tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75225904429517382024-03-13T16:34:43.620-04:00Armored Assaults on Hot Fudge SundaesFionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.comBlogger81125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-37373048280978003592010-03-26T23:29:00.003-04:002010-03-26T23:35:46.979-04:00Surprised By JoyHey, guys, Serena and I both read something on the Iditarod reading list! Totally by accident! And I'm working late and need a diversion, so.<br /><br />If you're feeling cynical, E.M. Forster isn't for you. But if you're feeling depressed about how cynical everybody else is, oh my god, Forster is going to change your tiny world. He is the kindest author I've ever read. He finds something to love in every one of his characters, something worthy in them, and he emphasizes that. They could be stupid or brutish or cruel or histrionic, Forster doesn't care. He cares that they're stoic, or that they aspire to be more than they are, or that their antics are heartfelt. <br /><br />I'd been thinking for a while about people who make everyone around them feel special, and the idea that that kind of attitude is really fake. My conclusion is something like this: it's not fake, because it's not pretending people are special in ways that they aren't special. It's finding what's special about every person, and concentrating on that, concentrating on what they do best or what makes them worthwhile. I formulated this theory before starting <span style="font-style:italic;">Howards End</span>, and it's pretty much all I've been able to think about while reading it.<br /><br />Well, that and "Really, Eddie? ANOTHER description of the English countryside? Jesus."Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-48907561214438329632009-06-24T00:06:00.003-04:002009-06-24T00:50:51.576-04:00Tiny Resurrection, For All You RSS ReadersSo it's a good thing the internet exists, because I think if I blather on about the Elgin marbles to anyone else within swatting distance, I might be in trouble.<br /><br />BUT THE ELGIN MARBLES. YOU GUYS. THE ELGIN MARBLES.<br /><br />Quick recap: in 1816 or thereabouts, Lord Elgin of Britain got the then-rulers of Greece, the Ottoman Empire, to let him chisel a bunch of marble slabs off the Acropolis in Athens. He also snagged some sculptures and stuff, all ancient, gorgeous marble work. All from the Parthenon. Important: Though they are called the marbles, they are not marbles that you keep in a bag but instead big works of art made of marble. <br /><br />Now Greece wants them back. Really, really bad. This is a nationalist thing, and having your greatest art treasures stolen by colonial invaders can't be great.<br /><br />So, in today's installment of IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS WITH KNOWLEDGE OF ESOTERIC CRAP, here's a summary.<br /><br />GREECE: Give us back our damn marbles.<br />BRITAIN: Oh you mean the Elgin marbles?<br />GREECE: We call them the Parthenon marbles.<br />BRITAIN: Well, good then, but they're in our lovely British Museum and they're quite happy there. Millions of tourists. Come visit if you like, but wipe your feet.<br />GREECE: THOSE ARE OUR MARBLES, YOU THIEVING SONS-OF-RATS.<br />BRITAIN: It's not as if you have a decent museum to put them in anyway. They'll just sit by in some potty old shed and no-one will ever look at them. <br />GREECE: Well, you ... hmm. Hold on. <br /><br /><years pass. sounds of hammering and sawing><br /><br />GREECE: OK, how do you like THIS museum?!<br />BRITAIN: Hm. It's pretty nice actually. I like the glass bits. <br />GREECE: GIVE US BACK OUR DAMN MARBLES.<br />BRITAIN: Nope. Can't. <br />GREECE: I hate you.<br />BRITAIN: If we give you these, you'll want all the others and then the only thing we will have is that stupid Banksy that he put in here for a joke.<br />GREECE: I am going to hold my breath until I die unless you give me the marbles.<br />BRITAIN: But, really, it's just going from one museum to another, so what's the difference?<br />GREECE: Hey, Egypt, let's go steal Westminster Abbey and see how they like it.<br /><br />There was an actual demonstration in Athens. A PROTEST. With SIGNS. All about how THEY WANT THEIR ART BACK.<br /><br />I think that's pretty great.<br />I don't know what they should do about the marbles, but 1) The British Museum didn't give back works they got that were looted by Nazis, so they won't be swayed by emotional appeal, and 2) The Greeks are being very pointed with their museum -- they use the marbles they have left and fill in the rest with these stark white plaster castings of the real things, with the color distinction yelling "LOOK WHAT SHOULD BE HERE! BOMB BIG BEN."Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-62244607204860552012009-04-06T10:19:00.001-04:002009-04-06T10:19:00.918-04:00There's no need to get so angry...Remember <a href="http://literaryiditarod.blogspot.com/2008/12/there-is-chaos-in-my-blog-and-situation.html">this post</a> from a few months ago about Virginia Heffernan's entirely mean and uncalled-for "review" of Sarah Vowell's latest book? The review that basically read: "Whatever, the book sucks, but OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I HATE SARAH VOWELL SO MUCH. SO MUCH. WITH HER STUPID LIBERAL POLITICS AND HER STUPID ACCENT AND HER STUPID BEING REALLY SUCCESSFUL AND LIKEABLE. FML."<br /><br />Well, now I think it's clear: Virginia Heffernan needs to go to anger management. Cause she wrote another article — I'm really not sure why the New York Times keeps publishing these rants, but okay — about how much she <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/magazine/05wwln-medium-t.html?em">hates her iPhone</a>.<br /><br />HATES IT. Hates its STUPID LITTLE SCREEN that you have to TOUCH and the stupid ADJUSTING TO TECHNOLOGY and the stupid OH GOD WHAT AM I GOING TO WRITE ABOUT? THE NEW YORK TIMES WANTS ANOTHER VITRIOLIC PIECE OF RIDICULOUS. OH GOD MY LIFE IS SO HARD. SO HARD, EVERYONE. NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I'VE SEEN. NO NOT EVEN JESUS.<br /><br />In other, less obnoxious news, I am sort of thinking about going to grad school a little bit. More on that later.Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-11983174493031169762009-03-30T11:29:00.002-04:002009-03-30T11:31:40.809-04:00Well... balls."Emory University plans a 40 percent cut in the number of new Ph.D. students it will enroll this fall. Columbia University is planning a 10 percent cut. Brown University has called off a planned increase in Ph.D. enrollments. The University of South Carolina is considering a plan to have some departments that have admitted doctoral students every year shift to an every-other-year system. These cuts are exclusively for Ph.D. programs."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/30/phd">FML.</a><br /><br />In other news, I think I need to shift my focus from the Iditarod to actual grad school preparation. It's getting to be about that time. Will you still love me if I blog about GRE study and program entrance requirements? That seems so boring. But I don't have enough <span style="font-style: italic;">time </span>to do all these different things.