The Chivalric Order of the Sword-Organum

Good afternoon, my friends. Today is a day for secrecy, for I am going to discuss my very own secret society, The Chivalric Order of the Sword-Organum. This is, in fact, my second attempt at forming a secret society. The first was called the Most Holy Order of Whidbey Islanders, and it remains so secret that its members do not know that I disbanded them. This new one is much better, as it is actually founded on high and noble principles, among which are Megalomania, Satire, Christianity, and Art. In this way it is quite reminiscent of Erik Satie's private church, L'Eglise Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur, but I would prefer to believe that my ideas are completely original. What are these ideas, I rhetorically inquire?

Our organization shall consist of twelve gloriously titled leaders, twelve being properly symbolic for our purposes. Around these titles shall be formed rituals and duties to be done for the good of the society. Furthermore, from these titles and their associated functions, the society will develop its Grand Charter, declaring all matters of import to the society. Just how the titles find their respective outworkings is limited to the parameters already set forth, including Megalomania, Satire, Christianity, and Art.

More of our chivalric code is discernible in our name, most obviously by the use of the word "chivalric." Chivalry, being a more or less dead virtue, is important to us, for it is imperative that we elevate dead virtues. It is also very medieval, and it implies knighthood, which was very important from the start. Even the Most Holy Order of Whidbey Islanders used a knightly symbol, the Cross of St. Olaf, so we can see that I would never dream of being part of a secret society that does not promote knighthood. Of course, we also realize that not all secret societies dealing with knighthood are noble and virtuous.

Next, the word "Order" has been present in both The Most Holy Order of Whidbey Islanders and The Chivalric Order of the Sword-Organum. This is an immensely important word, as it implies monasticism. Furthermore, together with chivalry, it evokes one of my favorite images, that of the warrior monk. All the cool secret societies trace their origins back to obscure medieval orders. Medievalism is essential.

Why a sword-organum? What do I mean by "sword-organum?" Let us recall the seventeenth verse of the sixth chapter of Ephesians: "Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." There is our sword. Also, I can make a sword look like a cross, so how could I do any other? An organum can be one of three things, and I mean it in all three ways. First, it is a primarily medieval musical style. Second, it is a set of principles for investigation. Third, it can (from its Greek root) refer to an instrument for investigation. This all ties together in our symbol, which happens to be replete with symbolism of its own, in particular numerical symbolism:


I now humbly request that all readers not part of the Chivalric Order of the Sword-Organum forget all I have said here today. To facilitate such an end, here is a photograph I found. It makes me wish I had not been asleep when it was taken:

A Thing that I Made

The City in the Sea

I have made a new composition. It is a musical composition. Well, it is not entirely new, for I began in in the long lost days of June 2007, and I finished it on 23 December 2007. Since then I have been slowly completing the grueling (that is, extremely dull) task of transcribing the notes into a printable* format, which I have provided for you, my friends, here today. I would encourage all adept in the esoteric Art of music to attempt its performance, as that would entertain the megalomaniac** in me. For those not adept in the esoteric Art of music, I encourage a concentrated focus on the page. This will achieve nothing by itself, but for the sake of all the readership, I shall speak of the contents of these pages.

One of the first notable qualities of the music is its program, as the musicologist might say, the poem by Poe. It was selected before composition began in June. It should be read on the grounds that it is excellent, and then the music may be applied to it, an unfailingly a good time, at least for me. Ordinarily, composers incorporate their texts to be sung, but I did not do this. I have never cared much for song, at least relative the music itself. Those who argue for the primacy of text make me terribly ill, and I assure these people that they must repent of such foolishness or face dire consequences. These dire consequences, of course, are incipience and degradation of the text***, thereby defeating the original purpose of the Art. That is enough digression, though. My aim was to create an atmosphere, not set a text. Now onward!

Next the even minimally competent pianist will notice that the performer is expected to play three staves at once. I, the Evil Composer, giggle, for I know that performers hate this sort of thing. Actually, my pen and paper original used only two staves, but all the notes did not fit neatly on two, so I had to use three. I would have preferred two, though. It takes less paper and less ink. Also, it is not as if I wish to have trouble reading it. I assure the potential performer, it is all playable. I have played most of it myself. In the end, though, it looks interesting, so there is a grand victory.

Also, some might notice the way in which I chose to sign the music: J I G. These, of course, are my initials****, and they represent a great debate currently raging within me: shall I initial things J I G or JG? This is a difficult question. My current leaning holds with J I G because it is groovy. JG is still swell, though. We shall see.

There we have The City in the Sea, which I have decided to dedicate to Friendship. By extension, it is dedicated to mine excellent good friends. The Music of the Future be with you always, even unto the end of the age. For our next installment, I will allow you, my friends, to see the original draft, which I believe is pleasing to look upon.

Until then, I wish you well, and even after that also.

------------
*Please note that these pages should print cleanly and clearly to a standard printer page. Substandard pages, however, will not do.

**The megalomaniac inside me is not a good person. Do not entertain him too much.

***Also hellfire.

****They do not stand for Jedediah Ignatius Grumblesnout.

The Return of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

Greetings, gentle friends! A brief portion of my Thursday afternoon was devoted to finishing Tolkien's The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Now I resolve to review all the poems one by one.

I. "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil"
Tom sings passages from this one in The Lord of the Rings. It deals with Goldberry, badgers, Old Man Willow, a barrow-wight, and Tom Bombadil, specifically in relation to sleeping and dancing. Also, it covers the marriage and honey-moon of Tom and Goldberry.

II. "Bombadil Goes Boating"
Tom here takes a boat up the Withywindle, meeting the mocking of animals and Hobbits all the way, eventually partaking of delights with his friend Farmer Maggot. Afterward he slips back to his home.

III. "Errantry"
It is about errantry. What should one expect? The road goes ever on...

IV. "Princess Mee"
Meaning aside, the words sound very nice together. Meaning considered, the imagery of this one is exemplary.

V. "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late"
Hey diddle diddle and so on and so forth is arranged in a Hobbit poem. It is almost a dream come true, except I never dreamed it.

VI. "The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon"
Continuing with this Man in the Moon character, Tolkien provides a bit less overt silliness in favor of some more serious fun. I shall say no more, except that I like this poem very much.

VII. "The Stone Troll"
A troll has stolen a bone from Tom's late uncle Tim. Tom demands that it be put back. The troll decides instead to eat Tom, and Tom decides to kick the troll. Neither of these attempts work, so they go on their respective ways. I am not certain I am comfortable with the idea of Tom Bombadil's fallibility.

VIII. "Perry-the-Winkle"
All a troll really needs is a friend with whom to take tea. That sounds really insipid, when in fact it is not, but I would like to leave that false, humorously banal impression.

IX. "The Mewlips"
This one just might be my favorite. Mewlips are unspecified critters that live in unpleasant places that will eat you. The poem is even better than whatever your imagination might be conjuring.

X. "Oliphaunt"
I have read this someplace before. It is a silly verse about the mighty oliphaunt, traditional to the Shire, recorded for us by Sam Gamgee.

XI. "Fastitocalon"
If you spend much time around me, there is a decent chance I have related one of my favorite medieval tales to you. It is about sailors who land on an island to rest, except that the island turns out to be a whale, which proceeds to dive and drown the slothful men. This is the same idea, except with a giant sea-tortoise. I am partial to it for reasons now obvious.

XII. "The Cat"
How can a poem that starts out "The fat cat on the mat..." wind up being quite clever and interesting? The cat is dreaming of its fellows that happen to be lions and tigers (but not bears, oh my!). Just as the cat does not forget the power of its kind, neither should we forget that the only reason cats do not kill and eat us is that they are not large enough to do so. That last bit has nothing to do with the poem, mind you.

