Meta-Shakespeare

 I've got a daughter in Classical Conversations doing Challenge III this year. That means we'll be studying Shakespeare. I've got five plays lined up to study with her and am already done with Much Ado About Nothing. I had a conversation with my wife while reading Much Ado and thought it would make an interesting study. There are many instances in Shakespeare's plays when he has a line that appears to be universally true, even out of context for the play; think "All the world's a stage" As You Like It 2.7.139. This line says something that is to be understood as true outside the play as well as inside the play. He is making a reality claim, or a meta-claim, if you will. I am facinated by these lines and asked my wife if the current consensus on Shakespeare was that these were intentional not. She felt they were intentional and I like the idea of that. There are times when the poet / playwright speaks to the crowd in unobscured statements about the nature of reality and personal relationships. 

I'm going to study these moments this year with my daughter reading Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Henry V, and Hamlet. I will post these Meta-Shakepeare ponderings and what I think they mean as we go. Stick around. 

Study Guides

I am working on a new project while I am unemployed. I have been writing study guides for books I teach for years now for my students, but have never really had the opportunity to revise them at all. While I am trying to find a job, I am doing some revision of those guides and thinking of ways to earn a little money with them. I finished the Iliad yesterday and am almost done with the Odyssey as well.

They are pretty straightforward guides. They have author, date, and context introductions as well as a summary of the book, themes, and literary notes for things to watch for and understand while reading. Each have several multiple choice comprehension quizzes periodically throughout the book which have answer keys, but the most important thing is that I have included no answers to anything but the quizzes. I did this intentionally. Daily reading is accompanied by either review and recitation worksheets which are pretty straightforward or specific worldview discussion sessions which are a little more complicated. In either case, the ideal is that Mom and Dad, or the teacher/tutor are reading this book along with their kids and they can talk through the answers together. On the review and recitation pages, there isn't much to dig for. On the discussion sessions, I wanted to allow for honest discussion in a group or even amongst members of a family. So I didn't provide answers for questions like, What is pride? I think the family/classroom discussion is far more valuable than any answer I could provide would ever be.

If you are interested in one of the guides I've got ready, let me know and I'll send you a sample. I haven't worked out a price yet for the whole guide, but it'd be under $10.

Aristeia

Aristeia is a Greek word meaning excellence. When used in the Iliad, it refers to the best fighting a hero may accomplish. An excellent example of this is in book 21 when Achilleus almost single-handedly routs the entire Trojan army and succeeds in killing Hektor, the hero of the Trojans.

Pride in the Iliad

This theme of the Iliad is mentioned in the proem (the first several lines of the poem) and describes the most basic outline of the plot of the story. While the main theme of the work is widely recognized as “the wrath of Achilleus” it is obvious with the most cursory read-through that this wrath stems from Achilleus’ sense of pride. Pride is the most basic problem in Greek literature. Taken from the Greek term hubris which means an exaggerated self-pride or self-confidence, our conception of pride is very fitting. Pride is thinking too highly of oneself and acting like everyone else should think as highly of you as you do.
Both Achilleus and Agamemnon are guilty of pride (or hubris) in the Iliad. The argument that erupts between them over the war bride Briseis is a perfect example of this. Agamemnon feels that since he is the great king of the war fleet, he should have the best prizes. When Chriseis is taken from him to appease Chryse and Apollo, he demands that he get Achilleus’ war bride in return for his loss. This is an amazing amount of pride on Agamemnon’s part, but Achilleus’ response is no less prideful.
Achilleus responds to Agamemnon’s demand by retreating from the battle, sulking at his own ships, and begging his goddess mother to make Agamemnon pay for his rash behavior and dishonoring of her son. He insists that for the dishonor he has been shown he will no longer fight with the Achaians.
As Christians we know that pride is one of the greatest sins we can fall into. It was the very sin that cast Lucifer, that angel of light, from the presence of God in heaven and doomed him to spend eternity in hell. Therefore as we see pride writ large upon the characters of Homer’s Iliad, we must consider the worldview implications of such thinking. Homer, like most Greek writers, often condemned hubris, but also recognized that a certain amount was necessary for survival. In the Christian life, our greatest strength often becomes our most challenging weakness as well. Are you a gifted athlete? That can be a source of pride for you as well then. Do you do well in classes without much labor? That can also turn into a pride issue. Unlike the Greek heroes in the Iliad, we have the opportunity to lay our pride before God and recognize our own weakness. The Greeks, in some ways, felt their gods were simply stronger, immortal, people. There was no majesty involved. No holiness before which they could humble themselves. This represents one of the chief reasons so many Greek heroes get in trouble with the gods. They too often act like gods and take glory away from the gods themselves.