<br /><br />Damn it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-46265719529436643892009-03-28T11:38:00.002-04:002009-03-28T11:52:32.581-04:00I missed this when it was published two weeks ago, but <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/weekinreview/15blumenthal.html?_r=2&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y">hee</a>!<br /><br />But Blumenthal is definitely wrong. Madoff would be in the 8th circle, the one punishing fraud.<br /><blockquote>“It’s not a poem about ‘you did this, you get this,’ ” Mr. [Robert] Pinsky says. “It’s about the mystery of how you hurt yourself. It’s like the Talmud says: the evils others do to me are as nothing compared to the evils I do to myself.”</blockquote><br />It's certainly lending Madoff's crimes a grand scale, isn't it?)Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-21690196053600318452009-03-24T11:33:00.002-04:002009-03-24T11:37:35.590-04:00blogging FAILI don't even use Twitter, but this is about where we're at right now:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.maxgladwell.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/twitter_fail_whale.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://www.maxgladwell.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/twitter_fail_whale.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I've been re-reading a bunch of cantos in the Musa translation, because it makes so much more sense to me. It's time-consuming, though, and hasn't much inspired me to blog.<br /><br />I've also been talking to people about grad school and trying to do some basic research. I feel so unprepared for all of this. I've heard of people <span style="font-style: italic;">quitting their jobs </span>just to prepare for grad school. Yeah, Things I Absolutely Cannot Do.<br /><br />I have some neat grad school-related things that I might get to do for my job, though. More on that soon, I hope!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-70995642078105562362009-03-17T11:09:00.000-04:002009-03-17T11:09:01.026-04:00Post-It: This is ridiculousDepressing news, in Fiona's ongoing life crisis:<br />Even a chimpanzee can make a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-sci-chimp14-2009mar14,0,2955034.story">plan for the future</a>. But I can't seem to.<br /><br />Now that you're depressed, check this out.<br /><br />Roberto Benigni reads Dante aloud as a performance piece that he's toured around Italy. It will make everything better: <br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wRBoP-t4h9A&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wRBoP-t4h9A&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-29473121068239603162009-03-17T10:00:00.002-04:002009-03-17T10:00:00.583-04:00Ha.I was going to title my post, "This has officially become ridiculous," but then I saw that Fiona had scheduled a post with the title "This is ridiculous" for the same day, so I guess that's out. No matter.<br /><br />Let me tell you what is <span style="font-style: italic;">truly </span>ridiculous: I have, on my person, <span style="font-style: italic;">four </span>different translations of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Purgatorio. </span><br /><br />I know. This is out of control. But you see, as I <a href="http://literaryiditarod.blogspot.com/2009/03/who-shall-be-true-to-us-when-daylight.html">mentioned</a> last week, I'm having trouble with Merwin's translation. There are no summaries/arguments at the beginning of the chapter, and the notes are few and terse. I just feel like I'm missing so much.<br /><br />So I took a lunch break and went to the used bookstore by my office. Now I have the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Purgatorio-Signet-Classics-Dante-Alighieri/dp/0451528026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237223006&sr=1-1">Ciardi </a>translation, because I know for sure I can follow it; the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Purgatorio-Bantam-Classics-Dante-Alighieri/dp/055321344X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237222805&sr=8-1">Mandelbaum</a>, because as we all know by now, I like Mandelbaum; and, randomly enough, the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Comedy-2-Purgatory/dp/0140444424/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237223177&sr=1-1">Musa</a>, because it's a Penguin edition with excellent notes. (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/3FBY1GAQF7JIY">That guy on Amazon</a> seems to like him, too.)<br /><br />I should not be spending so much money on used books, especially the <span style="font-style: italic;">Purgatorio. </span>No one even likes the <span style="font-style: italic;">Purgatorio</span>! But there's no point reading it, I don't think, if I can't make heads nor tails of it. And we'll be done with translations soon enough.<br /><br />(The bookstore also had the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Inferno-Verse-Translation-Michael-Palma/dp/0393323870/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237223372&sr=8-1">Palma</a> <span style="font-style: italic;">Inferno</span>, and I took a moment to read some of it, and it was just beautiful. Oh well.)<br /><br />I'm looking forward to getting a look at these translations and letting you know how it goes. I've made painfully slow progress with Merwin, so I'm hoping I'll be able to read faster now, too.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-77794630656425246002009-03-16T10:42:00.004-04:002009-03-17T11:57:29.196-04:00"Time does not bring relief; you all have lied"Daylight saving time gets me thinking about clocks and hours and all that business by which I live my life. <br /><br />Timing is extremely important in the <span style="font-style:italic;">Divine Comedy</span> too. There have been a hundred million commentaries written on the thing, and somewhere along the way people figured out not only the exact dimensions of Hell, but the exact position of the stars in the sky at any given moment. Each canto has a specific time attached -- Dante's journey through the afterlife is meticulously timed.<br /><br />So I started to wonder...how?<br /><br />They didn't even have mechanical clocks in Europe until what, 1270? 1280? And the Comedy was written less than 50 years after that, so timekeeping wasn't all that important. They certainly wouldn't have had clocks in houses -- just church bells, set to local noon. Because it didn't matter what time it was anywhere ELSE. Each town just set the clock to noon when the sun was highest and then forgot about it. I think in a lot of the Western World they would still have been using temporal hours* instead of 60-minute hours.