XIII. "Shadow Bride"
There is nothing quite like a morbid little romance. This is one of those.

XIV. "The Hoard"
Ah, the evils of greed and all that sort of thing! A dwarf crafts a treasure hoard underground, only to be killed by a dragon. The dragon keeps the hoard for an absurdly long time, only to be killed by a young warrior. Then an old king, consumed by love of the hoard, dies a lonely death, and the treasure is forgotten underground. This should be about as excellent as your imagination indicates, as long as your imagination indicates excellence. It is very "Middle-Earth," if I may say so.

XV. "The Sea-Bell"
Apparently this is intended to detail Frodo's melancholy dreams of his later days. I take Tolkien's word. I shall leave it alone beyond that. Note my italicization of "alone."

XVI. "The Last Ship"
Elven ships sailing from Middle-Earth, of course, are the subject here. Knowledge of both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion are essential to making sense of this poem, or at least its allusions. It deals with a particular elf maiden (who, as far as I can tell, is not wearing butter-supple loins) who must decide whether or not to leave Middle-Earth.

That is all for this night. Farewell, be well, and may we meet again soon.

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

My friends! It is a fine night to speak by moonlight, is it not? If only the moonlight would come out this midnight. Let me light a fire.

I have acquired a new possession. You might ask me, "What on earth are you thinking, making purchases for yourself right before Christmas?" To that I respond, "Bah, humbug!" This possession I purchased from a local bookseller, wherein I spent a bit of my Wednesday afternoon. That was only part of my fun, though, for I had just come from the dentist and afterward it was time for me to visit certain excellent good friends. We talked about music and things, these excellent good friends and I, and we scoffed at the uncouth heathen, just like old times. Good old times. My new possession, though, which is a book, I found at the local bookseller behind some other books. It is called The Tolkien Reader, which I had discovered just the other day contains the otherwise impossible to obtain (for any reasonable price) The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. In fact, I took care to visit the Tolkien shelves just in case this particular book was actually present, and so it was. Happy day!

Also in The Tolkien Reader are The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Borhthelm's Son, Tree and Leaf, and Farmer Giles and Ham. Respectively, these are a play based on The Battle of Malden, literary criticism on fantasy and the like, and a short fictional work of some kind. I would say more, but I have not read them yet, though I have begun The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, which is precisely a collection of poetry pertaining to the title character, supposedly of Hobbit origin. The work of Bilbo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee seems to be featured prominently among the sixteen poems, the rest being folk songs and that sort of thing. They detail, among other things, tales of Tom Bombadil, of Goldberry, of Old Man Willow, and of various critters, both together and separately. In writing these poems, Tolkien well adopted the character of a Hobbit, as is plainly echoed in the verses, quite consistent with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, from which some passages are readily recognizable. Again, I should very much like to say more, but I am not finished reading them.

To conclude, we shall celebrate. Whereas before I had little hope of obtaining The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, now it is in my hand, at the moment quite literally. I hereby convey this excellent discovery to my noble readers who, being of good taste, will certainly be interested in these matters. We all know well that Tom Bombadil is a great being. Not many characters could have been so far out as to avoid any reference whatsoever in Peter Jackson's films, but that eccentricity is what makes him so extraordinarily delightful.

Old Tom Bombadil was a merry fellow;
bright blue his jacket was and his boots were yellow,
green were his girdle and his breeches all of leather;
he wore in his tall hat a swan-wing feather.
He lived up under Hill, where the Withywindle
ran from a grassy well down into the dingle.

And so on.

The Fjestival

It is a festival! Happy festival! Fjestival fjestival!

Ah, the guests have arrived. Hello, guests. How are the guests doing, now that they have entered my home in this lush river valley? Of course the guests are well, for they have entered my home in this lush river valley for the festival. There are foodstuffs on the table: shrimp and vegetables (cauliflower, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, and broccoli) and vegetable-dip and crackers and cracker-spread. The table has a fascinating history; it used to be white, you know, but some say it is yellow. Its previous owner was once a local insult. There is a television set over there, and it is yellow. Elbow, pillow, both yellow. It is time for baseball! That man is part bee. We know this because he wears a yellow shirt. Also, he has antennae; therefore, he is part bee but not whole bee. He must bowl now, and his ball is pink. No! It is red. Or was it blue? No! It is yellow. The ceiling is yellow. The truck is yellow. Yellow! The monkey is yellow. Yes, it is a reed organ in the Wall, classically symbolic of death. It is time to eat. There are two varieties of meat and macaroni and cheese (in case Bob had not left, which he did) and green beans and potatoes and bread and desserts. Also, there is tea and water and sodapop to drink. Nice tea, nice water, nice sodapop. Yellow tea, yellow water, yellow sodapop. Runaround and runaround and squeal! Hurrah! Chocolate? No. Yes! Chocolate! Play the pianoforte, my young friend. Me! You! Yellow! You can reach a fourth, little one. Watch my hand. Runaway! Runaway! Kill the deer. Kill them dead with your guns! Kill the men. Kill them dead with your guns! Kill them with your cars, on the beaches, in the streets. Steal their possessions, the rednecks and the Chinamen alike, but do not tell them where you hid them, for they have guns. They will kill you dead with their guns. In hunting, the greatest lunatic will win every time. Six points eight points ten points see my antlers: they are yellow. Yellow antlers, yellow points. Let us fly! Let us bowl. Rock out! Drive the truck and toss the ball, but not that ball. Hide that away, OK? Weeping and wailing for the teeth, eh? Oh no! Now we cannot settle the unknown! I am sorry, my seafaring friends, but revenge must come another day. Tomorrow? I do not know. Let us rock out instead! Hadrian and Commodus have requested audience with me. The emperors themselves? Oh, yes! Let me melt your faces first, if that is all right. Of course, by all means! Thank you! Excellent! Thrilling! Yellow! Pillow! Yellow pillow! Yellow pillow elbow! Goodbye. The festival is over.

It was a festival! Happy festival! Fjestival fjestival!

The Respective Fourth Parts of Call it Sleep and The Book of Daniel as defining The Bildungsroman as a Genre

The Bildungsroman, commonly regarded as the novel of development, has an interesting development of its own as a parallel to historical development. Such is the case laid out by Franco Moretti in his The Way of the World, which chronicles the changes of the European Bildungsroman from its supposed origin with Goethe until the start of the Great War. In this time, the Bildungsroman passes through two distinct eras of the classical Bildungsroman and the Post-Napoleonic Bildungsroman; however, the Bildungsroman arguably lives on beyond this time period and beyond Europe, in such novels as Henry Roth’s Call it Sleep and E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel. It may well be that these novels are merely reflections of their own time and place, or perhaps the between shadows of the European Bildungsroman and these possible Bildungsromans there are clues to a common “ideal form,” to borrow from Moretti’s terminology. Thus by looking upon the novels relative the qualification of these eras of Bildungsroman can a notion of genre be conceived. Thus the Bildungsroman itself can be described in terms of the striving for homeland, liberation from the past, and the fall of ideals, all in relation to its essential conflict between autonomy and socialization.

The striving for homeland in the classical sense essentially meant that “A Bildung is truly such only if, at a certain point, it can be seen as concluded” (Moretti 26), whereas in the Post-Napoleonic World the narratives “seem ‘interrupted’ more than ‘concluded’” (Moretti 118). Not apparently reconcilable teleologies, the final books of each novel should indicate their entirely appropriate union. First, in Call it Sleep, the protagonist, David Schearl, concludes with a listing of seemingly random, unrelated memories, of things and their various types, with no regard for their respective significances (Roth 441). Herein David does indeed create more than an interruption than a conclusion; very little is resolved; however, a conclusion yet exists. David has concluded, whether he himself realizes it or not, that all his situation, all his memories matter very little in relation to one another. He takes them simply for their existence, with no further analysis. It is a conclusion to draw no conclusions.