Metaphysical Poetry

“About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed metaphysical poets.”
Samuel Johnson first used the term “metaphysical poets” in a disparaging way in his Lives of the Poets in 1744. He faulted these writers for using their wit to construct false conceits, tying dissimilar ideas together in a violent fashion. He acknowledged that many of these poets were “men of learning” and that they occasionally hit on truth, saying “their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.”
By the end of the seventeenth century the poetry studied in this guide had fallen out of favor and was largely ignored for nearly two centuries. Poets like T.S. Eliot recovered the genius of the metaphysical poets and stated that the metaphysical poets were merely “engaged in the task of trying to find the verbal equivalent for states of mind and feeling. And this means both that they are more mature, and that they wear better, than later poets of certainly not less literary ability.” He noted that English poetry changed significantly after John Milton (1608-1674) and John Dryden (1631-1700) and that poets lost the technique of feeling the experiences that create poetry. In Eliot’s opinion, it is a lost art to convert heterogeneous experiences into poetry, and this is what the metaphysical poets did.
The poets that are generally labeled “metaphysical” are men like John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Abraham Crowley, Edward Herbert, Richard Crashaw and a host of other poets generally living during the seventeenth century (1600’s). From time-to-time sonnets of men like William Shakespeare will be slipped in. As Eliot noted, it was an organic transition from the dramatists of the sixteenth century that gave rise to the conceits of the seventeenth century poets. What makes a poem “metaphysical”? The poets we are concerned with wrote about a broad range of topics, both secular and sacred. However, their poetry is very much characterized by wit. Wit is different from humor, which is what we generally associate the word with today. Humor is more-or-less immediately funny. Wit requires a second glance or reconsideration before it is realized. Wit “suggests intellectual brilliance and ingenuity, verbal deftness, as in an epigram.”
An epigram is a short poem with a witty twist at the end. The form of the epigram comes from Rome, but has been well-developed by English-speaking authors as well. It may be the best way to illustrate the use of wit that is central to metaphysical poetry. Consider the epigrams reproduced below:
Little strokes
Fell great oaks.— Benjamin Franklin

Here lies my wife: here let her lie!
Now she's at rest — and so am I.— John Dryden

Another major characteristic of metaphysical poetry is use of the conceit. A conceit is a “fairly elaborate figurative device of a fanciful kind which often incorporates metaphor, simile, hyperbole or oxymoron and which is intended to surprise and delight by its wit and ingenuity.To put it more simply, a conceit is a comparison of two things which are really nothing alike. Probably one of the best examples comes from John Donne’s poem “A Valediction: forbidding Mourning.” In this poem Donne compares the love he shares with his wife to a drafter’s compass:
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

Using this conceit, Donne explains that his going will do nothing more than expand the circumference of their unified love. It cannot diminish the love they share, for their souls are joined as the compass is joined. One leg of the compass provides a footing, an anchor; while the other moves away if needs be, but always they are connected at the center.

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[1] Samuel Johnson, “Life of Cowley,” in Lives of the Poets, 1744.

[2] Ibid.

[3] T.S. Eliot, “The Metaphysical Poets”

[4] J.A. Cuddon, “Wit,” in The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, ed. J.A. Cuddon (New York: Penguin, 1999), 985-986.

[5] Ibid., 165.