<br /><br />So I asked Robert Hollander about it** and he referenced a passage from <span style="font-style:italic;">Paradiso</span>:<br /><blockquote>Then, like a clock that calls us at the hour<br />when the bride of God gets up to sing<br />matins to her bridegroom, that he should love her still,<br />when a cog pulls one wheel and drives another,<br />chiming its ting-ting with notes so sweet<br />that the willing spirit swells with love,<br />thus I saw that glorious wheel in motion,<br />matching voice to voice in harmony<br />and with sweetness that cannot be known<br />except where joy becomes eternal.(X.139-148)</blockquote><br />He then cited another scholar who claims this is the first literary reference to a mechanical clock. Apparently this scholar (Scott) thinks Dante might have seen one in Milan. Obviously this passage isn't about a clock in a room, since that would be ridiculous. It's probably about a town clock tower.<br /><br />Another theory I have is about Italian time, which is a system of 24 hours beginning at sunset. Apparently it was useful for people whose day of work needed to end at sunset because they didn't really have access to artificial light. First of all, it was used in Italy until the 1700s, and second -- look at the <span style="font-style:italic;">Comedy</span>! It makes sense! He starts at sunset in the dark wood, near to the time an Italian hour cycle would be starting! <br /><br />So that's my theory. But really I'm just struck by how odd it is that commentators have been so hung up on the timing in Dante, when exact time mattered so little in the 14th century. <br /><br /><br /><br />*OK, so you tell time by putting a stick in the ground and watching the shadows it casts based on the position of the sun. When the sun is right overhead, it's noon. So originally the way to divide time into hours was to see how long it took for the shadow to get a certain amount longer. Thing is, at different times of the year, that would take more or less time. That's a temporal hour -- it varies in length depending on the time of year. <br />**So last week I sent a fangirlish "I just love your Dante translation" e-mail to Robert Hollander, the translator I liked so much. Ever since then we've been corresponding back and forth about Dante -- he's really nice and helpful, and likes the idea of the Iditarod.Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-5866851961511691292009-03-12T13:11:00.000-04:002009-03-12T13:12:35.471-04:00alsoSometimes I feel like the <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/news/stumbling_bumbling_sled_dog_sorry?utm_source=a-section">Melvin</a> of the Literary Iditarod.<br /><br />Sometimes? Always.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-77330543145650645932009-03-12T11:52:00.007-04:002009-03-12T12:35:41.404-04:00mea culpaI think I owe John Ciardi an apology. I was all like, "Oh, terza rima, that's original. Focus on the POETRY, John Ciardi." And then I'd get all mad when he'd do that thing where he'd annotate a line by saying, "Yeah, um, this isn't actually in the Italian, but I needed to make a rhyme here, so let's pretend that Dante said this, ok?"<br /><br />But looking at other translations, it seems like Ciardi didn't change the literal meaning very much, and I... I miss the rhyme. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy <span style="font-style: italic;">structure</span> in poetry. Really, I'm a little ashamed of myself. I memorized "Kubla Khan" when I was twelve because I loved the way it sounded. I am rather fond of Tennyson. Why did I think that I wouldn't want my Dante to be structured?<br /><br />Let's look at a couple of examples. Here's the canto ending I <a href="http://literaryiditarod.blogspot.com/2009/02/little-night-feet.html">mentioned</a> liking in Ciardi a while back:<br /><blockquote>But now the Poet already led the way<br />to the slope above, saying to me: "Come now:<br />the sun has touched the very peak of day<br /><br />above the sea, and night already stands<br />with one black foot upon Morocco's sands." (IV.136-41)</blockquote><br />And here's that same set of lines in W.S. Merwin's translation*:<br /><blockquote>And already the poet had begun<br />to climb ahead of me, and he said, "Come now.<br />See: the meridian is touched by the sun,<br /><br />and on the shore night has set foot on Morocco." (IV.136-41)</blockquote><br />(I believe Esolen's translation of these lines is fairly similar to Merwin's. Perhaps Fiona can give that version in a post or in a comment, just for comparison. What? You don't find translations fascinating? Well, I do.)<br /><br />Anyway. Don't get me wrong. I like the Merwin translation. There's a certain delicacy, an awareness of diction, that is maybe missing in Ciardi. But there's something about the structure of Ciardi's phrasing, particulary in these canto endings, that Merwin's less formal verse lacks. And I miss it.<br /><br />One more example. Here's the Pia episode that <a href="http://literaryiditarod.blogspot.com/2009/03/as-he-well-knows-who-took-me-as-his.html">I quoted</a> last week, in Ciardi:<br /><blockquote>A third spoke when that second soul had done:<br />"When you have found your way back to the world,<br />and found your rest from this long road you run,<br /><br />oh speak my name again with living breath<br />to living memory. Pia am I.<br />Siena gave me birth; Maremma, death.<br /><br />As he well knows who took me as his wife<br />with jeweled ring before he took my life." (V. 136-143)</blockquote><br />And here are the same lines in Merwin:<br /><blockquote>"Oh when you are back in the world again<br />and are rested after the long journey,"<br />the third spirit followed upon the second,<br /><br />"pray you, remember me who am La Pia.<br />Siena made me, Maremma unmade me;<br />he knows it who, with his ring taking me,<br /><br />first had me for his wife with his gem." (V.130-136)</blockquote><br />Which translation presents Pia in a more poignant, more memorable way?<br /><br />On the plus side, Merwin has the original poem on the facing pages. I don't know Italian, but I have a decent command of Spanish, so I can piece out a little. Just for fun, here's Pia in Dante's original:<br /><blockquote>"Deh, quando tu sarai tornato al mondo<br />e riposato de la lunga via,"<br />segu<span style="font-family:georgia;">itò 'l terzo spirito al secondo,<br /><br />"ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;<br />Siena me fé, disfecemi Maremma:<br />salsi colui che 'nnanellata pria<br /><br />disposando m'avea con la sua gemma."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />----------------------------------------------<br /></span><br />*Merwin, W.S.<span style="font-style: italic;">, </span>transl. <span style="font-style: italic;">Purgatorio</span>, by Dante Alighieri. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-24747927259621663372009-03-09T13:28:00.003-04:002009-03-09T13:33:33.844-04:00"Where will it end, Daria? Where will it end?"I don't even know what to say about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/arts/07grad.html?em">these articles</a> anymore. I was raised to believe that I could do anything I wanted -- that I was, yes, a special and unique snowflake. You hear that from a lot of grad students, that you have to be someone who really believes that she can do it.