The Book of Daniel also demonstrates this union quite distinctly though its ending, an interruption in the fullest. Daniel, whose narration had just prepared the reader for a thorough conclusion, immediately announces, “However, just a moment ago…someone came through announcing that the library is closed” (Doctorow 302), and he proceeds to quote the Biblical Book of Daniel, pertaining to the closing of the book in which everyone is written until the time of the end. Quite plainly, this is an interruption as opposed to a neatly socialized conclusion; however, there is substantial difference in that Daniel has not failed to socialize. Simply, he has refused to cling to his autonomy, renouncing his opportunity to provide answers for his questions, the questions of the novel. As Daniel at one point laments, regardless of what he does, society is the victor. Such is the case in any Bildungsroman, that any occurrence and all endings favor society. Like David, by not answering, he allows all around him, society, to take its course, surrendering to its will.

Liberation from the past plays into the classical Bildungsroman with the mention of time against the whole, a reference to the work of G.W.F. Hegel: “having become superfluous, time abandons the stage to the harmonious dance of the Truth and the Whole” (Moretti 55), whereas the Post-Napoleonic Bildungsroman advances “an ‘accessible’ past, on the same hierarchical and chronological level with the present, and yet already ‘frozen’ and hostile to that experiment” (Moretti 122). Call it Sleep contends very much with the past upon nearing its completion when David’s parents’ secrets are revealed, those being his mother’s affair with the church organist and his father’s partial responsibility for the death of his own father. The matter of interest, though, is David’s involvement in these revelations. Having inadvertently brought them out, he successfully shatters the mysteries surrounding his parents, a subject troubling him throughout the novel, thereby exposing for himself the whole. This, however, is not an easy whole to contend with, especially considering that the whole of this whole is not known to those concerned, particularly the identity of David’s biological father. This gives the past its frozen hostility, as well as its imperativeness to the course of the novel. Furthermore, going in tune with the previous conclusions, the issues of this past are left fairly unresolved, rather, the unseen conclusion of the fight and David’s injured return cast attention away from the matter, the present defeating the past and leaving it on its own.

Daniel’s troubles deal greatly with the past, and the whole novel might be considered the character’s attempt to come to terms with it, not just his own but with the history that made it as it was. In the end, though, the great number of manipulations and interpretations of both history itself and personal events become glaringly obvious. The past is corrupted by the faults of memory and the twists of the individual will. In his meeting with Linda Mindish, the reader is presented with an interpretation of the Isaacson trial heretofore unheard of (Doctorow 282-283), though intimately known, essentially the contemporary, condemning view of the courts. This flat contradiction to all Daniel believes, or would like to believe, or at least thinks he believes or might like to believe, compels him even further to speak to Selig Mindish, the man he views as being most responsible for his parents’ death. Interestingly, Dr. Mindish is to be found in a surreal, fantastic world of tomorrow at Disneyland. As Dale puts it, “‘He’s senile…there’s nothing left up here’” (Doctorow 292). Dr. Mindish has ventured into an imagined future, utterly devoid of any particular sense of time, including sense of the past. Indeed, it is almost a parody of the usual Communist aim, and it is certainly a slap in the face to any Marxist analysis of history. This is the complete absence of a whole, and it makes the past both inaccessible and seeming almost worthless. The present makes the past worthless, and its future is either blank or a delusion. In both novels, any attempt at drawing an autonomy from the past, as one might draw from Napoleon in the Post-Napoleonic Bildungsroman, falls instead to the society of the present, for socialization is always a matter of existing therein.

The fall of ideals is essentially the vehicle by which society gains its ultimate victory over the Bildungsroman’s protagonist and his autonomy. In the world of the classical Bildungsroman, this was achieved to this protagonist’s benefit: “Its purpose is to creat ‘full and happy men’” (Moretti 31), whereas in the Post-Napoleonic age the protagonist was merely made impotent: “the story must end in the protagonist’s death to be deprived of meaning” (Moretti 119). Call it Sleep has a different approach in a world wrought with ideals, at least to David’s perception. In the end, they all indeed fall, perhaps best exemplified in Leo, whose almost messianic presence became tainted when he brought David immense trouble in the episode with his cousins, and David’s father, who, in the final scene, is observed in his speech to have “a peculiar harshness as though he were at the same time provoking and steeling himself away against a blow” (Roth 440), exposing weakness in his father’s idealized strength. The result is neither complete socialization nor impotence, but it seems much more to be an acceptance of reality as it stands, a new reality purged of ideals, leaving only reality itself. The last lines of this final book of the novel read “… and feel them all and feel, not pain, not terror, but strangest triumph, strangest acquiescence. One might as well call it sleep. He shut his eyes” (Roth 441). The classical finds itself echoed in triumph, and the Post-Napoleonic in acquiescence. Society has not accepted David, but he has accepted society, becoming socialized in an autonomous stroke not evident in the European Bildungsroman.

The Book of Daniel’s fourth part is dominated by the deaths of ideals, embodied plainly in those who hold to them. Daniels parents are executed by electric chair for their communist ideals, and Susan, embodiment of her own ideals, dies under their weight. Even at her funeral, Daniel makes a parody of these ideals of the past when he rounds up the old, “misfit” rabbis, “usually shabby, their heels run down” (Doctorow 300), around the cemetery to pray old prayers over Susan’s grave in an absurd, pluralistic call of history. Daniel, like the Daniel of the Old Testament book, has before him a dream, but he cannot tell what it means. Though he spends the entire time interpreting the dreams of others, he in the end cannot interpret his own. In this way Daniel’s ideals are not only dead, they were not allowed to manifest in the first place, regardless of any attempt to develop them. Daniel was never given a chance to be autonomous; he was guaranteed socialization by the attempts at autonomy by those around him, for he was granted freedom by and from the past. The fall of ideals is essential to the inevitable victory of society.

At the last, these three textual elements of the striving for homeland, liberation from the past, and the fall of ideals, readily observable in the history of the Bildungsroman, are also apparent in the conclusions of these novels, Call it Sleep and The Book of Daniel. Together, they paint a picture of the Bildungsroman through its primary tension between the individual and society, and they show that society is always the victor. In the classical Bildungsroman, the conclusion consisted of a pure, willing integration of the protagonist into society. Society was the victor. After Napoleon, the protagonist’s refusal to integrate led to his undoing, usually by death. Again, society’s maintained its flow. In these novels, it is a willing, but untidy, integration, wherein the unknown is left to linger. All the same, society supplants the individual. It seems then that most basically the Bildungsroman is the novel of society’s triumph over the individual, or conversely the individual’s submission to society. The rest is merely a reflection of history, but if this is development, then so be it.

Bibliography

Doctorow, E.L. The Book of Daniel. Random House, New York: 2007.

Moretti, Franco. The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culutre. New Edition. Verso, London: 2000.

Roth, Henry. Call it Sleep. Picador, New York: 1962.

The Cockatrice

‘Ere one day did hie away,
an’ that day there did pass by
creatures I can scarcely say,
ne’er beholden i’ mine eye:

A faerie, fair, i’ the air,
flying yonder to an’ fro
ear to ear to ear an’ e’er
whisp’ring as the wind doth blow.

An’ ‘ere mine ear ‘e came near,
voice o’ the Morrígan, that
obscure crow, that carrion seer,
speaking on mine hillside sat.

“My fine friend, dost thou behold,
or hast thou heretofore been told,
word of the far off mountains cold
whence marcheth forth a man so bold
to curse against our order old,
to cast our lord into the fold?

That roguish wretch doth yonder walk,
but fear thou not—he soon shall balk;
he doth on Kingdoms of Naught talk;
forgotten with the chiming clock.
A fool doth with his own self hock,
but hear now how his tongue doth mock.”

