Classics
Milty Goes to Hollywood
by Jamelah Earle on Friday, October 14, 2005 08:02 amOver 300 years after its publication, John Milton's Paradise Lost will be coming to a theater near you in 2007. No director or actors have been chosen for the project, but since there's not a single part in the story that Tom Hanks would be perfect for, they'll probably cast him as Satan. Forrest Gump: Prince of Darkness. I can see it now.
And now that I've gotten the requisite Tom Hanks commentary out of the way, I have to say that I find this whole idea to be a little bit... wrong. Though Milton's epic could certainly lend itself to a fascinating screen treatment, I can't help but think that Hollywood's handling of epic material is somewhat, um, embarrassingly bad. You did see Troy, right? Admittedly, I love Paradise Lost and so I feel irrationally protective of it, but I don't know if I trust Hollywood with theodicy. The article about this says that producers will aim to be faithful to Milton's poem, but then, it also says that it has stunning depictions of angels falling from Hell, which is definitely not how that part of the story goes, so I don't know if it's to be trusted. I feel scared. Hold me.
Ahem.
Anyway, is this going to be another one of those books Hollywood should've left alone? Or do you think it will open the world of Milton's classic to people who might never sit down with the poem?
And now that I've gotten the requisite Tom Hanks commentary out of the way, I have to say that I find this whole idea to be a little bit... wrong. Though Milton's epic could certainly lend itself to a fascinating screen treatment, I can't help but think that Hollywood's handling of epic material is somewhat, um, embarrassingly bad. You did see Troy, right? Admittedly, I love Paradise Lost and so I feel irrationally protective of it, but I don't know if I trust Hollywood with theodicy. The article about this says that producers will aim to be faithful to Milton's poem, but then, it also says that it has stunning depictions of angels falling from Hell, which is definitely not how that part of the story goes, so I don't know if it's to be trusted. I feel scared. Hold me.
Ahem.
Anyway, is this going to be another one of those books Hollywood should've left alone? Or do you think it will open the world of Milton's classic to people who might never sit down with the poem?
Reading Fast and Slow
by Beth Vieira on Tuesday, October 4, 2005 03:00 pmMy background is in the classics; my degree as an undergraduate was in Greek and Latin. We had to read texts line by line at a snail's pace, looking up every word so it seemed, scanning poetry, investigating unusual grammatical points, or textual cruxes, or philological articles about diction and cultural meaning.
My graduate background was similarly textually focused. I read almost exclusively poetry, taught myself old French and Middle English, again at a snail's pace. I ended up with the texts of Shakespeare, which (apologies to the theater people out there) are best experienced on the page, and read carefully and closely, again at a decelerated pace.
I was influenced by lots of literary theory that favored such deceleration of reading, such hovering over the text.
The drawback however is that I can't read novels, not at all. I am a page dweller and can't turn the pages fast enough to get through. This fact is a great source of embarrassment because I ended up becoming a literature professor, yet could count the number of novels I had read on one and a half hands. Sigh.
I'd like to know how others tend to read -- are you a speed reader, or do you take the slow route as I do? Whichever way you answer, I'd also like to know: is this a learned tendency, or have you always read this way? And how does this affect the works you choose to read?
My graduate background was similarly textually focused. I read almost exclusively poetry, taught myself old French and Middle English, again at a snail's pace. I ended up with the texts of Shakespeare, which (apologies to the theater people out there) are best experienced on the page, and read carefully and closely, again at a decelerated pace.
I was influenced by lots of literary theory that favored such deceleration of reading, such hovering over the text.
The drawback however is that I can't read novels, not at all. I am a page dweller and can't turn the pages fast enough to get through. This fact is a great source of embarrassment because I ended up becoming a literature professor, yet could count the number of novels I had read on one and a half hands. Sigh.
I'd like to know how others tend to read -- are you a speed reader, or do you take the slow route as I do? Whichever way you answer, I'd also like to know: is this a learned tendency, or have you always read this way? And how does this affect the works you choose to read?
Thomas deQuincey: Victorian Confidential
by Bill Ectric on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 09:00 amI admit to pleasures that some literary academics frown on. Sure, I love the classics, but I also like books about scandal and skullduggery. Bob Woodward's Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi; Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Ed Wood; and Penny Stallings' Rock'N'Roll Confidential are fun to read.
Perhaps this is why, when I am called upon to name my favorite writer associated with the so-called "Lake Poets" of the 1800's (William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, sometimes Percy Bysshe Shelley), I will tell you that I like Thomas deQuincey.
Not a poet himself, deQuincey wrote most of his prose for magazines and newspapers. Much of these works were later collected and published as books. DeQuincey's best known work is Confessions of an Opium Eater. By today's standards it's a rather tame tale, but it was considered edgy in its own time. There is evidence that both Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Baudelaire were influenced by deQuincey to try the narcotic. Besides using opium in his autobiographical account, deQuincey raised eyebrows when he told his readers about a prostitute he befriended. Apparently, sex was not involved; people just didn't admit to "slumming" back then.
