression.
Bipolar III: Cyclothymic disorders (less severe mania, less severe depression).
Bipolar IV: Hypomania or mania precipitated by antidepressant drugs.
Bipolar V: Depressed patients with bipolar relatives.
Bipolar VI: Mania without depression.

Personally, I would fit Bipolar II. Or, if you want to go further into psychobabble, Bipolar II with rapid cycling and a seasonal pattern (ie. more hypomanic in summer, more depressed in winter). Because of the rapid cycling and the less severe mania, my bipolar wasn't identified, and thus wasn't correctly treated, until two and a half years after I first saw my GP. I was initially diagnosed with depression. Then, over a year later, when I eventually saw a psychiatrist (I demanded to see one), bipolar was raised as a possibility but psychotic depression was preferred. When I went into a psychiatric hospital, they diagnosed depression and suggested a possible personality disorder. It wasn't until I'd been out of hospital several months and saw my new psychiatrist, that bipolar was seen to be likely and I was tried on a mood stabiliser. There was an obvious improvement. Now, it seems to me that had things been done Prof. Craddock's way, it's likely that I'd have been treated for bipolar sooner, or at least it would have been one of the more prominent options. Which is why I favour the scheme. I won't go into everything he says, but it involves treatment that's less reliant on meds, things being more individual and less casebook, and other general sense! Of course, everyone's brain is different but has things in common, and likewise the experience of everyone who is bipolar will have things is common but will also be different.

I intend to write a letter in to Pendulum, saying such. I'd quite like to write an article for them sometime, if they'd let me.

It's clear, though, that as I have progressed towards the bipolar diagnosis, I have become more and more typically casebook bipolar. Is this because casebook bipolar is, you know, what I naturally am, in my adult state, and my adolescence has been progression towards that? Or is it that I've thought I'm bipolar so subconsciously I've gone with it? How effectively can the subconscious "create" symptoms? I mean, I've definitely got them. Take, for example, the diagnostic criteria for hypomania:

A distinct period of persistently elevated, expansive; or irritable mood, lasting throughout at least 4 days, that is clearly different from the usual nondepressed mood.
During the period of mood disturbance, three (or more) of the following symptoms have persisted (four if the mood is only irritable) and have been present to a significant degree:

inflated self-esteem or grandiosity
decreased need for sleep (e.g. feels rested after only 3 hours of sleep)
more talkative than usual or pressure to keep talking
flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are racing
distractibility (i.e., attention too easily drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli)
increase in goal-directed activity (either socially, at work or school, or sexually) or psychomotor agitation
excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g. the person engages in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments)

The episode is associated with an unequivocal change in functioning that is uncharacteristic of the person when not symptomatic.
The disturbance in mood and the change in functioning are observable by others
the episode is not severe enough to cause marked impairment in social or occupational functioning, or to necessitate hospitalisation, and there are no psychotic features.
The symptoms are not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g. a drug of abuse, a medication, or other treatment) or a general medical condition (e.g. hyperthyroidism).

Now, let me describe the last week or so: Nothing particularly noticeable at first. Had a rotten cold, but was in a good mood. Wasn't sleeping well, but assumed it was down to the cold. Writing loads, but assumed that was down to the discipline of NaPoWriMo. Flood of ideas, assumed that was because I was a brilliantly creative person (!). Couldn't concentrate to read, but assumed I was being lazy. Night before last, it came to a head. I started to feel out of control and became frightened. I got to sleep finally around 5:30 or 6am. I woke up at 8:10, feeling entirely refreshed and saner, and packed a picnic. My friend and I went shopping. I spent over a hundred pounds that I didn't have. Bought a new mobile phone, and a digital camera. Had my nose pierced on impulse. Then we went to look round our old school. We were out for over eight hours. I wasn't tired, went to bed at the normal time. I slept for 12 hours then, which, for me, isn't excessive, just a good night's sleep. And I feel much more normal today. So: have I been experiencing hypomania, or am I just stupid? I still can't concretrate, but maybe I'm just being lazy. :oP

I wave the dumb-struck world hello

2007-04-09T00:26:00.001+01:00

I'm still on a NaPo-high. New stuff just keeps coming, phrases and images. I can see them so clearly in my head. The barrenness of most of the last few years seems a world away. And it feels so good. Hurrah!

And, what's more, I had a poem written about me by a chap called Larry. I couldn't resist posting it. It's based on the following photograph of me, riding an elephant in Thailand, February 2006:

Laura Rides an Elephant

for Empty Chairs

Laura rides an elephant:
the sun comes bouncing down the lane,
the sky too silver-blue to be,
her mother says don't lie to me,
behind the window pane.
Her father's crying in his bed,
his books glued closed in labeled rows
as Laura rides an elephant
across the lawn, beyond the shed
where wild poppies grow.

Laura rides an elephant -
a swaying lull she can't contain,
so high, to fall would break her soul
to screws and splints, the rigmarole
of staying smart and sane.
The flappy ears slap slap her knees,
she waves the dumb-struck world hello:
when Laura rides an elephant
she bids the frame to flash and freeze
and never let her go.

Nigel, pick me!

2007-04-09T00:20:00.000+01:00

I finished my application for The Tower Poetry Summer School at Christ Church, Oxford today - well, yesterday. Three poems and a covering letter. God, I want this so badly. I want it so badly I can't sleep. It's ridiculous. Do keep your fingers and toes crossed for me, and any other digits you may have. Here's the letter I sent:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to apply for a place at this year’s Tower Poetry Summer School. I would particularly like to attend because I have felt recently that my poetry has reached a kind of plateau, in that it seems to have ceased to improve. This has been alleviated somewhat by taking part in NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month, attempting to write a poem a day throughout April), which has so far been a great success for me. I still feel, though, that I am in need of some help or instruction from someone more experienced when it comes to revising my work and producing multiple drafts. I would also greatly appreciate the chance to meet other young people who are serious about poetry, as the members of my university’s Writers’ Circle are mainly concerned with prose.