LibriVox

I have got to do a post about LibriVox. LibriVox is a website where public domain works of literature are being recorded into audio books (in mp3 format) and are distributed freely. I have downloaded and listened to many books this way. Usually there is a link to the Internet Archive ( a scanned text site similar to Google Books) where the text of the book can be found. This is an amazing resource for poetry and other stuff to hear it read aloud. This site is great for students as well.
Another plus to LibriVox is you have a time stamp on how long it takes to actually read a book. I understand that comprehension is different from reading (sometimes) but it at least gives you a starting point. I had a class that read the Autobiography of Ben Franklin this past year. I not only downloaded the book and listened to it as I prepared for class, but also had an idea as to how long it should take them to read the book as a whole.
I use LibriVox a lot and wanted to make a post so others would know more about this service as well. Enjoy.

Recovering the Lost Art of Reading Aloud

With obvious respect to Dorothy Sayers, I would like to argue for a moment about something very essential that has managed to slip out of our education process. Reading aloud. I often have students come to me in seventh grade who cannot pronounce words aloud. I believe they can read them to themselves, most of the time, but they cannot read them out loud. We read a lot of literature at the school I teach at and we do a lot of it aloud when we are able. It pains me to hear students just completely butcher Mark Twain or Homer because they lack reading ability.
After several years, I have come to believe that this is related to the fact that parents stop reading to their children after their children learn to read. I don't remember being read to as a child. I remember having lots of books, but I don't remember my Mom or Dad actually reading them to me. I am sure they did, but they probably stopped once I learned how to read for myself. As a result, I often had to figure out how things were supposed to sound, and still struggle with this if the original is Latin or Greek. How do you say Aristides or Darius?
I have a friend at another school who was read to his entire childhood. His parents read short easy to read books to him when he was learning to read. They upped it to authors like Lewis, Tolkien and Wordsworth when he was able to follow them. As he grew the family began reading Homer and Livy, Plutarch and Augustine during the family reading time. By the time he was in high school they were reading serious non-fiction and long fiction together (think McCullough's 1776 or Melville's Moby Dick). The result: He has no problem reading very difficult material. He has begun the same trend with his own children. I have as well. My boys (6 and 8) and I are reading Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth right now. I have already read the Chronicles of Narnia to them and we regularly read from Bennett's Book of Virtues.
Taking the time to read aloud to your children will have many results. The most important, assuming you choose good literature to read to them (I recommend not reading Stephen King or Harry Potter), is that they will hear a lot of good literature in their lifetime. Another result will be they will hear language being read. This is very important! It relates to the seventh graders I get from time to time. I can always tell which ones come from families that read together and which don't. Those that read together are much more comfortable reading aloud than those that don't.
I know it takes time to do this. But I would argue that whether you are homeschooling or classical schooling, this is a must for any family. Take the time. Sit down for thirty minutes each evening and read something together. Don't just read some dribble either, get something with meat on it. I recommend poetry or short fiction for the beginner. Read Lewis' Narnia books together. Read Tolkien together. Read something together.