Perhaps this is why, when I am called upon to name my favorite writer associated with the so-called "Lake Poets" of the 1800's (William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, sometimes Percy Bysshe Shelley), I will tell you that I like Thomas deQuincey.
Not a poet himself, deQuincey wrote most of his prose for magazines and newspapers. Much of these works were later collected and published as books. DeQuincey's best known work is Confessions of an Opium Eater. By today's standards it's a rather tame tale, but it was considered edgy in its own time. There is evidence that both Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Baudelaire were influenced by deQuincey to try the narcotic. Besides using opium in his autobiographical account, deQuincey raised eyebrows when he told his readers about a prostitute he befriended. Apparently, sex was not involved; people just didn't admit to "slumming" back then.
Jamelah Reads the Classics: Samson Agonistes
by Jamelah Earle on Friday, September 16, 2005 06:07 pmThough this was one of the shorter works in my queue of classics, I had the hardest time getting through it. I'm still not sure I actually read it, because I often found, when I'd reach the end of a page, I had no idea what was going on. This means, of course, that instead of paying attention, I was thinking about the pointless junk that usually occupies my attention -- cheese, mullets, Wham! -- your guess is as good as mine, really.
Be that as it may, Samson Agonistes is the story of Samson, told in the biblical book of Judges. (I have to give props to my Sunday School teachers from my childhood for my familiarity with the story, which I guess made me comfortable enough with it that I didn't fear the inevitable mind wander.) For anyone who didn't do the Sunday School thing, I'll fill you in on the plot.
Samson was called by God to be the deliverer of his people, who were enslaved by the Philistines, and he had extraordinary strength. As part of the deal, he was never to cut his hair. Samson hooks up with Delilah (whose name, in Milton, is spelled Dalila), who is a spy sent to uncover the secret of Samson's strength. She puts the pressure on, and because she's so hot, he finally gives in and confesses that if his hair is cut, he won't be Mr. Universe anymore, so, well, Delilah cuts his hair, Samson is captured, his eyes are put out, and he is made a slave. One day, when the Philistines are having this big to-do for one of their gods, Samson asks a boy to place him between two of the pillars of the temple, and his strength is returned long enough for him to push the pillars over and cause the building to collapse, thereby killing all the bad guys who have been enslaving his people.
That's it, more or less.
So why does Samson Agonistes exist if all of this is readily available in the Bible? Well, Milton liked applying classical styles to biblical themes. He'd already taken on the epic with Paradise Lost, and with Samson Agonistes, he was going for the Greek tragedy (complete with chorus!), because, you know, Milty liked the way the Greeks worked it.
Ahem.
Anyway, briefly, here's what I think of Samson Agonistes. Don't read it ever, unless someone makes you. And even then, try to find a way out of it. But, if you someday decide not to heed my warning and try to read Samson Agonistes on your own, please remember the following important points:
1. Just because it says "Agonistes" right there in the title, that does not mean that Milton meant for this play to be an agony to read. No, apparently the word means "the struggler" and refers to Samson's, um, struggle. I guess reading it made me Jamelah Agonistes, but whatever, let's just move on.
2. It's written in free verse. (Represent!) Kind of. It's not Whitman, or anything, and it does employ the use of metrical feet, but not in any sort of systematic way, so you couldn't say, for instance, that it's written in dactylic hexameter, which you could if you were talking about the Iliad. For instance.
3. Published in 1671, the play came out 11 years after the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England, and since Milton wasn't what one would call a supporter of the monarchy, you can find evidence within Samson Agonistes that the play is an allegorical critique of the day's culture. No really, you can. If you're into that sort of thing, which I'm sure you are.
4. Let us not forget that Milton was a smartypants when it came to issues of Christian theology, and one of the more interesting themes within Samson Agonistes is that of predestination vs. free will. You know, just because God chose Samson to be the deliverer of his people and gave him extraordinary strength (based on that "no hair cutting" clause), Samson still had the choice to let Delilah cut his mullet (though I'm sure it couldn't have been a mullet -- if his hair had never been cut, then there was no way for it to be business in the front) and had to bear the resulting consequences.
5. Perhaps Milton felt an affinity for ol' blind Samson, since he himself was losing his eyesight. Or perhaps he didn't. It's a hell of a thing.
And there you have it, kids. My review of Samson Agonistes. John Milton may be my homeboy and all, but I definitely didn't dig this the most. But that's okay, because Jamelah Reads the ClassicsTM so you don't have to.
I'm benevolent that way.
Be that as it may, Samson Agonistes is the story of Samson, told in the biblical book of Judges. (I have to give props to my Sunday School teachers from my childhood for my familiarity with the story, which I guess made me comfortable enough with it that I didn't fear the inevitable mind wander.) For anyone who didn't do the Sunday School thing, I'll fill you in on the plot.