‘Ere did ‘is procession halt,
an’ began ‘is singsong speech;
surely as the sea hath salt,
so ‘is tongue did all ‘round reach:

“A truthful telling of a treasured tale
hath thoughts of times unspent so strongly snatched;
yea, ‘tis the story of a poor man pale
who by the Charadrius on life latched.

For from his forehead aching was he bled,
but blood did but a sanguine mealtime make;
the leeches lying gorged in puddles red;
they slept whilst he did agonize awake.

Ah, but in the autumn’s evening sunset
sat silhouetted in the window’s frame
the Charadrius gazing hopeful yet,
which took itself the illness and the shame.

The sun then burnt away the bird in flight;
thrice plunging undersea it flew aright.”

Methought I a glow did see
‘bout ‘im in the morning light,
but no garment great wore ‘e:
a tattered tunic, once white.

Stirring now an’ stepping on,
mine own feet the same thing did.
Rushing forth ‘afore ‘e’d gone,
following behind, I hid.

Wi’ me went the faerie fair,
whisp’ring e’er, an’ ‘e I heard,
wi’ a flowing stream o' air,
‘gainst the tide o’ this man’s words:

“Lo! hither stands a splendid seaside tree
who strangely bears for fruit a flock of geese.
When ripened fully, falling some are free,
these landing safely in the water’s peace.”

“Absurd creatures! this thou knowest;
they may even be the lowest!
‘tis a fool with which thou goest.”

“But O those silly souls which strike the soil;
they suff’ring with snapped necks, the fox doth feast
on the forlorn friends no longer loyal,
who fled the roaring sea to feed the beast.”

“And truly ‘tis the fate of all
who dare to heed the downward call,
all freely to the fox they fall."

“Daring some dive down the dreary deep,
these geese again will rise above to fly,
and home these hie unto a kingly keep
on far off mountains there beyond the sky.”

“Devoured or drowned, I suffer how:
torture later or anguish now?
The tree, I choose; wouldst thou allow?"

“For now from thence my march I must not stall.
O gentle goose, I pray thee watch thy fall.”

Onward on the road ‘e went,
the faerie an’ I behind,
knowing wither ‘e was sent,
knowing what ‘e was to find.

Trees decay’d an’ rotten logs
lined the road ‘ere on each side;
this land’s naught but wretched bogs
wheresoe’er our king resides.

Past the castle-guard centaur
‘e went, we ‘im giving chase.
Breaking down the dishevel’d door,
we hid from our king’s cruel face.

“O Cockatrice, Our Lord and King,
hearest how the wind doth sing?
Yonder shouldst thou thy sight bring.”

“O Lord of Flies, which flies to corpses cling
that line the wall of thine horrendous hall;
O Prince of Serpents, gazing thy grave sting,
I do return thy gaze that thou shalt pall.”

“Fear him not, O King of this World,
in blackened silence art thou furled.
Against thee arms cannot be hurled!”

“For if the prophets ever truthful spoke
then, true, by sight shalt thou be surely slain.
Still cowering behind thy nighttime cloak,
thence fallen never shalt thou rise again.”

“But in the open standeth he;
thou shalt see him before he ye,
so cast thine eyes—to victory—”

“O Cockatrice King, methinks that th’art blind,
else wherefore hast thou seen me not yet here,
lest seeing thou did naught but thyself find,
mirrored in mine armour crystal clear.”

“Gnash thy teeth: hither he lieth,
in his darkness, lo, he dieth
for he did his own self spieth!”

“And with its master malevolent spent
shall all this putrid place henceforth be rent.”

The castle walls did crumble,
and the centaur guard took flight,
the moon i’self did stumble
as the stars fell from the night.

Now the horizon breaking
where bare mountains stand behind,
they i’ the distance quaking,
became slowly misaligned.

‘e then waved for mine approach,
i’ my fear I could not turn;
I heard the faerie’s reproach,
as the whole word ‘round did burn:

“Thou sought him dead, but thou didst fail,
I warned thee fair of this man’s trail.
Now look, the sky in flames doth hail!
If but thine hand would take the nail,
if thou wouldst dare to risk the vale,
perhaps thine heart would hold the scale.

Thou traitor to both he and me,
best hang thyself from yonder tree.
If but thou didst never be!
And heed not any wave of he
that overthrows all thou dost see
—but cast aside thine enemy.”

The Grandmaster Conversationalist Extraordinaire

Good afternoon, mine excellent good friends! As you may recall, I sometimes speak of the weather, the archetypal embodiment of what some call "small-talk" or "petty conversation" or "inane, meaningless banter." Please note that that last one is only true if "I" am "some." Such a classification of weather-talk, though, I think is entirely inaccurate. As a grandmaster conversationalist extraordinaire, I ought to know about these things, and I can think of no instance when the weather has been the subject of my "inane, meaningless banter." Bear in mind, however, that grandmaster conversationalists extraordinaire do not have "inane, meaningless banter," for they make all conversations deep and meaningful. That being said, all my weather-talk has not even threatened to be such, simply because weather-talk is full of depth and importance. Just consider this conversation I am having with myself:

"When is it going to snow?" I ask.
"It is summertime," I respond.
"No, it is not," I claim.
"Oh, yes," I agree.

Now I realize that I forgot to remember to collect any summer rain. Now what shall I do?

"Now that we agree that it is wintertime, when shall it snow?" I ask again.
"It is autumntime still," I correct myself.
"Not on my calendar," I indignantly state.
"What calendar might that be?" I inquire.

I wonder whether my fellows ever look at their watches to figure out what year it is, only to realize that that information is not on the watch. Always this is a disappointment. I also wonder whether a pocket watch would be a worthy investment...
...I do not think it would be.

"It would be the completely arbitrary seasonal calendar that lives within me," I continue.
"That is absurd," I defiantly tell myself.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, mind you.

"That is the beauty of it," I say.
"You speak the truth," I concur.
"And do you know what else is true?" I ask.
"What is that?" I wonder.
"It has been snowy for a while now," I smugly affirm.

Perhaps I shall soon be able to build a fort and hide in it. Better yet, I can build an igloo and hide even better in it. May Jack-in-the-Green stay away for a while.

"Then why did you ask me when it would snow?" I try to understand.
"That is what I always ask," I reply innocently.

This is true, except usually there is little snow involved, just the longing for it. That does at all not stop the conversation from becoming at least as profound as this one, for remember, I am a grandmaster conversationalist extraordinaire. Consider this, also:

"When is it going to snow?" I ask.
"I do not know," I respond.

Then I weep bitterly and rend my garment in mourning. This is a frequent occurrence in my imagination. I often wonder, if I tried, could I rend my garment? What if I wear more than one garment? Do I rend them all at once or separately? At what point does one laugh instead of grieve at the inherent absurdity of trying with great effort to rend all of one's garments to express said grief? These are important questions, very useful for the grandmaster conversationalist extraordinaire when engaging in the Art of conversation. I once read in a book that it is important for any grandmaster conversationalist extraordinaire to ask all other conversationalists questions, particularly those that create the illusion that the grandmaster conversationalist extraordinaire is really very much interested in the other conversationalist. It goes like this:

"Hullo! Because I am very much interested in you, I am asking you, what is up, O friend?" the grandmaster conversationalist extraordinaire begins.
The other conversationalist responds, "Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, 'There is a man child conceived.' Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. As for the night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein."
"Great! And how about that crazy weather lately?" the grandmaster conversationalist extraordinaire continues.

With skills like these, how can one avoid success?

Ennui

It is a good evening, gentle readers, for tonight we shall discuss ennui, an excellent subject that promises to enthuse you all beyond measure. I myself brim with an extraordinary enthusiasm that I can scarcely abide. Soon I shall begin a brief pause to allow the overwhelming deluge of feeling that has undoubtedly flooded your hearts to recede. Ennui, after all, never fails to invoke the deepest emotions within us. A pause is therefore absolutely necessary, for I can hear your ecstatic cries even here in these lonely and faraway lands.