My previous writing achievements are modest but have been very significant to me personally. The first was when I was eight years old and we were told to write a poem about trees for a school project. This was when I first discovered that, not only does a poem not have to rhyme, but rhyme is a tool rather than a restriction. We had been learning, at that time, about simile and metaphor also, and it was with my tree poem that I discovered how figurative language could convey my impressions of the world around me, enabling me to communicate more effectively than I could in speech. The poem was, of course, childish. It was wholly unstructured and contained the unfortunate line: “its roots suck up nutrients like a huge, powerful vacuum cleaner.” Nevertheless, it was praised by my teachers and featured in the local newspaper. Since then, I have directed my life towards a career in writing. I have continued to have minor successes. At the age of eleven, I was published in a Young Writers anthology, and I went on to write for several more of their anthologies and also for their magazine, Wordsmith. I rapidly outgrew this, however, and since the age of fourteen, I have been honing my poetic skills in preparation for adults’ magazines and competitions. I won the 15-19 section of the Peterloo Poetry Competition in 2005. I have also attended several workshops, am active in online critique forums and run the university Writers’ Circle.

Please see below for my details and the three poems are enclosed. Many thanks for providing this wonderful opportunity.

Yours faithfully,

etc.

This is the sun's birthday

2007-04-08T12:01:00.000+01:00

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

~ e. e. cummings

Somebody had been reading Hopkins, methinks. Happy Easter, everyone.

NaPo and Schtuff

2007-04-06T08:02:00.000+01:00

Just a little catch-up regarding my writing, etc.

As Plath said, "For the few little outward successes I may seem to have, there are acres of misgivings and self-doubts." Plath also said that self-doubt is "the greatest enemy to creativity." True, indeed. So thank you to all those who provided reassurance a while back. It did help.

What's also helped a great deal is plunging into this year's NaPoWriMo at PFFA. NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is, as many of you know, a challenge similar to NaNoWriMo, in which the participants attempt to write a poem a day throughout the month of April. I have persisted in spite of illness, and it's done so much for my self-discipline, and also for my confidence. Nothing makes me feel better about writing than writing itself. As Plath said, again (note to self: you're too old for a Plath obsession, get over it), when you stop writing, even for a very short amount of time, you cease to be a poet and become a sort of poet-in-rest. Which is an uncomfortable place to be, in a way, and it's hard to start again. One thing I've learned is Just Keep Writing. I was reading Mslexia yesterday and somebody or other said her motto was: "It doesn't have to be good. It just has to be written." Or something like that. That helps a great deal, because I think I'm so frightened, sometimes, of not being able to write well, or write promisingly, that I don't write at all. Which is lethal, of course. Anyway, if you want to read my sketchyfirstdraft-filled NaPo thread, it's here.

That's recent news. Less recent news is that we had the Runnymede Lit Festival. I did the two workshops, run by Jo Shapcott and Dell Olsen, which were good, took something away from those. I also discovered a new poet, that I really like, at a reading. His name is Adam O'Riordan. He also has Seth-Lakeman, beautiful-man appeal, which helps, naturally. I spoke to him briefly on Facebook. His new pamphlet, Queen of the Cotton Cities, is being launched at Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London on May 15th, 6:30-8:30pm. I highly recommend his work, so be there if you can. Hopefully I will.

I've got lots of competitions ahead that I'm thinking of entering. Hopefully, after NaPo, I'll have lots of stuff to enter. The big one, though, is that I'm going for this year's Tower Poetry Summer School. So I need to send three poems and a covering letter, which is underway. For the three poems, there's Novenary obviously (God, I'm still such a one-trick pony), but I'm not sure about the others yet. I did ask Dell Olsen for help in the end. She said to make sure I include a range of stuff, which was damned good advice, but apart from that she didn't say much. She's a busy lady, of course.

Well, I'm still poorlysick so I was up at five, writing, and saw the lovely dawn. I've just put mugs of tea by my dozing parents, which I think qualifies me for the Daughter of the Year Award. And all of this is completely dull and unnecessary so I'm going to shut up right about.... now.

University of Life

2007-04-02T11:45:00.000+01:00

10 Things Learned in my Second Term at University

1. Never mix red and white wine, especially not whilst congratulating yourself on not mixing wine and spirits and concluding that you can drink twice as much as a result.

2. Screaming is not the answer.

3. People are much nicer to me than I deserve, and extraordinarily patient. I'd have thrown me out of a window long ago.

4. Lambrini girls do not have more fun. Lambrini girls embarrass themselves in public.

5. Ducks love Skips.

6. People in general are kinder than I give them credit for.

7. Being nocturnal is bad. Very, very bad.

8. My bipolar can be relied upon to always kick in at the worst possible time - ie. when I have something important to do.

9. Successful sex is near impossible. So many things can go wrong.

10. Most people lie most of the time.

5 Things to Learn in my Third Term at University

1. What's the point of flavoured condoms? And why do they call it a blow job when you don't blow?

2. Who was it who said one day, "See that cow over there? I'm gonna squeeze the pink things underneath it and drink what comes out!"? And why did everyone say, "What a jolly good idea!" rather than, "Ugh, you pervert!"?

3. How much undiluted vodka can I drink in one go?

4. After exams, can I live a work-free, hippy lifestyle and be groovy and happy, drinking Pimms on the grass and singing along to the guitar? Like my whole life's a festival?

5. If you choke a smurf, what colour does it turn? Where can I find a smurf to test this?