Samson was called by God to be the deliverer of his people, who were enslaved by the Philistines, and he had extraordinary strength. As part of the deal, he was never to cut his hair. Samson hooks up with Delilah (whose name, in Milton, is spelled Dalila), who is a spy sent to uncover the secret of Samson's strength. She puts the pressure on, and because she's so hot, he finally gives in and confesses that if his hair is cut, he won't be Mr. Universe anymore, so, well, Delilah cuts his hair, Samson is captured, his eyes are put out, and he is made a slave. One day, when the Philistines are having this big to-do for one of their gods, Samson asks a boy to place him between two of the pillars of the temple, and his strength is returned long enough for him to push the pillars over and cause the building to collapse, thereby killing all the bad guys who have been enslaving his people.
That's it, more or less.
So why does Samson Agonistes exist if all of this is readily available in the Bible? Well, Milton liked applying classical styles to biblical themes. He'd already taken on the epic with Paradise Lost, and with Samson Agonistes, he was going for the Greek tragedy (complete with chorus!), because, you know, Milty liked the way the Greeks worked it.
Ahem.
Anyway, briefly, here's what I think of Samson Agonistes. Don't read it ever, unless someone makes you. And even then, try to find a way out of it. But, if you someday decide not to heed my warning and try to read Samson Agonistes on your own, please remember the following important points:
1. Just because it says "Agonistes" right there in the title, that does not mean that Milton meant for this play to be an agony to read. No, apparently the word means "the struggler" and refers to Samson's, um, struggle. I guess reading it made me Jamelah Agonistes, but whatever, let's just move on.
2. It's written in free verse. (Represent!) Kind of. It's not Whitman, or anything, and it does employ the use of metrical feet, but not in any sort of systematic way, so you couldn't say, for instance, that it's written in dactylic hexameter, which you could if you were talking about the Iliad. For instance.
3. Published in 1671, the play came out 11 years after the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England, and since Milton wasn't what one would call a supporter of the monarchy, you can find evidence within Samson Agonistes that the play is an allegorical critique of the day's culture. No really, you can. If you're into that sort of thing, which I'm sure you are.
4. Let us not forget that Milton was a smartypants when it came to issues of Christian theology, and one of the more interesting themes within Samson Agonistes is that of predestination vs. free will. You know, just because God chose Samson to be the deliverer of his people and gave him extraordinary strength (based on that "no hair cutting" clause), Samson still had the choice to let Delilah cut his mullet (though I'm sure it couldn't have been a mullet -- if his hair had never been cut, then there was no way for it to be business in the front) and had to bear the resulting consequences.
5. Perhaps Milton felt an affinity for ol' blind Samson, since he himself was losing his eyesight. Or perhaps he didn't. It's a hell of a thing.
And there you have it, kids. My review of Samson Agonistes. John Milton may be my homeboy and all, but I definitely didn't dig this the most. But that's okay, because Jamelah Reads the ClassicsTM so you don't have to.
I'm benevolent that way.
Jamelah Reads the Classics: Troilus and Cressida
by Jamelah Earle on Monday, August 29, 2005 06:12 pmMy quest to read the classics continues, this time with everybody's favorite literary enigma. That's right, I'm talking about Shakespeare, the writer people like to say wasn't Shakespeare at all, but rather, a blind, lyre-playing Greek who -- wait, now I'm getting confused with Homer.
But then, it's easy to get Shakespeare and Homer confused, because they both wrote about the Trojan War. You know, the one with the horse. Yes, that's right, they both covered the story of the wacky ancient hijinks that went on because of Helen and her famously beautiful ship-launching face. Not that her face did the actual launching of the ships itself, because that would be both freakish and bizarre. Okay, anyway. The point is that today's installment of Jamelah Reads the Classics is all about Shakespeare's Trojan War love story, Troilus and Cressida.
Troilus and Cressida is one of Shakespeare's more obscure plays (unless you can prove me wrong and show that it's on par with Hamlet), and focuses on the eponymous Troilus and Cressida, two young lovers from the ill-fated city of Troy. They hook up, thanks to the help of Cressida's uncle Pandarus, the pimp (whose name is responsible for the word "pander"), but, as it would have to be, there is trouble for the pair. As Shakespeare wrote in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the course of true love never did run smooth, and the story of Troilus and Cressida involves infidelity, broken trust and woe. Woe! I'd tell you more, but I don't want to ruin it for you in case you ever decide to read it.
And then there's the whole Trojan War thing. The Trojans discuss whether they should keep fighting, considering the possibility of sending Helen back to Menelaus where she belongs, but Troilus, silly cad, talks them into keeping up the struggle. Achilles, prize-winning sulking bastard that he is, is sitting around the Greek camp, sulking. He is finally coerced back into the fight when his homeboy Patroclus is killed by Trojan badass Hector. This is where Shakespeare differs from Homer, because in the Iliad, Hector and Achilles have a big, dramatic fight, culminating in Hector's dead body being dragged around the Trojan city walls from the back of Achilles' chariot. In Shakespeare, however, Achilles waits until Hector is unarmed, and then has his posse jump him with lots of stabbing and whatnot, after which, there's the dragging of the body around the Trojan city wallsand all is right with the world.