.....

.......

......................

.....

........................

Make remembrance of the countryside if you find yourself weeping.

..

...

.......

Here is a soothing oration:

ooh...
lann...
thann...
.....
ehs...
....
may...
ag...
.....
roy...
koss...
ohn...

Actually, I tire of ennui, so I have few further words for you. I shall not much longer continue on. I encourage you all instead to find the secrets stowed away in these utterances.

..............

.......

.............

Have you enough ennui to seek them out?

Of Sylvan Spiders' Silken Web

Of sylvan spiders' silken web,
weaved away among the trees,
the creatures craft no stranger sight
than blank and shimm'ring tapestries,

which when together tell a tale,
stretched across their webbed halls,
of times here, gone, and yet to come
from which away no mortal falls.

For when one finds his whitewashed way,
in time entombed, he shall be,
and warmly wrapped within this thread,
forgets fore'er eternity.

Call it Sleep seen through The Way of the World

In his The Way of the World, Franco Moretti proposes a certain theory of the European Bildungsroman throughout its history, ending with the approach of the Great War in 1914. In the United States in 1934, Henry Roth published his novel Call it Sleep, chronicling a portion of the childhood of his protagonist, David Schearl. As is clearly evident already, Call it Sleep does not specifically fit with the precise subject matter of The Way of the World; however, many of the general qualities of the Bildungsroman, with modifications, of course, are readily discernable in the text, even according to much of Moretti’s analysis. Among the general aspects of a text are those of dianoia and mythos, respectively content as a matter of structure and content as a matter of plot, a certain quality of which can be discerned for Moretti’s ideal Bildungsroman. By considering each of these matters through Call it Sleep’s themes of enmity with time and of clashing socialization, one finds a fascinating uncertainty, much akin to both the novel and the Bildungsroman itself.

Enmity with time is a consistent presence from the start of the novel, and David must always combat its flow, even unawares. Upon his arrival in the United States as an infant, time set itself against him when his mother, upon the demand of his father, claimed his age to be seventeen months, while the Hamburg doctor estimated his age to exceed two years, but David apparently is someplace in between (Roth 12-13). In this example, time has placed David in conflict both with desire, specifically those of his parents, and appearance, thanks to his size, consistent with the advancement beyond his supposed age throughout the course of the novel. This is very pertinent to the dianoia, which Moretti seems to view as an imbalance between “autonomy and socialization” (Moretti 28). The dianoia of the post-Napoleonic Bildungsroman, among whose features is often a hero “born in the wrong era,” wherein “individual autonomy and social integration are…incompatible choices” (Moretti 80). David, whose age here alienates him from all angles, is no friend of the present, linking his place in the world to one described by Moretti. Thus this building of David as a stranger to his world by time itself holds a certain consistency with Moretti’s conception of the post-Napoleonic hero.

Another such instance takes place much later, though such acts of David’s as collecting calendar leaves maintain the theme throughout, when David’s father commands him for one day to come along his milk delivery route and watch his cart while he is away. As David awaits the coming of this adventure in dread, he has been told to remain near the cart until his father is prepared to go. Instead, yielding to fearful desire, he wanders off to watch some other boys try to fish a coin out of a cellar: “Involuntarily, so it seemed to him, he gravitated toward the corner and went around it” (Roth 270). Of course, the reader is made perfectly aware of David’s true intentions, regardless of whether or not he is, and with each passing sentence the clock seems to tick, until at last, “sleeveless shirt dazzling in the light, his father was rapping the butt-end of the whip against the wagon” (Roth 273). David attempted to defeat the result of his enemy, time, by separating himself from it, but he failed; time carried on even without his attention. In this episode Moretti’s proposed mythos of the Bildungsroman is evident, which signifies that “the meaning of events lies in their finality” (7), or otherwise their lack thereof. The mythos, being largely a teleological concern, depends entirely upon the appearance of David’s father, but only after the time had passed. A mundane fishing of a coin out of a cellar or the commonplace rage of Albert Schearl by themselves communicate very little of particular note. They depend on one another, but only in opposition; time is the opponent of the end, just as it is David’s chief nemesis not only in this instance but also arguably in the novel as a whole. Thus this theme of enmity with time is not only an essential part of Call it Sleep, but also it is an aspect of the Bildungsroman itself, so it would seem according to Moretti.

Now, this enmity with time is closely linked with troubles with socialization, an essential aspect to the battle between autonomy and socialization that is apparently Moretti’s conception of the Bildungsroman’s dianoia. For this reason the literary theme of clashing socialization in Call it Sleep gains considerable weight. David, upon meeting Leo, becomes torn between two societies, so to speak: that of his mother and that of his friend, for lack of a better word. This becomes manifest from the moment David meets Leo, immediately desiring to be like him, to be part of his society. No clearer is this than when Leo explains the mystical powers of the cross he wears around his neck, to which David responds by “sigh[ing] and gaz[ing] at Leo’s chest half in awe, half in envy” (Roth 305). Of course, the more David learns of these matters, the clearer it becomes that these two societies of his are in conflict, creating a situation a bit different from Moretti’s description, wherein socialization is not only in conflict with autonomy, but it is also in conflict with different varieties of itself. Truly this is a new development in this strange world of multiple societies interacting and even, as in this case, competing. This is the embodiment of Call it Sleep’s theme of clashing socialization, which adds an entirely new dynamic to Moretti’s generalization of the dianoia of the Bildungsroman.

The closing passages of Call it Sleep deal with the mythos of these clashing societies once and for all, providing yet another departure from Moretti’s mold. Therein David is drifting into sleep after the great quarrel in his home and his electrocution at the rail. “He might as well call it sleep,” the narrator states, “it was only toward sleep that…” an apparently irrational series of images are recalled. At last David could “feel them all and feel, not pain, not terror, but strangest triumph…” (Roth 441). By evoking these thoughts and memories and making no attempt to make sense of them, David simply accepts them as they are. He need not worry about them any longer, and this is his triumph, for which he appropriately has no explanation for himself, as well. This is entirely deviant of Moretti’s outline of the mythos, wherein “[Events] become meaningful….It becomes so because someone…gives it meaning” (45). David utterly fails to do this, making him neither integrated into society nor dispelled from it, the two possible outcomes that Moretti proposes for the classical and post-Napoleonic Bildungsromans. Is this a new Bildungsroman for a new era, accepting doubt rather than pursuing certainty, or is it not a Bildungsroman at all?

Thus it cannot be said for certain whether Call it Sleep and The Way of the World fairly complement one another, for as stated at the start, Call it Sleep is part of neither the time nor the place that The Way of the World is meant to describe. By extension perhaps, and through applicable generalizations both exhibited here and not, Moretti’s theory of the Bildungsroman and Roth’s novel can likely find a comfortable synthesis. After all, it should be clear at this point that Moretti’s principles can without much trouble be used as a mode of analyzing Call it Sleep, and that is certainly compelling. At the least, two simple themes, enmity with time and clashing socialization, both so prevalent in the novel, relate very well to Moretti’s mythos and dianoia of the Bildungsroman. The question is now not so much whether Call it Sleep fits the analysis of The Way of the World, but whether The Way of the World’s analysis can be extended to cover Call it Sleep, and how its deviations are to be explained.

Bibliography

Moretti, Franco. The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culutre. New Edition. Verso, London: 2000.

Roth, Henry. Call it Sleep. Picador, New York: 1962.