<br /><br />I just don't know if I can believe that. My parents always told me that I could be anything, and my professors encouraged me to think about grad school. But these days... I don't know. I already felt uncertain, short on confidence, and now things are worse than ever.<br /><br />I don't want to give up on what I care about, but I don't want to delude myself, either.<br /><br />I think I need a nap.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-87162669860360108432009-03-09T11:30:00.002-04:002009-03-09T11:13:35.533-04:00Who shall be true to us/ When Daylight Saving Time broke the entire world?I apologize for my title, which manages to combine the worst elements of not literary and not witty. I blame Daylight Saving Time and its shameless attempts to destroy everything that is good and true in the world, like sleeping in on Sundays.<br /><br />Here are some fractions and orts of news, a Monday medley of I'm Too Exhausted to Write a Real Post.<br /><br />1. As Fiona mentioned, we had to return our previous copies of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Commedia</span>, and I now have <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Purgatorio-New-Verse-Translation-Dante/dp/0375708391/ref=cm_srch_res_rpsy_1">Merwin</a> for the <span style="font-style: italic;">Purgatorio</span> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Purgatory-Modern-Library-Classics-Dante/dp/0812971256/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236610177&sr=1-3">Esolen</a> for the <span style="font-style: italic;">Paradiso</span>. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to try multiple new translators. So far this is turning out to have been dumb, and I miss Ciardi more than I would ever have expected. For one thing, he put little "arguments" at the beginning of each chapter, such as you'll find in <span style="font-style: italic;">Paradise Lost. </span>This is brilliant because Dante can be hard to follow, and it's useful to know what to expect. No such luck with Merwin. He also doesn't explain <span style="font-style: italic;">anything.</span> I know I complained about Ciardi's long, often tedious notes, but Merwin has hardly any notes at all, and there's so much now that I don't understand. I'm even missing Ciardi's rhyme scheme more than I would have expected -- more on the differences between translations later.<br /><br />2. From <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/09/cupa#Comments">IHE today</a>:<br /><blockquote>Gaps in disciplinary pay are not new to higher education... some humanities disciplines remain stuck with salaries much lower than counterparts across the quad. The median salary for a <i>full</i> professor of English, for example ($79,854, across sectors), is less than the median for an <i>assistant</i> professor of business ($84,025). Instructors in English or in philosophy have median salaries below $40,000 at public institutions, while instructors in law and legal studies earn over $60,000 at public institutions.</blockquote>What's this you say? English professors are among the very lowest paid? I'm shocked! SHOCKED I tell you!<br /><br />3. I've mentioned the executive director of the MLA, Rosemary Feal, <a href="http://literaryiditarod.blogspot.com/2008/12/are-you-linguist.html">at least once</a> before. Tomorrow I am going to be attending a meeting with her, as well as with the MLA's president and vice president. With luck I will learn some useful and interesting things. I'd better, since the meeting is scheduled for 8am, so I'll be interrupting my normally rigid 8am plans (hit the snooze button, hit the snooze button again, curse, turn the alarm off, walk blindly into my bedroom door, stub my toe, curse again, trip on the carpet...).<br /><br />-----------------<br /><br />****It has come to my attention that the block quote formatting comes out SUPER weird in Google Reader. Yet another reason to click on our actual blog every single day! That, and to comment on our new format, and maybe offer us your html expertise because we're not very good at this game.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-5011493131977624952009-03-09T10:45:00.000-04:002009-03-09T10:45:00.547-04:00Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of LifeOne thing that I think we've both made clear we find difficult to stomach is Virgil's consignment to Limbo. But it's even more infuriating, this damnation by default, when you consider the Harrowing of Hell.<br /><br />The Harrowing of Hell is a part of Christian Doctrine wherein Jesus went to hell and hung out for a bit and preached the gospel or something after he died. But not, apparently, to convert any sinners. According to Virgil via Dante (in Canto IV), he went down to get some very specific individuals. <br /><blockquote>"I was a novice in this state,<br />When I saw hither come a Mighty One,<br />With sign of victory incoronate.<br />Hence he drew forth the shade of the First Parent,<br />And that of his son Abel, and of Noah,<br />Of Moses the lawgiver, and the obedient<br />Abraham, patriarch, and David, king,<br />Israel with his father and his children,<br />And Rachel, for whose sake he did so much,<br />And others many, and he made them blessed;<br />And thou must know, that earlier than these<br />Never were any human spirits saved."*</blockquote><br />So Jesus goes down into Hell to grab some Hebrew forefathers. It's not even clear that Virgil knows exactly what happened here and how roundly he was cheated. Seriously, what makes Noah and Adam more holy than any other righteous person who lives before the birth of Christ? OH RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE, YOU PAIN ME.<br /><br />It's a good thing I don't subscribe to any of this or I think it would keep me up nights.<br /><br />But seriously, could he just not carry all the good people up so he just picked the ones who were important in the Bible? SOCRATES WOULD BE A VALUABLE ADDITION TO HEAVEN TOO. <br /><br />*This is from some random internet translation since I no longer have an actual translation of the <span style="font-style:italic;">Inferno</span>. Stupid library, always wanting their books back. Sorry, baby, I didn't mean that, you know I love you. In other news, we have both switched translations: I grabbed the Anthony Esolen translations of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Purgatory-Modern-Library-Classics-Dante/dp/0812971256/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236567368&sr=1-1">Purgatorio</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Modern-Library-Classics-Dante/dp/0812977262/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b">Paradiso</a>, and Serena has the W.S. Merwin <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Purgatorio-Verse-Translation-Borzoi-Books/dp/0375409211/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236567342&sr=8-1">Purgatorio</a> and the Esolen <span style="font-style:italic;">Paradiso</span>. More on that anon.Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-8103132192399594862009-03-06T14:50:00.000-05:002009-03-06T14:50:00.377-05:00Oh! And...So, remember when I was <a href="http://literaryiditarod.blogspot.com/2009/02/post-it-dante-if-youre-going-to-make.html">annoyed</a> that Cato, a suicide isn't consigned to the seventh circle of Hell? Turns out there's a reason. First of all, he's just a gate guardian in Purgatory — there's no intimation that he ever actually gets to go to Heaven.<br /><br />Secondly, Dante was careful to only put Christian suicides in the seventh circle of hell, on the logic that pagans might not be offending their religions by committing suicide. So it's all okay! You didn't know Jesus anyway!<br /><br />Anyway, talk of Cato always makes me think of <a href="http://www.hbo.com/av/rome/season1/rome_sea1_ep3_ref.mov">this</a>.*<br /><br />*There are no time markers, but you want the man near the end making the amazing squinchy face and saying "You have lost Rome!"Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-28021604611849394522009-03-05T09:34:00.007-05:002009-03-05T11:56:27.785-05:00"I always have a quotation for everything. It saves original thinking."Dorothy Sayers (in her introduction to the <span style="font-style:italic;">Purgatorio</span>) has this to say:<br /><blockquote>"Persons who pontificate about Dante without making mention of his Purgatory may reasonably be suspected of knowing him only at second hand, or of having at most skimmed through the circles of his Hell in the hope of finding something to be shocked at."</blockquote><br />Basically she operates on the theory that the true Dantean scholar will love the <span style="font-style:italic;">Purgatorio</span> most, because it is the glue that binds the Dantean universe together and because only the true Dante scholar can love it. It is not so flashy as its brethren.*<br /><br />Sorry, Dorothy Sayers. Maybe I am not cut out for this after all. I promise that I did not love the <span style="font-style:italic;">Inferno</span> out of prurience or a wish to appear erudite. It just sang, and the <span style="font-style:italic;">Purgatorio</span> doesn't. I appreciate the structure of it, I do. And I'm still near the beginning. Perhaps it will grow on me.<br /><br />Maybe it's (surely not) that Hollander is no longer my translator. Much as I loved her introduction, Sayers' translation is certainly harder to parse. Man, she is a badass though. That tattooed man on the Metro yesterday who looked like he ate broken glass for breakfast would cower, COWER in the face of <span style="font-style:italic;">terza rima</span>.<br /><br />So in conclusion, Dorothy Sayers, I will try harder. Don't be disappointed in me.<br /><br />*Also, is there some sort of Dante secret society? Maybe the password to the clubhouse is written on the hundredth page of every edition of the <span style="font-style:italic;">Purgatorio</span>, along with instructions for initiation rites. Also, what would such a society be called? All I can think of now is the Dantettes, and that's definitely a girl group.**<br />**"Stop! At the gates of Dis! <br />So your sin can be assessed."<br />Or Francesca da Rimini (lustful denizen of the second circle whose husband murdered her and her lover) could sing "My Husband's Back (and We're Headed Straight for Hell)."Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-37854710187780535932009-03-04T10:00:00.002-05:002009-03-04T15:23:00.456-05:00"As he well knows who took me as his wife"Either Dante or Ciardi is great at these memorable canto endings. Here's another one that really gets me, at the end of Canto V (The Late-Repentant, Class Three: Those Who Died by Violence Without Last Rites). The souls here all want Dante to remind their living friends and relatives to pray for them, since the prayers of the devout can shorten their time in ante-Purgatory. (The indolent, you see, who for whatever reason delayed repentance till the end of their life, must wait -- as they made God wait -- before entering Purgatory.)<br /><br />So anyway, Dante is surrounded by these souls:<br /><blockquote>A third spoke when that second soul had done:<br />"When you have found your way back to the world,<br />and found your rest from this long road you run,<br /><br />oh speak my name again with living breath<br />to living memory. Pia am I.<br />Siena gave me birth; Maremma, death.<br /><br />As he well knows who took me as his wife<br />with jeweled ring before he took my life." (V. 136-143)</blockquote><br />Effective, right? Ciardi writes that Pia "has been traditionally identified as Pia de' Tomolei of Siena, who married a Guelph leader and was murdered by him. The identification is doubtful, however" (p. 212 note to l. 140).<br /><br />Whoever she was, wow. What a way to be immortalized.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-60581636978643740752009-03-03T12:00:00.002-05:002009-03-12T12:01:43.974-04:00little night feetDante has this habit of using impossibly convoluted descriptions of the sky and the stars to make points about time, direction or geography. His bombast is nearly impenetrable, and his tenuous grasp of geography makes it all the worse:<br /><blockquote>The sun already burned at the horizon,<br />while the high point of its meridian circle<br />covered Jerusalem, and in opposition<br /><br />equal Night revolved above the Ganges<br />bearing the Scales that fall out of her hand<br />as she grows longer with the season's changes:<br /><br />thus, where I was, Aurora in her passage<br />was losing the pale blushes from her cheeks<br />which turned to orange with increasing age. (II. 1-9)</blockquote><br />Ciardi helpfully points out, "The bit of erudite affectation in which Dante indulges here means simply, 'It was dawn' " (p.194, note to II. 1-9).<br /><br />And just in case you were wondering:<br /><blockquote><br />To understand the total figure, one must recall the following essentials of Dante's geography: (1) Jersualem is antipodal to the Mount of Purgatory. Thus it is sunset at Jerusalem when it is sunrise on the mountain. (2) All the land of the earth is contained in one half of the Northern Hemisphere. That is to say, there is no land (except the Mount of Purgatory) anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere and of the total circle of the norther Hemisphere (360 degrees) only half (180 degrees) is land. Jerusalem is at the exact center of this 180 degree arc of land. Spain, 90 degrees to one side, is the West, and India (Ganges), 90 degrees to the other, is the East.<br />Every fifteen degrees of longitude equals one hour or time. That is to say, it takes the Sun an hour to travel fifteen degrees. Thus at sunset over Jerusalem it is midnight (six hours later) over India, and noon (six hours earlier) over Spain. The journey, moreover, is conceived as taking place during the vernal* equinox, when the days and nights are of the same length. Thus it is "equal Night' (line 4).