So, I know the question you've been waiting for me to answer is, what do I think of Troilus and Cressida? Well, although Shakespeare is everybody's back-up answer when they can't think of someone to call the Greatest Writer Ever, I didn't like this one so much. It was okay, I mean, Shakespeare could turn a phrase, and all. But without even trying very hard, I can think of ten plays of his that I liked a lot better. The love story is so-so, and I'm absolutely sick of the Trojan War, so I won't even get started on that. I will say, though, that the final speech of the play, given by pimpdaddy Pandarus makes the whole thing worthwhile -- nothing like a few double-entendres about being racked with VD and some talk about the perils of pimping to, you know, keep it real.
But even Shakespeare is allowed to have an off day, I suppose, so even though I found Troilus and Cressida mostly snoozeworthy, I won't hold it against him.
But then, it's easy to get Shakespeare and Homer confused, because they both wrote about the Trojan War. You know, the one with the horse. Yes, that's right, they both covered the story of the wacky ancient hijinks that went on because of Helen and her famously beautiful ship-launching face. Not that her face did the actual launching of the ships itself, because that would be both freakish and bizarre. Okay, anyway. The point is that today's installment of Jamelah Reads the Classics is all about Shakespeare's Trojan War love story, Troilus and Cressida.
Troilus and Cressida is one of Shakespeare's more obscure plays (unless you can prove me wrong and show that it's on par with Hamlet), and focuses on the eponymous Troilus and Cressida, two young lovers from the ill-fated city of Troy. They hook up, thanks to the help of Cressida's uncle Pandarus, the pimp (whose name is responsible for the word "pander"), but, as it would have to be, there is trouble for the pair. As Shakespeare wrote in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the course of true love never did run smooth, and the story of Troilus and Cressida involves infidelity, broken trust and woe. Woe! I'd tell you more, but I don't want to ruin it for you in case you ever decide to read it.
And then there's the whole Trojan War thing. The Trojans discuss whether they should keep fighting, considering the possibility of sending Helen back to Menelaus where she belongs, but Troilus, silly cad, talks them into keeping up the struggle. Achilles, prize-winning sulking bastard that he is, is sitting around the Greek camp, sulking. He is finally coerced back into the fight when his homeboy Patroclus is killed by Trojan badass Hector. This is where Shakespeare differs from Homer, because in the Iliad, Hector and Achilles have a big, dramatic fight, culminating in Hector's dead body being dragged around the Trojan city walls from the back of Achilles' chariot. In Shakespeare, however, Achilles waits until Hector is unarmed, and then has his posse jump him with lots of stabbing and whatnot, after which, there's the dragging of the body around the Trojan city walls
So, I know the question you've been waiting for me to answer is, what do I think of Troilus and Cressida? Well, although Shakespeare is everybody's back-up answer when they can't think of someone to call the Greatest Writer Ever, I didn't like this one so much. It was okay, I mean, Shakespeare could turn a phrase, and all. But without even trying very hard, I can think of ten plays of his that I liked a lot better. The love story is so-so, and I'm absolutely sick of the Trojan War, so I won't even get started on that. I will say, though, that the final speech of the play, given by pimpdaddy Pandarus makes the whole thing worthwhile -- nothing like a few double-entendres about being racked with VD and some talk about the perils of pimping to, you know, keep it real.
But even Shakespeare is allowed to have an off day, I suppose, so even though I found Troilus and Cressida mostly snoozeworthy, I won't hold it against him.
Jamelah Reads the Classics: Canzoniere
by Jamelah Earle on Monday, August 22, 2005 03:19 pm"Italian is a song," my professor said (entirely in Italian) on the very first day of class. "High, low, high, low. We don't talk, we sing."
There are other pieces to this story, but I won't get into them, because this post isn't about the joys of learning what is, hands down, the sexiest language on earth. No, it's about Petrarch's Songbook (Canzoniere), which is more formally known as Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, a collection of poetry. I figured that whole "Italian is a song" thing would be a fitting introduction.
The translation I read is by one James Wyatt Cook, professor emeritus of English at my alma mater. He made Beowulf entertaining, taught me everything I know about metrical poetry (yes, I do know what dactylic hexameter is, thank you), and convinced me I should give up on New York and go to Venice instead. So when it came time for my path to cross Petrarch's, I made a trip to the library and checked out his translation. It was the least I could do.
What of the poetry of Francesco Petrarca (or Frankie P, as I've taken to calling him)? Well, naturally, it is very good. But really, it doesn't mean much to say that Petrarch's poetry is good, because that's a statement on par with "Shakespeare wrote some plays." It becomes pointless in its obviousness.