On Familiarity and Unfamiliarity in Erik Satie’s Air du Grand Prieur from the Sonneries de la Rose+Croix

In the interpretation of a piece of music the consideration of familiarity and unfamiliarity in its passages is essential. In the characteristically unique work of Erik Satie, reflection thereon seems all the more important. Certainly then does this apply to the Air du Grand Prieur, the third and final part of the Sonneries de la Rose+Croix. Written for the occultist Josephín Peladan’s mystical Rosicrucian sect, one might expect abnormalities, but it yet strongly evokes the chants from which European music emerged. What of the music itself, though? How, in its passage, does it convey both unfamiliarity of mysticism and familiarity of age? In order to find an answer, it would appear best to consider the composition chronologically, arranged into five sections to be specified as they appear.

At the opening, the audience is presented with a series of pianissimo harmonies, the movement of which at times both satisfies and defies expectation. For example, there are simple movements by fifths; the fourth and fifth chords struck are C major and F major, as well as altogether unexpected progressions, such as that between E minor and E major. Thus the progression in this way treads the line between the ear’s expectation and that which is unexpected. Furthering this point, there is the matter of the first two Sonneries, which bear an extraordinary similarity to this third one in that they consist of a succession of harmonies, a melody, and those combined. Assuming all are performed together, by the third section the audience should be quite familiar with the nature of the pieces; however, there yet remains the inherent oddity that, despite internal consistency, remains somewhat foreign. This is best exemplified by the irregular metric quality of the work that arises from its lack of measures. Invariably accentuation becomes an interesting question, and sometimes it must defy regularity.

In the second section, consisting of a melody played in both hands an octave apart, this metric abnormality becomes clearer, as the performer is left with a degree of freedom to choose how exactly to accentuate the theme. Instead of measures, notes are grouped for the most part by slurs and by the presence of longer notes to divide the sections of the melody. Satie, then, has outlined the meter by the necessities of expression, rather than by a regular beat, especially when it is noted that these melodic groupings are not the same length. The dynamic change to forte also accentuates a difference from the preceding part. Of course, it is once again the case that not all is foreign, for this bit is not at all unlike the previous Sonneries, especially considering the exclusive use of triplets and quarter notes (sometimes tied) is a quality shared by both the Air du Grand Maitre and the Air du Grand Prieur. Furthermore, this exclusive use of certain rhythmic divisions adds to the consistency of the melodic line, thereby giving the listener the comfort of a clearly defined section, with a recognizable degree of internal regularity. There is one final point of familiarity to note with this section, one that becomes all too clear with the approach of the third, relating to the fact that both the series of harmonies and the melody consist of thirty-four quarter note beats.

This is of course that the harmonies and the melody are written to function together, and the third section does just this. Once again, assuming a full performance of all three Sonneries, this would be perfectly expected; Satie had done just the same thing in the first two. Furthermore, simply by sound, such should be evident to the particularly active listener, or even perhaps subconsciously to the less engaged one. This third section, then, presents no new thematic material, but merely combines all that had been presented thus far in a simple homophony, even maintaining the legato of the melody and the detachment of the accompanying harmonies together. The only immediately identifiable change in expression is the dynamic move to piano. By all accounts, this section exemplifies interior familiarity, except for a minor detail at the conclusion, where instead of continuing on with either the previously written harmony or melody, Satie instead places a new, unexpected C# minor chord followed by an F# major chord, with an appropriate melodic accompaniment. The reason for this is likely that the melodic and harmonic sections do not particularly match at this point in a particularly euphonic way. Also, by repeating this last figure, Satie increases the length of this section by three quarter note beats. Thus in what is an otherwise extraordinarily familiar, albeit new section there is added a slight change to prevent complete repetition and to provide a more interesting transition to yet another repetition.

This repetition consists of basically the previous section played an octave lower, so it is obvious that familiarity shall once more dominate the nature of this section. It even maintains the piano dynamic. In fact, up to this point, this should be the most familiar section yet, for not only have both sections been presented once separately already, but also they have been presented together. There are only two unique points here. The first, the movement down an octave, has been noted. The second is the ending of the section, which should still sound very much like something that has heard before because it follows the harmonic sequence set out at the beginning. While not a precise repetition of its most matching section, it is not at all new, and if familiarity dominates this section, then it without doubt the final section epitomizes it.

To end his Sonneries, Satie chooses to repeat the series of harmonies from the beginning of the Air du Grand Prieur. Indeed, it matches in every note and in every expression. Furthermore, the audience should recall that the first Sonnerie, the Air de l’Ordre, both began and ended with its own chord progression, so even reflecting on the structure should not induce wonder. The only particular oddity here is the fairly abrupt ending, one which is only prepared for by the performer’s interpretation, not by Satie’s direction. Even still, the others ended the same way, so internally this remains not at all strange.

To review the course of the piece, the audience’s expectations were created within, though defied from without. Once the internal tendencies of the music’s structure, none of which are particularly hidden, are learned, all becomes for the most part predictable. It is for this reason that across all three Sonneries as well as simply across the Air du Grand Prieur or either of the others unfamiliarity exists at the start, but slowly dwindles as repetitions and combinations constantly review the material. In combination with the observation that all three are spawned of essentially the same musical idea, it is almost as if Satie meant to create an intimate familiarity with the music, presenting it from multiple angles. In this way, an interesting coexistence between the familiar and the unfamiliar arises, wherein a unique and ethereal sound, though reminiscent of an aged music, develops as something both new and gradually more known from beginning to end. An ancient mysticism is in this way encapsulated.

On the Historical Significance of John Foxe's Book of Martyrs

Only a few years after the reign of Queen Mary I, there appeared in England a certain Book of Martyrs, authored by John Foxe. Therein are narrated not only the tales of those put to death for the protestant faith in the preceding few decades, but also the lives and deaths of many notable figures in whom both Protestantism and Christianity itself finds its origins. What, though, is its significance as a historical source, especially as it relates to the reformation in England? The Book of Martyrs disseminated around England rather quickly following its publication (Tracy 199-200), thus the question does not much pertain to the extent of its influence; rather, more important is what exactly that influence was and what exactly that influence is. More precisely, there exist certain matters that are essential to answering this inquiry. First, there is the issue of objective reliability, which concerns itself with source’s factual merit as a historical document. Second, there is the issue of subjective interpretation, which concerns itself with the information that can be drawn from the source retrospectively. The former idea of objective reliability can be subdivided into a consideration of the methods by which these accounts were gathered and a consideration of plain information against narrative detail. The latter idea of subjective interpretation most significantly gives a glimpse into English protestant thought at the time, illustrated though the emphasis on particular doctrines and on the politics that correlate directly to the state of the church at a given time. Through examination of these matters, it should be shown that Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is of indispensable value for an understanding the reformation in England.

The Book of Martyrs is not apt to explain from whence its information came, calling into question the veracity of its content, and rightly so; however, Foxe does not leave his readers to blindly suppose his information is valid, or at least, that it is not utter fiction. Scattered about are mentions of his methods in acquiring these tales, as well as copious quotations of often lengthy letters and other such documents concerning the martyrs. An instance of the former occurs in reference to the burning a certain man, wherein Foxe says, “His name was called Stile, as is credibly reported unto us by a worthy and ancient knight, named Sir Robert Outred, who was the same time present himself at his burning” (323). Though clearly attempting to draw from the apparent authority of his source, this passing note is of vast importance, for here Foxe makes a direct statement regarding his investigations in these matters, thus making perfectly clear that he depended upon the accounts of those present at the events described in order to assemble his own versions thereof. Though while not certifying every detail of the stories to be true, it brings the author a bit closer to the events, hearing of them secondhand rather than, say, embellishing a general knowledge of them. Of course, this method was not his one and only, and it is certainly not the most reliable or historically compelling.