<br />Finally, when the Sun is in Aries, midnight is in Libra (the Scales). Thus the night bears the Scales in her hand (i.e., that constellation is visible), but Libra will no longer be the sign of the night as the season changes, and thus it may be said that the Scales will fall from her hand (i.e., will no longer be visible.</blockquote><br />That's very helpful, Ciardi... or at least, it would have been if I'd cared at all about what exactly Dante was getting at there. The text is full of similar passages and notes; I won't quote all of them because I know you wouldn't read them. Nor do I blame you.<br /><br />Ok, maybe one more example. Just trust me that the entire book is filled with these sorts of things:<br /><blockquote>Virgil was quick to note the start I gave<br />when I beheld the Chariot of the Sun<br />driven between me and the North Wind's cave.<br /><br />"Were Castor and Pollux," he said, "in company<br />of that bright mirror which sends forth its rays<br />equally up and down, then you would see<br /><br />the twelve-toothed cogwheel of the Zodiac<br />turned till it blazed still closer to the Bears<br />--unless it were to stray from its fixed path. **<br /><br />If you wish to understand why this is so,<br />imagine Zion and this Mount so placed<br />on earth, the one above, the other below,<br /><br />that the two have one horizon though they lie<br />in different hemispheres. Therefore, the path<br />that Phaethon could not follow in the sky<br /><br />must necessarily, in passing here<br />on the one side, pass there upon the other,<br />as your own reasoning will have made clear."<br /><br />And I then: "Master, I may truly vow<br />I never grasped so well the very point<br />on which my wits were most astray just now:<br /><br />that the mid-circle of the highest Heaven,<br />called the Equator, always lies between<br />the sun and winter, and, for the reason given,<br /><br />lies as far north of this place at all times<br />as the Hebrews, when they held Jerusalem<br />were wont to see it toward the warmer climbs." (IV. 58-84)</blockquote><br />I'll spare you Ciardi's notes on all this, because I can't imagine why anyone would care. Suffice to say that they're approximately nine million paragraphs long and contain this hilarious diagram of the earth with Zion, the equator, the path of the ecliptic, Purgatory, and the "celestial horizon of Purgatory and Zion" all carefully marked.<br /><br />There is, however, at least one of Dante's little digressions on time and geography that I find utterly delightful. At the end of a conversation with the indolent Belacqua in Canto IV (Ante-Purgatory: The First Ledge -- The Late-Repentant -- Class Two: The Indolent) (hell of an ordering system they've got there, eh?), Dante is reminded that he must keep going:<br /><blockquote>But now the Poet already led the way<br />to the slope above, saying to me: "Come now:<br />the sun has touched the very peak of day<br /><br />above the sea, and night already stands<br />with one black foot upon Morocco's sands." (IV.136-41)</blockquote><br />Ciardi clarifies:<br /><blockquote>It was now noon at Purgatory. It must therefore be midnight in Jerusalem. Dante believed Morocco to lie exactly 90 degrees west of Jerusalem (in the same longitude as Spain) and 90 degrees west of midnight is six hours earlier. Hence, it is six o'clock there and night would just be beginning. (p. 207, note to ll.136-140)</blockquote><br />I love these lines so much! I picture Night wearing a lone black sock, like maybe the other one got eaten by the dryer. Or Night coming "on <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/104/76.html">little cat feet</a>" (this is the first poem I remember learning -- I think we read it in kindergarten). Carl Sandburg, 'fess up. Did you borrow from Dante?<br /><br />--------------------------------------------------<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">*My edition is old and full of typos; the text here actually reads "</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >venal </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Equinox." Which is a hilarious image and could be a good name for a band.<br /><br />**Apparently this line is Dante's idea of <span style="font-style: italic;">what passes for humor. </span>Horrifying.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-87543421958150420412009-03-02T15:15:00.010-05:002009-03-02T17:11:53.941-05:00Post-It: Deep ThoughtsDo you think we could add <a href="http://www.dccomics.com/vertigo/graphic_novels/?gn=1719"><span style="font-style: italic;">Transmetropolitan</span></a> to the <a href="http://literaryiditarod.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-improved-and-in-chronological-order.html">booklist</a> so that it'd be ok that I spent the entire bus trip back from New York reading that instead of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Purgatorio</span>?<br /><br />No?<br /><br />Damn.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://cardboardmonocle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/boweldisruptor%20copy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: 225px;" src="http://cardboardmonocle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/boweldisruptor%20copy.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://cardboardmonocle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/boweldisruptor%20copy.jpg"><br /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-68156964341092544002009-02-24T13:47:00.006-05:002009-02-24T16:07:02.671-05:00"If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favorable to him"OK, I am waaay behind Serena on starting the <span style="font-style:italic;">Purgatorio</span>, because I had to slog through a 71-page introduction. But I have finished! There are things to say:<br /><br />Well, really just one thing: I don't know what I'm doing with my life. STOP, this is relevant, I swear. I don't know what I want to do and I don't know how to figure out what I want to do, and I hate it. Because I don't have any goals. I'm good at achieving goals when I have them, but I don't know how to get one, and I can't just assign myself one at random so I'll feel good about having an accomplishment. That'd be like cheating at solitaire or something.<br /><br />Oh, but I miss achieving goals.<br /><br />Anyway, so the difference between Purgatory and Hell?<br /><br />The people in Purgatory have a goal! All their punishments seem light because they've got something they're working toward and they know they'll get through it. Whereas the punishments in hell are both neverending and frustratingly circular. Oh, and everyone in Purgatory is always happily focused on God, while everyone in Hell is self-obsessed.* <br /><br />So thanks a lot, Dante. Like I wasn't worried enough about drifting through my post-college years, now you have to come along and be like "Hey, that's exactly what Hell is like! Ha!"