So instead of reviewing the quality of the poetry itself, I am instead going to tell you what I have learned by reading it. And what have I learned? It's simple, really. Petrarch was one hell of a creepy bastard. See, it's like this: in 1328, he first laid eyes on a woman named Laura, a woman he was completely smitten by, a woman who died 20 years later without ever having reciprocated the poet's feelings. Oh yes, he loved Laura so much that he wrote about her constantly, and many of the poems in the Canzoniere are about her. Take this one, for example:
The existence of Laura has been debated by scholar-types, but the scholarship I've read leans toward the belief that she was a real woman. I don't mean to imply that Laura is the only object of Petrarch's poems, because she's not. He wrote about other things too, but the collection is heavily weighted toward his obsession with this woman.
But people read reviews to find out if they should bother with the book in question. Do I think you should read Petrarch's Canzoniere? Sure, if you want to. From a purely poetic standpoint, Petrarch is one of the all-time greats. A master of form (he doesn't have a form of the sonnet named after him for nothing), and one who obsessively revised his work until it was perfect, Petrarch's poetry serves as an example of what can be done with writing when it's carefully crafted, and those who say they're interested in the craftsmanship of writing would be well-served by checking out his work. Sure, a lot of his imagery might seem a little bit trite to a modern reader, but he was writing in the 1300s, so I'm willing to cut him a little slack on that point. Other than that, though his poems about Laura started making my skin crawl after awhile, he sure did have a lock on the poetics of longing. So, his poems are also good if you're into that sort of thing.
Anyway, if Italian is a song, then Petrarch knew how to sing it, and his Canzoniere is a testament to that. Nevermind that I think it should be renamed The Stalker's Songbook...
It's one hell of a collection of poems.
There are other pieces to this story, but I won't get into them, because this post isn't about the joys of learning what is, hands down, the sexiest language on earth. No, it's about Petrarch's Songbook (Canzoniere), which is more formally known as Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, a collection of poetry. I figured that whole "Italian is a song" thing would be a fitting introduction.
The translation I read is by one James Wyatt Cook, professor emeritus of English at my alma mater. He made Beowulf entertaining, taught me everything I know about metrical poetry (yes, I do know what dactylic hexameter is, thank you), and convinced me I should give up on New York and go to Venice instead. So when it came time for my path to cross Petrarch's, I made a trip to the library and checked out his translation. It was the least I could do.
What of the poetry of Francesco Petrarca (or Frankie P, as I've taken to calling him)? Well, naturally, it is very good. But really, it doesn't mean much to say that Petrarch's poetry is good, because that's a statement on par with "Shakespeare wrote some plays." It becomes pointless in its obviousness.
So instead of reviewing the quality of the poetry itself, I am instead going to tell you what I have learned by reading it. And what have I learned? It's simple, really. Petrarch was one hell of a creepy bastard. See, it's like this: in 1328, he first laid eyes on a woman named Laura, a woman he was completely smitten by, a woman who died 20 years later without ever having reciprocated the poet's feelings. Oh yes, he loved Laura so much that he wrote about her constantly, and many of the poems in the Canzoniere are about her. Take this one, for example:
O lovely hand, you clasp my heart so fastRight. So, here we have Petrarch getting all hot and bothered about Laura's glove. That he stole. I don't know, but this seems to be not all that far removed from literary panty-sniffing. I know, I know, it's supposed to be romantic, the way he burns with (unrequited) love for this poor woman, but when he writes stuff like, "Seventeen years by now the heavens have rolled/ Since first I burned, and never am I quenched" (Rvf. 122), I can't help but think that he's just being gross and pathetic. SEVENTEEN YEARS!!! (And then some.) Petrarch. Dude. Stop it.
And in a little span enfold my life;
O hand, where Nature and Heaven bend every art
And all their pains to glorify themselves.
Colored like five pearls from the Orient,
Pure gentle fingers, only harsh and sharp
When in my wounds -- Love just in time consents
That you be bare so he can make me rich.
White, graceful, charming, precious little glove
That covered flawless ivory, roses fresh,
Who's seen in all this world such plunder sweet?
I wish I had the like from that far veil!
Oh, the inconstancy of mortal things!
But this is theft; one comes to rob me too.
(Rvf. 199)
The existence of Laura has been debated by scholar-types, but the scholarship I've read leans toward the belief that she was a real woman. I don't mean to imply that Laura is the only object of Petrarch's poems, because she's not. He wrote about other things too, but the collection is heavily weighted toward his obsession with this woman.
But people read reviews to find out if they should bother with the book in question. Do I think you should read Petrarch's Canzoniere? Sure, if you want to. From a purely poetic standpoint, Petrarch is one of the all-time greats. A master of form (he doesn't have a form of the sonnet named after him for nothing), and one who obsessively revised his work until it was perfect, Petrarch's poetry serves as an example of what can be done with writing when it's carefully crafted, and those who say they're interested in the craftsmanship of writing would be well-served by checking out his work. Sure, a lot of his imagery might seem a little bit trite to a modern reader, but he was writing in the 1300s, so I'm willing to cut him a little slack on that point. Other than that, though his poems about Laura started making my skin crawl after awhile, he sure did have a lock on the poetics of longing. So, his poems are also good if you're into that sort of thing.