Oedipus and his Sin

I love Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex (Tyrannus in Greek). It is the best constructed play I have ever read. It is like an steel trap. It suck you in to where you almost feel sorry for poor Oedipus for everything that he is going through in his life. Even though Sophocles expects us to know the backstory-that Oedipus did kill hsi father and marry his mother-we still feel like he is right to be mad at Tireseias and Creon (well, mayboe more Tireseias than Creon, but still). Then the whole edifice of the play begins to crumble and we are left near the end with the unmistakable conclusion that Oedipus has done everything he is said to have done. He even called down curses upon himself. We are left feeling that life just isn't fair. Poor Oedipus had no choice. He could not have foreseen this, not in a million years. He truly is the tragic hero. His punishment is way more than his pitiful little sin (hubris) deserves. At least that is what Sophocles wants us to be left with. Or does he?
At the point where Oedipus is left with no other conclusion than the inevitable admission of total guilt, he fails the test. He gouges his eyes out and inflicts a self-exile from Thebes. Now we are supposed to say to ourselves, "See how bad he feels about all of this. He can't bear to look at anythign beautiful again and refuses to allow his guilt to afflict the city he loves any longer. What a great guy. He has totally turned around and is no longer prideful." But the exact opposite is true. He has not repented of his sin, he has run from it. He has not dealt with his sin, he has blinded himself to it. He does not leave Thebes for Thebes' sake but for his. He does not blind himself for his children's sake, but for his. Compare Oedipus to two different Old Testament fiugures in slightly similar situations.
Take David. When David was shown his sin by Nathan his reaction was to decalre his own guilt and agree with God's judgment on his sin (2 Sam. 12:13). David does not gouge out his eyes or exile himself from his own people. Listen to the words of David as he contemplates his own sin. "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
And sinners shall be converted to You." (Psalm 51:12-13)
David longs to be restored to his place of leadership that he might teach and instruct others how to avoid sin. He does not want to run away from sin. He wants to deal with it at its root.
Another interesting comparison deals with the issue of Oedipus' complicity in his own downfall. Students and even authors sometimes argue that there was nothing Oedipus could have done to avoid the situation that happened. Really! Did he have to murder that man on the road to Thebes? Whether he knew it was his father or not, he still acted sinfully. In this way Oedipus walked headlong into the fulfillment of his own prophecy. Compare this to Abraham who also acted foolishly in trying to bring about the promise fo God. When God promised Abraham that he would have great blessing though his decendents, Abraham looked around and said to himself, "I have no children. I'd better help God out of this mess and get some children." So he had a child by Hagar. But God was not naive or misinformed about the situation. He intended Isaac to be the child of promise, not Abraham's substitute for God's blessing. Yet, Abaraham intercedes and procures blessing for Ishmael and submits to God's will in this as well, recognizing and repenting of his actions. Oedipus never really repents of his actions that brought about the fulfillment of prophecy. He blinds himself and exiles himself, rather than face his own penalty for the murder of his father.
It is fascinating to see how pagans deal with sin, even if they know it is sin. They do not deal with is, but set it aside and hope the best will come of a bad situation. It is not to be with us. We should be like David and rejoice in being shown our sin that we might deal with it and mortify it in ourselves.

Satire

Jonathan Swift defined satire as “a sort of glass [a mirror] wherein beholders do generally discover everyone’s face but their own, which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so many are offended with it.”[1] The famous children’s story, The Emperor’s New Clothes, may well help illustrate what Swift meant. In the story, only the child who was not sucked in by the ruse of the traveling con artists was willing to admit that the emperor was naked. Swift’s definition of satire says that those who are part of the satire will likely not see it as satire and will find nothing offensive about it. The rest, like the child in the story, will find it utterly amusing that others have been so blinded as to believe that the emperor is wearing new clothes when he, in fact, is naked.

The satirist is an upholder of standards, moral and otherwise. He points to a given situation and then draws such an aberrant analogy that many will not even notice the comparison. In A Modest Proposal, Swift maintained that English landlords have already devoured the adults of Ireland, thus they might as well feed on the children as well. He was making a gross analogy between the economic exploitation of the Irish and the supposed remedy to the hunger that was rampant in Ireland at the time. To prove his point, many thought he was being serious and decried the work as “written in bad taste.”

Satire is thus called an attack on “social and moral evils by means of humor.”[2] Veith maintains, rightly, that all satire requires a presupposed standard for moral action. Whatever is held up against this standard is found lacking. In satire, humor is often used to draw attention to the fact that the standard has not been reached or has been transgressed in some obvious way. Swift’s picturing the politician’s of Lilliput dancing and jumping over colored ropes to gain positions in the government is a very humorous satire on the methods of choosing ministers based on party politics rather than on merits.

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[1] Quoted in The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, ed. J.A. Cuddon (New York: Penguin, 1999), 780.

[2] Gene Edward Veith, Jr, Reading Between the Lines (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 111.