<br /><br />In other news, even though this translation is definitely inferior to the Hollander, it'll be nice to read something in <span style="font-style:italic;">terza rima</span>**. Oh, and I am excited for the middle of the story, which is where great epics are made or broken. The second bit of a great trilogy is always best (with a few <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087469/">exceptions</a>), and always most difficult to pull off. <br /><br />Nora Ephron is wise: "[This story] has a happy ending, but that’s because I insist on happy endings; I would insist on happy beginnings too, but that’s not necessary because all beginnings are intrinsically happy, in my opinion. What about middles, you may ask. Middles are a problem. Middles are perhaps the major problem of contemporary life."***<br /><br />*Fourth circle: Bloggers.<br />**And Sayers actually sticks to the <span style="font-style:italic;">terza rima</span> hardcore: rather than ABA CDC she's gone with ABA BCB, if that makes sense. <br />***It's from <span style="font-style:italic;">Heartburn</span>, which is NOT on the Iditarod but is not without merit either.Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-43996453014272376982009-02-23T11:52:00.003-05:002009-02-23T12:03:28.331-05:00from worse to bad?After that uplifting start to the week, it's back to our regularly scheduled litany of depression.<br /><br />Today's contenders for the title of Cranky Curmudgeon Ruining My Morning:<br /><br />1. Thomas H. Benton at the Chronicle, who has written <a href="http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2003/06/2003060301c.htm">two</a> <a href="http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/01/2009013001c.htm">different</a> pieces about why you should NEVER EVER GO TO GRAD SCHOOL GOD WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY?! The man really seems hell-bent on crushing my fragile hopes and dreams.<br /><br />2. Tedra Osell at IHE thinks that Benton hasn't done enough to send me into a crisis of anxiety and self-doubt, so she adds her <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/osell/rush">two cents</a>.<br /><br />Is this one of those situations where I just have to ignore everything everyone tells me?<br /><br />Neither Benton nor Osell addresses the person who is currently working in the media and thinking about applying to graduate school. These days, going from the media to the academy is only going from the fire into the frying pan, no?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-37115788323282061032009-02-23T10:00:00.004-05:002009-02-23T15:10:35.228-05:00the most relevant photos yet!Normally we post photos with only the faintest claim to relevance, if any. This is because blogs with no pictures are a bit boring, especially to those of us with very, very short attention spans.<br /><br />Today, however, it is my pleasure to bring you a most timely set of photographs.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_z_L8PvZtfOs/SaIK4RpqXnI/AAAAAAAAADc/UaXCdqG3lkQ/s1600-h/101_0189.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_z_L8PvZtfOs/SaIK4RpqXnI/AAAAAAAAADc/UaXCdqG3lkQ/s320/101_0189.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305815272922963570" border="0" /></a>I take my studies ever so seriously. I am as inspired and humbled by Dante as Dante is by Virgil. Or... something.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_z_L8PvZtfOs/SaIK4bbPjxI/AAAAAAAAADU/1NnAILiNvNs/s1600-h/101_0188.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_z_L8PvZtfOs/SaIK4bbPjxI/AAAAAAAAADU/1NnAILiNvNs/s320/101_0188.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305815275546840850" border="0" /></a>Note to self: Dante is <span style="font-style: italic;">off </span>the list of Historical Figures with Whom I'd Like to Have a Beer.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z_L8PvZtfOs/SaIK4LvRvGI/AAAAAAAAADM/gnufvk88xNw/s1600-h/101_0184.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z_L8PvZtfOs/SaIK4LvRvGI/AAAAAAAAADM/gnufvk88xNw/s320/101_0184.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305815271335902306" border="0" /></a>I told Fiona we were at Madame Tussauds.*<br /><br />------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />*Madame Tussauds is breaking <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/22/AR2009022201886.html">this man's</a> heart. It's shocking.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-83235047158244397832009-02-20T16:32:00.004-05:002009-02-20T16:35:37.109-05:00Post It: Dante, If You're Going to Make Rules ...Speaking of Cato the Younger being in Purgatory (I'm still in the introduction to my version of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Comedy-Part-Purgatory-Classics/dp/0140440461">Purgatorio</a>, but more on that later when I am not swamped), anyone else think it's odd that Cato is there at all? Since he, you know, COMMITTED SUICIDE?<br /><br />Just sayin', Dante. Isn't there a circle of hell for inconsistent poets?Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-90337725809052896312009-02-20T15:00:00.007-05:002009-02-20T16:26:24.792-05:00Romeo and Juliet it ain't...Normally I would leave the business of anecdotes to Fiona, since it's really more her domain than mine. But since we've only read translations so far, I can't get into the language as I would otherwise be inclined to do; I can remark on my fondness (or lack thereof) for the work of a certain translator, and guess at the extent to which the translation mirrors the original -- but as I have, you know, small <a href="http://www.uwm.edu/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg064.htm">Tuscan</a> and less Greek, I'm reluctant to go too deeply into word choice or sentence structure.<br /><br />And so! From the opening of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Purgatorio</span>, I bring you an anecdote.<br /><br />For whatever crazy Dante reason, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Younger">Cato of Utica</a> is charged with guarding the shores of Purgatory. At first he thinks Virgil and Dante are escapees from hell, so Virgil explains their situation, concluding,<br /><blockquote>"We do not break the Laws: this man lives yet,<br />and I am of that Round not ruled by Minos,<br />with your own Marcia, whose chaste eyes seem set<br /><br />in endless prayers to you. O blessed breast<br />to hold her yet your own! for love of her<br />grant us permission to pursue our quest<br /><br />across your seven kingdoms. When I go<br />back to her side I shall bear thanks of you<br />if you will let me speak your name below." (Canto I, ll. 76-84)<br /></blockquote><br />To which Cato replies rather brusquely:<br /><blockquote>"Marcia was so pleasing in my eyes<br />there on the other side," he answered then<br />"that all she asked, I did. Now that she lies<br /><br />beyond the evil river, no word or prayer<br />of hers may move me. Such was the Decree<br />pronounced upon us when I rose from there.