Anyway, if Italian is a song, then Petrarch knew how to sing it, and his Canzoniere is a testament to that. Nevermind that I think it should be renamed The Stalker's Songbook...
It's one hell of a collection of poems.
Jamelah Reads the Classics: Inferno
by Jamelah Earle on Monday, August 15, 2005 10:31 am
My saga with the Inferno, written by one Signor Dante Alighieri, began when I was around 16 years old, in the library one rainy summer afternoon, looking for something to read. I picked a new translation (by Seamus Heaney, among other people) of this first third of The Divine Comedy off of the shelf and thought I'd give it a go. Because when you're 16 with nothing better to do, Italian medieval poetry is right up your alley. At least when you're 16 with nothing better to do and you happen to be me, which you don't.
In any case, I think I made it through a canto or two, realized that I wasn't really a big fan of Seamus Heaney (at least not at age 16, and I haven't tried since), and went on to read another book, like The Joy Luck Club or something.
A year later, my then best friend in the entire world and I had this private joke that involved the famous inscription on the gates of Hell in the poem, and as a graduation present, she bought me a copy of the book. We're not friends anymore, but I still have the book, and it is this particular copy of Dante's famous poem that I have been curled up with over the past week. So, without further ado, I guess it's appropriate that I say...
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate*, because this installment of Jamelah Reads the Classics is all about (burn, baby, burn) Dante's Inferno.
It's like this: Dante gets lost in the woods, where he encounters the poet Virgil (who is the one responsible for the Aeneid -- I can't escape this stuff, can I?) Virgil offers to guide Dante through Hell. Dante freaks out a little bit near the beginning, but then is okay after a pep talk from Beatrice, who he thinks is totally hot.
So, basically, Inferno is the beginning of the buddy roadstory archetype that we all know and love so well. Yeah, just like a 14th-century On the Road, with Virgil as Dean and Dante as Sal with extra large helpings of Catholic guilt!
Sort of.
As Virgil and Dante traverse the circles of Hell, they encounter all sorts of wacky afterlife hijinks, including, among other things: sinners submerged in excrement, sinners submerged in a river of boiling blood, sinners transformed into trees, sinners with their heads on backwards, sinners with their heads in holes with their feet on fire, sinners covered with itchy scabs, sinners submerged in ice, and sinners stuck in Satan's giant pie-hole(s) to be chewed on for all eternity. In case you haven't caught it by now, there are a lot of sinners in Hell, which is, I think, the point. And as Virgil and Dante encounter each unfortunate lot, they question those stuck with the eternal suffering deal -- Who are you, and how did you end up in this perpetual festival of suck?
It's when this happens that the fact that this is a politically-motivated book becomes highly apparent. Flip to any page in Inferno and you'll encounter something like this:
As Virgil and I walked across the monstrous rock and my heart trembled with fear, I saw this man I knew from Florence. Florence is the city that sent me into a life of exile, and I'm really pious, so am therefore totally not bitter. Seriously. Shut up, I'm not. Anyway, this Florentine was a real bastard when he was alive, so he must spend all eternity with his head up his ass. Ha ha! I mean, that's so sad. I weep.I made that up, of course. Dante wouldn't have written it that way. If he had written it, it would've included the person's name, which just goes to show you how lucky he was that pesky things like libel law didn't exist back in the 1300s.
Anyway, Dante's Inferno is important to the canon of Western literature for two reasons:
1. Instead of writing in Latin, Dante chose to write in his vernacular (which for him was Tuscan). I've lived in Italy, and it seems like practically every city has its own dialect, but Dante's poetry sort of united Italian into a common language, which is the kind that they'll teach you in school.
2. Dante has shaped the view of Hell in the popular consciousness. If you were to look in the Bible, you wouldn't read anything about levels of Hell or differing punishments for different sinners or Judas being chewed on in Satan's giant pie-hole, or anything like that. So if you've ever thought about going to a lesser version of Hell for shoplifting than you'd go to if you, um, gave Christ up for crucifixion, then that idea comes from Dante. Credit where credit is due, people.
In the end, Inferno, though highly repetitive in style, is a pretty entertaining read. I mean, how can I not like something that says "And he had made a trumpet of his ass"? (Dante actually wrote that, not me.) I do think his characterization of Satan is pretty boring, though. I mean, Satan is the bad guy for all time, and I really think he should get to be a bit more diabolical. Frozen, three-headed, weeping, and gnawing on Judas, Brutus and Cassius doesn't really seem to be evil so much as it is, um, pansy-ass, but maybe that's just me. Milton's Satan was way cooler, and this is not a point on which I will debate because I already know how right I am.
Ahem.
So, in summary, there are a lot of sinners, Dante had some problems with Florentine politics, Dante and Virgil are the Sal and Dean of Italian medieval poetry, there's an ass-trumpet, Satan is pretty lame, and Dante's Inferno is pretty awesome.
