T. P. Akin – Page 5 – Tattooed Professor

Beowulf

[Prologue: The Rise of the Danish Nation]

Describes a line of family who are leaders from whom Hrothgar is a descendant. Hrothgar orders a great mead hall (Heorot) be built. This is more than just a bar; it is Hrothgar’s throne and a place to distribute the spoils of war.

[Heorot Is Attacked]

There is a great demon who cannot stand to hear the happy sounds of comradery in Heorot. Grendel has lived in misery with other banished monsters. For the killing of Abel, the Lord exacts a price; they are the evil ones that God later kills in the flood. Grendel creeps into Heorot after the men have fallen asleep. He carries 30 of them back to his lair. All the remaining men go into mourning and feel helpless. They can see the demon’s trail. Grendel strikes again. The hall stands empty. Twelve years of woe follow. No one, young or old, is safe. Grendel takes over Heorot, but he cannot sit upon the throne being God’s outcast. The Lord was unknown to the people; they would only learn of him after death.

[The Hero Comes to Heorot]

People freak out with terror after dark. We meet Beowulf who is the mightiest man on earth. He set out to find the king in need and takes a small army of 14 by boat. One of Hrothgar’s men meets them on the shore. Beowulf explains that they have come to help slay the monster; won’t this man guide them to his leader? Tatchman agrees to lead Beowulf’s army to Hrothgar. The army makes it to the mead hall and take a rest. The party announce themselves and request a meeting with Hrothgar. Hrothgar had known Beowulf as a boy; knew his parents. Hrothgar grants them entry. Beowulf explains how news of Grendel had come across the sea. He says he resolved to come help and the Geats supported his decision because he was such an awesome warrior. Beowulf says he is ready to face Grendel and take him down in a single combat. Beowulf has heard that Grendel doesn’t use weapons, so neither will he; hand-to-hand combat will be the valiant way to go. Whoever dies will be the judgment of God. Beowulf requests that if he dies Hrothgar send his breast-webbing back to his homeland as remembrance. Hrothgar doesn’t like that everyone knows he needs help, but he accepts it, and there is a feast at Heorot.

[Feast at Heorot]

At the party, Unferth asks Beowulf if the legend of the swimming contest is true. They learn that Beowulf’s challenger won the swimming contest; now they feel Grendel may win his. “So Breca made good his boast upon you and was proved right. No matter, therefor, how you may have fared in every bout and battle until now, this time you’ll be worsted; no one has ever outlasted an entire night against Grendel.” The gauntlet is thrown. You’ve had your say, Unferth, but you must be tipsy. “Breca could never move out farther or faster from me than I could manage to move from him.” A sea monster pulled me under, but I was wearing armour. “My sword plunged and the ordeal was over.” “From now on sailors would be safe, the deep sea raids were over for good…my sword had killed nine sea-monsters.” “…but worn out as I was, I survived, came through with my life.” “I cannot recall any fight you entered, Unferth, that bears comparison.” “The fact is, Unferth, if you were truly as keen or courageous as you claim to be Grendel would never have got away with such unchecked atrocity, attacks on your king, havoc in Heorot and horrors everywhere.” “He knows he can trample down you Danes to his heart’s content, humiliate and murder…But he will find me different.” “So the laughter started, the din got louder and the crowd was happy.” Hrothgar’s wife comes to thank and welcome everyone. Hrothgar leaves for bed. “‘Never, since my hand could hold a shield have I entrusted or given control of the Danes’ hall to anyone but you…’.”

[The Fight with Grendel]

“And before he bedded down, Beowulf, that prince of goodness, proudly asserted: ‘When it comes to fighting, I count myself as dangerous any day as Grendel.’” “…he does possess a wild strength. No weapons…unarmed he shall face me if face me he dares. And may the Divine Lord in His wisdom grant the glory of victory to whichever side He sees fit.’” As they lay down to sleep, none of them expect to ever see home again. “Through the strength of one they all prevailed; they would crush their enemy and come through in triumph and gladness. The truth is clear: Almighty God rules over mankind and always has. Then out of the night came the shadow-stalker, stealthy and swift.” Grendel! “In off the moors, down through the mist-bands God-cursed Grendel came greedily loping. The bane of the race of men roamed forth, hunting for a prey in the high hall.” He sees the men sleeping, but unbeknownst to him, Grendel’s fate has changed. Grendel attacks and eats a man. “Venturing closer, his talon was raised to attack Beowulf where he lay on the bed…” Beowulf grabs Grendel in a death hold. “…it was the worst trip the terror-monger had taken to Heorot…the two contenders crashed through the building.” Beowulf and Grendel tear up the place. “Then an extraordinary wail arouse, and bewildering fear came over the Danes…the howl of the loser, the lament of the hell-serf keening his wound.” As Beowulf fights with his hands, his army uses their swords, but to no avail. “…no blade on earth, no blacksmith’s art could ever damage their demon opponent.” “The monster’s whole body was in pain; a tremendous wound appeared on his shoulder…Beowulf was granted the glory of winning; Grendel was driven under the fen-bands, fatally hurt, to his desolate lair.” “…the whole of Grendel’s shoulder and arm,” were ripped off by Beowulf’s “ awesome grasp.”