As stated, Foxe very frequently utilized earlier sources pertaining directly to the martyr at hand to communicate that individual’s story. One of the most fascinating uses of such a document occurs when Foxe allows Anne Askew to tell of her own experience leading up to her execution itself, prefacing her own account only by stating, “Here follow the examinations of Anne Askew, according as she wrote them with her own hand, and the instant desire of certain faithful men and women” (Foxe 329). Now the reader finds that the Book of Martyrs is not merely a collection of recounted events, but a trove of firsthand descriptions and documents from the time of the events they describe. Another such example would be the reproduction of the articles against Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer (Foxe 297), the official nature of which being further indicative of Foxe’s active pursuit of factual information from which to draw his accounts. The perpetual presence of these citations juxtaposed against the presence of simple secondhand reports, though both are evidence of general historical reliability, provides an intriguing disparity between plain information and narrative detail.

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is replete with facts, ranging from the quotations mentioned before to a thorough presentation of the dates on which most of the notable events described took place. The narrative presentation of the accounts; however, place these among details that are quite simply impossible to verify. An excellent exhibition of this point is provided in the account of Dr. Rowland Taylor, when the same was called before the Bishop of Winchester, at that time Stephen Gardiner, who “according to his custom, reviled [Dr. Taylor], calling him knave, traitor, heretic, with many other villainous reproaches; all which Dr. Taylor heard patiently” (Foxe 220). Contained herein is a prevalent theme recurrent throughout the book, the discord of Roman Catholic ignorance and wickedness against Protestant wisdom and heroism. It goes without saying that this is the result of the protestant purposes behind the writing, but what information does it objectively give the reader? Narrativity aside, it most basically communicates that Taylor was interrogated by Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester. In this way objective information can be drawn from these narrative accounts. It matters very little whether Taylor or the bishop used exactly the words that Foxe recalls; those are of much greater importance for reading into the mindset of Foxe and his kind than for seeing actual events precisely as they occurred. One must not ask what exactly happened at the events described, but what the events meant to the Protestants of the English reformation.

This point is also illustrated in a great many of the accounts of the executions themselves, particularly that of John Hooper. After detailing the difficulty it apparently required to successfully burn him to death, Foxe begins his conclusion with the statement, “Thus was he three quarters of an hour or more in the fire. Even as a lamb, patiently he abode the extremity thereof, neither moving forwards, backwards, nor to any side: but he died as quietly as a child in his bed” (213). Three major aspects of this history are very prevalent in this particular bit of text. First, there is the statement of objective information; that Hooper was burned, and it evidently took an abnormally long time. Second, there is narrative detail; that Hooper, according to Foxe, faced the fire with seemingly unnatural tranquility. Third, there is the advancement of the protestant position; that by the aforesaid means Hooper was portrayed in a purely heroic light. What does this all together signify? Objective statements can of course be checked against other sources, this merely being one source from the period. In this sense, it provides just another record of the time. Narrative details are the vehicle by which the purpose is conveyed, once again, how the protestant ideals of the time reveals itself, felt clearly through the clear advancement of said ideals. Thus are set forth both the origins and the significance of the general types of information presented in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Historically speaking, though, this begs the question of what specifically can be drawn from this information. What history exactly is discernable, transcendent of history explicitly presented?

As far as the subjective interpretation of the text goes, in order to exemplify the Book of Martyrs’ usefulness as a source, the issues of doctrine and politics that it exposes shall be considered. These were hardly separable in the world of the English reformation: “…Henry VIII’s separation of the Church of England from the Catholic Church (1534-1547), Edward VI’s establishment of Protestantism (1547-1553), the reestablishment of Catholicism under Mary Tudor (1553-1558), the reestablishment of Protestantism under Elizabeth I (1558-1603)…” (Tracy 193). Obviously, the faith of the monarch and his or her cohorts was an extraordinarily weighty matter. The simple mention of the name of “…the most innocent and holy King of blessed memory, Edward the Sixth,” after whose reign “the papists violently overthrew the true doctrine of the Gospel” (Foxe 216), referencing the reign of Mary I, makes perfectly clear the contemporary perception of this link between doctrine and politics. The disparity between the respective reigns of Edward and Mary is by far the clearest indicator of the authority of the monarch even in affairs of religion, and Foxe plainly shows his views to that end. Whosoever held political power also held power over doctrine, and doctrine drove many a politic of the powerful.

Furthermore, the ordeal surrounding Lady Jane Grey’s brief ascension to the throne could scarcely better exhibit this very point, as Foxe notes, “King Edward…knowing his sister Mary was wholly wedded to popish religion, bequeathed the succession to the Lady Jane…[but] it was otherwise in the testament of King Henry…[who] had sworn to the succession of Mary” (371-372). Thus doctrinally minded individuals on both sides sought to turn the political climate to their favor. Foxe herein displays not only his own perception of the aforesaid power of the state over the treatment of doctrine, but also he shows the keen awareness thereof among those with authority. Though at that point merely giving an account of the circumstances leading to the beheading of Lady Jane, Foxe does better to voice the protestant position on the same matters and thereby allowing a glimpse beyond the mere fact into the motives of that faction. This perhaps represents the Book of Martyrs’ greatest value as an exhibition of how these Protestants viewed history. By both these examples the reader gains not from anything intentionally presented in the text beyond simple historical record, but from a reflection on the historical context thereof.

Also transcendent of Foxe’s explicit communication is the doctrine itself, the doctrine for which these martyrs were apparently willing to die. Regardless of any historical accuracy at all in the accounts, Foxe has at least provided a thorough presentation of the prevalent doctrinal disputes during the English reformation, all of them naturally deviations from the Roman Catholic tradition, altogether akin to protestant doctrines elsewhere. Which beliefs and behaviors, though, seem to have attracted the distaste of hostile authorities, and which ones does Foxe claim compelled the martyrs to die? In the case of Ridley and Latimer, Foxe records the articles against them to consist of the beliefs that “‘the true and natural body of Christ…is not really present in the sacrament of the altar…[in which] remaineth still the substance of bread and wine…[and] that in the mass is no propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead’” (297). Denial of the mass and its associated sacraments, then, seem to have been important, to place them so prominently among the charges against such prominent figures as Ridley and Latimer. Less famously, though, there exists the strikingly similar dispute around Dr. Rowland Taylor, in whose account Foxe states that, “the popish mass was again set up with battle array, with swords and bucklers, with violence and tyranny” (218), in describing a scene in which Taylor was barred from his church and a priest had taken over, guarded by armed men. Eventually, this situation surrounding the mass would of course be his undoing, Foxe once again leveling a severe attack against such popery, demonstrating even more the magnitude of this popish atrocity.

Furthermore, Foxe reports that Thomas Cranmer’s troubles also originated in his distaste for the mass, and he was executed at about the same time as Ridley and Latimer. According to Foxe, Cranmer authored a bill expressing his disdain for the mass, and it was that document that attracted the attention of his Roman Catholic adversaries (373). Hence is evidenced the importance of the mass, that great symbol of popery, as a matter of factional quarreling, for Foxe at least seems to emphasize it a good deal. In his narrative of Cranmer’s near recantation, Cranmer even begins reciting the Credo of the mass, only to turn away and affirm his protestant faith (384-385). This dramatic device powerfully conveys the strong protestant revulsion toward the Roman Catholic ritual, and it in a sense tries to convey a sense of futility for the mass’ reinstatement under Mary. Well reflected here is the rising sentiment in reformation England for “purging the liturgy of a long list of ‘popish’ elements,” a sentiment that would be soon be represented by the Puritans (Tracy 201-202). Foxe once again uses the information he has to turn his historical interpretation to favor his position, exemplifying the historical interpretations of his people at his time.