Any questions?
*That's "abandon all hope, ye who enter here" for those of you who aren't hip to the Italian.
Jamelah Reads the Classics: The Aeneid
by Jamelah Earle on Thursday, August 4, 2005 08:21 pm
In order to get an English degree at my alma mater, students were required to take two of the following three courses: American Literature I, British Literature I, or Greek and Roman Literature. I'd knocked out Brit Lit I relatively early on, and since not reading Moby-Dick makes me happy, I decided I would take Greek and Roman Lit to fulfill my requirement. Little did I know that sitting in a class taught by the professor I'd seen walking around campus in a trench coat with an upturned collar, smoking cigarettes in a manner of cool unseen since Humphrey Bogart would be one of my favorite college experiences, but it was. So now I have to say, Dr. Crupi, I'm sorry. I didn't finish The Aeneid.
But it's never too late to make amends, so I read the whole book and here it is. The Aeneid. My review.
Alrighty then. The Aeneid is the story of Aeneas, cousin of Hector (who was last seen being killed by Achilles in The Iliad), son of Venus, and Trojan hero extraordinaire. Aeneas has been fated to leave his homeland of Ilium/Troy (which is good, since it was destroyed by the Greeks) to take a cruise to Italy and begin a settlement on the Tiber River which will become the seat of everybody's favorite empire: Rome. Along the way, he gets it on with Dido (the Carthaginian queen, not the singer), his father dies, he takes a little trip to the underworld, and he fights a war. Virgil died before finishing The Aeneid, so even though the entire epic talks about the ultimate importance of Aeneas founding Rome, Aeneas never actually gets around to founding Rome, which makes it just a teeny bit anti-climactic. But on the upside, Aeneas kills a lot of people, so there's that.
Before I talk about what I think of the book as a cohesive whole, I would like to take a moment to harp on a couple of plot points.
1. I've already mentioned the fact that I think the whole business with the Trojan Horse is silly, but let me reiterate the fact that I think the whole business with the Trojan Horse is silly. Seriously. Say you'd been defending your city from a bunch of Greeks who are pissed off enough about the fact that one of your people stole the wife of one of their people that they'd go to war with you. Say also that you've been defending your city for ten years. One day, you notice that hey, all the Greeks are gone! But they left a present! A giant horse made out of wood! (Ooooh. Pretty.) No matter what anybody tells you, do you really think that wheeling it inside your beloved city walls is absolutely the best thing to do? If so, then you deserve to die in a fiery inferno, and that is that.
Actually, that was the only plot point I wanted to harp on for a minute. The rest of the plot points don't really deserve harping.
So, moving right along, what do I think about this particular classic work of literature now that I have read the entire thing from cover to cover? Let's see. People in epic poetry pontificate too much. War scenes get pretty tedious. (Though the image of the guy getting stabbed in his yelling, open mouth with a javelin will stick with me for awhile. Ouch.) Ancient people will go to war for love (I've been fought over before, but now I'm kind of sorry that there weren't any swords and torches involved).
Reading The Aeneid is kind of like eating a great big plate of steamed broccoli sans embellishment. It tastes okay, but really, you just do it because it's healthy and you can use the fact that you ate a plate of broccoli to justify eating a bowl of ice cream later. I didn't find it quite as entertaining as the Homeric epics, but despite the fact that The Aeneid is literary broccoli, I mostly found myself enjoying it a lot. The poetry is good, the story is great (despite the slight letdown ending), and it's impossible not to picture it being turned into a really bad movie someday. Important points, all.
In the end, I think The Aeneid definitely deserves its place in the literary canon, and since my opinion is very important to these kinds of things, it's good that I feel the way I do.
The Aeneid: Observations
by Jamelah Earle on Friday, July 22, 2005 07:15 amTo kick off my quest to read the classics, I have been slowly (and almost reluctantly) working my way through Virgil's Aeneid. I should admit that I've read at least half of it before, for a class in which I was required to write a paper about Queen Dido. But that was over five years ago, so I figured I'd start the whole thing again, because I'd probably need a refresher.
The deal is, reading a book in order to write a paper about it and reading a book for the sake of reading it are two entirely different things. When I read the first time through, I underlined things fervently and wrote snarky notes in the margins. As I read now, I wonder why the hell I underlined those things and laugh to myself because snark aimed at the work of a long-dead Roman poet is really quite amusing. No, seriously. For example:
-- If one were to come to this book unaware of the fact that Aeneas is fated to get to Italy and daddy some babies who will eventually become the people known as Romans, then it wouldn't take long to get it. Virgil lays it on really thick. To the point of being annoying.
-- This Trojan horse business is seriously one of stupidest stories ever. Also, I think it's interesting that we use the Trojan name to signify strength when really, the Trojans were the ones to get their asses kicked by the Greeks.