<br /><br />But if, as you have said, a Heavenly Dame<br />orders your way, there is no need to flatter:<br />you need but ask it of me in her name." (85-93)</blockquote><br />I'm resisting a <span style="font-style: italic;">Brady Bunch </span>joke here because, to be honest, I never watched that show, so it'd seem like too cheap a shot. Instead, let's find out who Marcia was. Ciardi has the goods:<br /><blockquote> The story of Marcia and of Cato is an extraordinary one. She was the daughter of the consul Philippus and became Cato's second wife, bearing his three children. In 56 B.C., in an unusual transaction approved by her father, Cato released her in order that she might marry his friend Hortensius. (Hence line 87: "that all she asked I did.") After the death of Hortensius, Cato took her back.<br />In Il Convivio, IV, 28, Dante presents the newly widowed Marcia praying to be taken back in order that she may die the wife of Cato, and that it may be said of her that she was not cast forth from his love. Dante treats that return as an allegory of the return of the strayed soul to God (that it may die "married" to God, and that God's love for it be manifest to all time). Virgil describes Marcia as still praying to Cato. (p. 190, note to l. 78)</blockquote><br />I sort of expect Dante to romanticize things, but it sounds like Ciardi might be airbrushing this story a little himself. According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_%28wife_of_Cato_the_Younger%29">Wikipedia</a>, that bastion of accuracy,<br /><blockquote><p>Hortensius was an admirer and friend of Cato’s, and he was eager to be more closely related to Cato and his family. ...[A]n alliance with Cato seems to be the chief reason for Hortensius, nearing 60 years old, to request to be married to Cato’s daughter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porcia" title="Porcia">Porcia</a>, who was only about 20 years old at the time. However, because Porcia was already married to M. Calpurnius Bibulus and the age difference was so great, Cato refused to give his consent. Hortensius immediately suggested that he marry Marcia instead because she had already borne Cato his heirs. Due to Hortensius' ardor, Cato acquiesced, but only on the condition that Marcia's father, L. Marcius Philippus, approve as well. With Phillipus' consent obtained, Cato divorced Marcia, thereby placing her under her father's charge. Hortensius promptly married Marcia, and she bore him an heir. After Hortensius' death in 50 BC, she also inherited much of Hortensius' considerable wealth.</p> <p>At the outbreak of the civil war in 49, Marcia and her children moved back into Cato’s household. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch" title="Plutarch">Plutarch</a> asserts that Cato remarried Marcia after Hortensius's death, whereas <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appian" title="Appian">Appian</a>'s histories relate that Cato merely reestablished her in his own household.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Well that's... significantly less romantic than I'd hoped. Facts are always ruining Dante's great stories. (From the way Ciardi put it, I was sort of imagining that Marcia'd married Cato out of, whatever, family reasons, duty, but then cultivated this burning and reciprocal passion for his good friend Hortensius, and Cato, let's say, pulled a Francisco d'Anconia -- oh, yeah, I went <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0452011876/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235165050&sr=8-2">there</a> -- and stepped aside out of love for the two of them, then remarried Marcia after Hortensius' death so she wouldn't be lonely/poor. Yeah... no.)<br /></p><p>Additional exciting Marcia facts:</p><p>--Marie Hamilton* suggests that "during the Middle Ages... Marcia was proverbial for virtue" (362), possibly because in Lucan's <span style="font-style: italic;">Pharsalia</span> "on the occasion of her return to Cato she asks permission to share his anxieties and sorrows" (364).<br /></p><p>--This, then, would be why she gets a mention in Chaucer's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Legend of Good Women</span>: </p><p></p><blockquote>Penalopee, and Marcia Catoun<br />Mak of your wyfhod no comparisoun.</blockquote>--Way, way more about Marcia as the figure of an obedient woman <a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/wm/62.2/hicks.html">here</a>. This article is actually super-interesting, but this post is already sort of out of control.<br /><br />----------------------------------------------------<br />*<span style="font-style: italic;">Chaucer's "Marcia Catoun."</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Modern Philology</span>, Vol. 30, No. 4 (May, 1933), pp. 361-364. The University of Chicago Press. <http: org="" stable="" 434218=""></http:>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7522590442951738.post-60797821196745846882009-02-19T11:38:00.002-05:002009-02-19T11:38:01.414-05:00anxietiesIt might be that I'd already read the <span style="font-style:italic;">Odyssey</span> and the <span style="font-style:italic;">Oresteia</span>, and that <span style="font-style:italic;">Beowulf</span> came across as such a clear precursor of Tolkien that it wasn't exactly new.<br /><br />I like to lay the blame at the feet of Robert and Jean Hollander, who translated my <span style="font-style:italic;">Inferno</span>.<br /><br />Whatever the reason, the <span style="font-style:italic;">Inferno</span> is the first book on the Iditarod that made me sit up and take notice. It felt like something I could study and read for years and always stay interested, and it made me see why all the medievalists I know scoff at just about everyone who isn't a medievalist. You know that contented sigh that comes after you finish a great book, and you see WHY it's great and you feel a tiny connection to the whole of Western history and everyone else who has read and loved and seen the significance of that particular book? I got that. I've never read anything like this -- it's so complex and gorgeous. The only thing it ever made me think of was Donne's poetry. But those are tiny complicated bites, and this is this monster of a book. Imagine what it must be like to sit down and try to do a new translation.<br /><br />Not to be all middle-school book review ("This was the best book I've ever read!!!"), but go read it, if you haven't. <br /><br />Oh, and the best part? I don't want to read the <span style="font-style:italic;">Purgatorio</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Paradiso</span>, because I have a different translation of those, and I don't want to hate them for not being the Hollander. But I have a feeling I might.<br /><br />This is Dante, right? This has been around for centuries, no way it's totally ruined even by a dunce of a translator trying too hard to stick to terza rima when all we care about is the suffering and the stars. <br /><br />Right?Fionahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488361241256661262noreply@blogger.com0