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is a very thorough and detailed source pertaining to the reformation in England, but its style and purpose raise questions of its accuracy and significance. Though every detail of the narratives may not be true, and certainly many are not, this does not at all diminish the historical worth of the book, only somewhat its usefulness as a plain history. Though its general depiction of actual events is trustworthy, at least in terms of objective, verifiable details, much of the narrative detail is not; however, this is not at all a cause for dismissing the Book of Martyrs as an important historical source. It may be a history, but that does not at all prevent it from historical examination beyond the plain history contained therein. Reading into the narrative detail, whether or not it is historically accurate, shows with perfect clarity the issues important to Foxe, and by extension, the issues important to a great many Protestants across England at the time. The histories of these martyrs speak far beyond the stories themselves, providing ample insights into the thoughts and reflections of the contemporaries of the reformation, from those in authority to those readers who simply felt the book’s influence. It is then, not so important for its history, but for its prominent place in the history of history. After all, how better can the people of this past be understood than to determine how they understood the past before themselves?

Bibliography

Foxe, John. W. Grinton Barry ed. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Spire, Grand Rapids, MI: 1998.

Tracy, James. Europe’s Reformations 1450-1650: Doctrine, Politics, and Community. 2^nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland: 2006.

The rush of winter bites at the tail.

"This joker raised his hat and talked about the weather."
-Songs From the Wood, Jethro Tull

Good afternoon, noble friends! I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the weather for becoming cold and rainy. I knew it could do it. Well, it is not quite cold yet, but the temperature is well on its way. Yesterday's warmth was rather distressing and altogether inappropriate for the season, much like the blood-red snow that fell on Italy in 1816. Thus I rejoice greatly, for I do not wish for blood-red snow, not even in November 2007. Furthermore, I rejoice greatly to hear that this is expected to continue for the next several days, possibly bringing inconsequential bits of snow with it. I do not much concern myself quite yet with whether or not the snow stays on the ground, being that it is still autumntime, for I am entirely enthralled simply to watch it fall. It is with great anticipation that I await the wintertime, so I embrace it coolly. Embracing it as such retains affections while preventing unacceptably unseasonal warmth. All I must do is wear sunglasses and jive-talk, and winter will surely be upon us! Fortunately I have no tail.

In conclusion, here is a probably mediocre poem I made earlier this month:

The Gates of the Necropolis
The sky dons a shroud,
a gift of the winds,
sewn in silver cloud,
though rain often rends,
with tears does it tear,
to the earth taking
delightful despair
of divine making.

But by breaking cloud
the heavens may send
down unto the shroud
sharp sunlight to mend;
gold needles sewing
the soft silver thread,
grey streams are flowing
o'er this land long dead.

I am the king of infinite space, but space is not infinite.

Good morning, my friends! Not often do I have the opportunity to greet you as such, but today I am two things I usually am not in the morningtime: both awake and unoccupied. What does one weblog about in the morning, though? I think it is the nighttime or the afternoontime that morningtime webloggers weblog about. Nighttime was full of darkness and evil. It is a good thing I am not bound by a nutshell. Afternoontime is in the future, and I know little of the future; however, in the nighttime skies there are stars. You may have seen them before, but remember, they are not everywhere. This is an important point, for how could we interpret the movements of the spheres if stars were everywhere? I can only assume that the spheres were in discord (they are all tuned very precisely, you know), making nighttime dark and evil, as opposed to simply dark. I wonder, does this tell us anything about the afternoontime? It is a good thing we can use Science and Reason to analyze these things.

Everybody makes mistakes, so why can't you?

Soon I shall be sending a letter to a deceased person. I will tell this deceased person of my exploits, and I shall offer my thanks for the same individual's being dead. I hope that my gratitude is sufficiently expressed, because I should hate to upset a corpse. It would not much please me for the corpse to come and find me in the form of a zombie and devour my brain. I would not be in the form of a zombie, I mean, the corpse would, though I might find myself a zombie after the event. For this reason I have barricaded myself underground, and I shall not come out except in great secrecy and with guns and armor and rations. I have a black trenchcoat, you know. I have said so before. It is important to battle zombies in style.

There are worse troubles, however, than a zombie assault. Instead of offending the dead with inadequate letters, you might receive the dead's mail. Your union dues must be paid, they might say. Your subscription to something or other has expired. You might already be a winner! (The corpse was not.) Corpses are difficult to care for; they leave behind a terrible mess, and they never do enough to clean it up. It is for this reason the world must be consistently reminded that corpses are dead, and generally afterward it will leave the corpse alone. If, my friends, you are thinking of adopting a corpse or allowing one to use your address, please think again. Perhaps a four-legged beast or a bat will suit you better.

Idealism

I have this idea, my friends. It is an amazingly excellent idea, sure to bring ecstatic rejoicing. I am overwhelmed to imagine it, you see, I cannot help but ramble on about this thing of wonder. This notion lives in my mind, and it says to me, "I am a good and wise notion; you should act on me." I say to it, "Yes, O good and wise notion, I will manifest you in a form!" Only, I was not being honest with the notion, or perhaps it was not being honest with me. I let it run around, and then it fails me and I condemn it. Curse you, notion! Why did you convince me you were good and wise? Now I have an idea, which is different from a notion. It says to me, "I am a good and wise idea; you should act on me." I say to it, "Yes, O good and wise idea, I will manifest you in a form!" I fully intend to do this, and it fully intends to manifest. It will be great. I cannot wait until I figure out what my idea is!

In conclusion, it would seem that historians are more concerned in our (post?)modern (No one seems to know much about the post. We should hire a sentinel.) age with the aethereal concept of the "common man" as a force far more influential than the so-called "great man." Please note that a concept is not at all like a notion or an idea. Also, this conclusion was neither a notion nor an idea, and especially no such thing of mine. I am surprised at you. I thought you were my friends. What's that? You are! O mine excellent good friends! I knew you would never accuse me of such things! The very idea, which is nothing like a notion or a concept! It is silly talk; do forgive me. Hurrah for friendship! Hurrah for Karamazov!

Jazz in the Academy

"Twenty minute free-form jazz odysseys are not OK."
-Guitar Hero III, referencing This is Spinal Tap

As a university student, I have learned to play Guitar Hero. It is a requirement to graduate, standard among most academies across the nation. I began with Guitar Hero II, in which I gained the necessary skills to competently pretend to play the guitar. I have a real guitar, you know. If I did not, I would still be able to feel with the tips of the fingers on my left hand. This is not to be taken to mean that I play the real guitar well; I do not. At any rate, recently Guitar Hero III came into being, and my household has made a possession of it. Like its predecessor, it gives friendly advice on the loading screens, like the bit quoted above. That bit is the matter at hand.

Have you ever sat through a twenty minute free-form jazz odyssey? How about a longer one than that? Instead of sitting, did you have to stand because the seats were all full? Have you ever had a best friend? Did you know that it is discouraged to begin a paragraph with a question? I answer, "Yes!" to all of these inquiries, but I respectfully ask myself to mind my own business. Yesterday my chosen cultural event was a "trumpet ensemble." Let me say that "trumpet ensembles" are a bad idea. These wise words, once again from Guitar Hero III, "Turn that amp up, my ears are barely even bleeding," could not apply less. It was truly a painful experience, like unto the shrieks of five banshees directly into the ear, except worse, because at least a banshee will kill you. The wretched noise was not the most unpleasant part, though. About an hour into the concert, the aforementioned half-hour free-form jazz odyssey began, consisting of solo after endlessly repeating figure after solo after endlessly repeating figure after solo after endlessly repeating figure and so on. Then the "trumpet ensemble" had the audacity to play two or three (I do not recall how many; I was disoriented at that point from the jazz odyssey) more works of jazz (usually synonymous with "evil") before at last releasing its poor audience from these cruel tortures.

Following the concert, I needed a while to recover my senses, particularly hearing. If there is one thing to be learnt from this experience (as the British might say), it is that art does sometimes imitate life, but in this case only if life is altogether unpleasant. I leave you on a happy note. It is E flat, specifically the one called Eb 5.