-- I find it utterly hilarious that when recounting a memory, Aeneas is apparently able to remember the exact words of everyone, and can supposedly quote what a single person said to him years ago verbatim and for several pages. Seriously, I think he's just making stuff up.
-- Getting it on in a cave. That's hot.
-- Dido, listen to me, homegirl. Aeneas isn't worth it. The gods are just messing with you. Buck up. Listen to some Gloria Gaynor, or something.
-- Homer was so much more badass than Virgil.
-- Why is this book a classic? Because it's old and Virgil knew how to work the foreshadowing? I think this just proves that if you write something and it doesn't end up thrown in a fireplace or get a lot of coffee stains on it or anything, it can be a revered classic, too. I mean, Virgil died before he finished editing the damn thing, so this isn't even the final, good version!
So, these are some of the things I've been thinking about The Aeneid so far. I'm sure I'll have more, but I'll just work them into an actual review, written in paragraphs. This review should be coming soon, provided that I can make myself sit down for a few hours this weekend and get through the last few books. Stay tuned.
The deal is, reading a book in order to write a paper about it and reading a book for the sake of reading it are two entirely different things. When I read the first time through, I underlined things fervently and wrote snarky notes in the margins. As I read now, I wonder why the hell I underlined those things and laugh to myself because snark aimed at the work of a long-dead Roman poet is really quite amusing. No, seriously. For example:
Oh! A big giant wooden horse! Let's take it inside! No wonder your city was destroyed, you idiots.I will have more to say about this horse thing when I get to the actual review, but for now, I thought I'd share some of the things I'm thinking about the book while I'm still reading (and therefore free of having to write about it productively or in paragraph form). Here goes:
-- If one were to come to this book unaware of the fact that Aeneas is fated to get to Italy and daddy some babies who will eventually become the people known as Romans, then it wouldn't take long to get it. Virgil lays it on really thick. To the point of being annoying.
-- This Trojan horse business is seriously one of stupidest stories ever. Also, I think it's interesting that we use the Trojan name to signify strength when really, the Trojans were the ones to get their asses kicked by the Greeks.
-- I find it utterly hilarious that when recounting a memory, Aeneas is apparently able to remember the exact words of everyone, and can supposedly quote what a single person said to him years ago verbatim and for several pages. Seriously, I think he's just making stuff up.
-- Getting it on in a cave. That's hot.
-- Dido, listen to me, homegirl. Aeneas isn't worth it. The gods are just messing with you. Buck up. Listen to some Gloria Gaynor, or something.
-- Homer was so much more badass than Virgil.
-- Why is this book a classic? Because it's old and Virgil knew how to work the foreshadowing? I think this just proves that if you write something and it doesn't end up thrown in a fireplace or get a lot of coffee stains on it or anything, it can be a revered classic, too. I mean, Virgil died before he finished editing the damn thing, so this isn't even the final, good version!
So, these are some of the things I've been thinking about The Aeneid so far. I'm sure I'll have more, but I'll just work them into an actual review, written in paragraphs. This review should be coming soon, provided that I can make myself sit down for a few hours this weekend and get through the last few books. Stay tuned.
Jamelah Reads the Classics: An Introduction
by Jamelah Earle on Tuesday, July 12, 2005 03:00 pmThe world is full of books to read, and no matter how good our intentions may be, there's just no way to read them all. It's hard enough to stay on top of contemporary literature, let alone having at least a passing familiarity with the exalted classics of years gone by. Personally, I keep a running list in my head called "Books I Need to Read Before I Die." It's a very long list, and even if I somehow get to be really really old, I'm reasonably certain that I'm never going to make it through everything. Call it a hunch.
Anyway, in thinking about my list of books to read, I've decided that it's time to stop being daunted and start getting busy. And though I often say I'm going to do this sort of thing, I usually never get beyond the saying part. As such, I'm putting this out in public, and you can all be my witnesses -- I'm actually going to read these, really, I swear. After finishing each book on my list, I'll post a review which will probably be slightly irreverent, since irreverence is my style.
My list? Here it is. Books I either meant to read, or was supposed to read, or I skimmed parts of, or I read and forgot, or I merely pretended to read when I was assigned them in school:
Anyway, in thinking about my list of books to read, I've decided that it's time to stop being daunted and start getting busy. And though I often say I'm going to do this sort of thing, I usually never get beyond the saying part. As such, I'm putting this out in public, and you can all be my witnesses -- I'm actually going to read these, really, I swear. After finishing each book on my list, I'll post a review which will probably be slightly irreverent, since irreverence is my style.
My list? Here it is. Books I either meant to read, or was supposed to read, or I skimmed parts of, or I read and forgot, or I merely pretended to read when I was assigned them in school:
-- Aeneid - VirgilThis is in no way an exhaustive list, and though I may add more in the future, I think this is enough to keep me busy for awhile. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some reading to do.
-- Inferno - Dante
-- Canzoniere - Petrarch
-- Troilus and Cressida - Shakespeare
-- Samson Agonistes - John Milton
-- Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
-- Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
-- Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