[Celebration at Heorot]

The next day everyone can see Grendel’s bloody path of retreat. “With his death upon him, he had dived deep into his marsh-den, drowned out his life and his heathen soul; hell claimed him there.” The men begin to eulogize Beowulf’s worthy fight. “The man started to recite with skill, rehearsing Beowulf’s triumphs and feats in well-fashioned lines.” Later…”evil entered into Heremod.” Because of his defeating Grendel, Beowulf has now become immortal, for his story will live forever. A crowd is looking at Grendel’s left-behind body part. “Everybody said there was no honed iron hard enough to pierce him through, no time-proofed blade that could cut his brutal, blood-caked claw. Then the order was given for all hands to help to refurbish Heorot immediately.” “No group ever gathered in greater numbers or better order around their ring-giver.” “Inside Heorot there was nothing but friendship.” Beowulf is showered with gifts. “…each man on the bench who had sailed with Beowulf…received a bounty.” They shouted “…words and music for their warrior prince.”

(There is a nested tale explained in the footnotes.)

“The bright court of Heorot has been cleansed and now the word is that you want to adopt this warrior as a son…bask in your fortune…” Beowulf is given golden necklaces and rings. “She moved then to her place. Men were drinking wine at that rare feast; how could they know fate, the grim shape of things to come, the threat looming over many thanes as night approached and King Hrothgar prepared to retire to his quarter?” “It was their habit always and everywhere to be ready for action.”

[Another Attack]

“They went to sleep. And one paid dearly for his night’s ease…” “…an avenger lurked and was still alive…Grendel’s mother, monstrous hell-bride, brooded on her wrongs.” [Notice that this female character is never given a name. She is only known as Grendel’s mother. The loss of identity and naming are worthy theme in literature.] “But now his mother had sallied forth on a savage journey, grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge.” Grendel’s mother has one of Hrothgar’s most beloved men in her grip. “She had pounced and taken one of the retainers…To Hrothgar, this man was the most beloved of the friends.” Mother took Grendel’s bloody hand. “Beowulf was elsewhere. Earlier, after the award of the treasure, the Geat had been given another lodging…She had snatched their trophy, Grendel’s bloodied hand.” “…the old lord…was heartsore and weary when he heard the news: his highest-placed adviser, his dearest companion, was dead and gone.” “Where she is hiding, glutting on the corpse and glorying in her escape, I cannot tell; she has taken up the feud because of last night, when you killed Grendel.” “…this force for evil driven to avenge her kinsman’s death.” “Now help depends again on you and on you alone…I will compensate you for settling the feud.”

[Beowulf Fights Grendel’s Mother]

“…let us immediately set forth on the trail of this troll-dam. I guarantee you: she will not get away.” They are on the mother’s tracks. “…a hurt to each and every one of that noble company when they came upon Aeschere’s head at the foot of the cliff.” Beowulf suits up for battle. There is a detailed description of all the armor and weapons needed for the battle. “If this combat kills me, take care of my young company, my comrades in arms.” He leaves a verbal will. “With Hrunting I shall gain glory or die.” “…without more ado, he dived into the heaving depths of the lake.” Grendel’s mother “…sensed a human observing her outlandish lair from above. So she lunged and clutched and managed to catch him in her brutal grip; but his body, for all that, remained unscathed: the mesh of the chain-mail saved him on the outside.” “…for all his courage he could never use the weapons he carried” even though “…droves of sea-beasts… attacked with tusks and tore at his chain-mail.” Beowulf lands a mighty blow on her head, yet the sword does not phase her. “…the decorated blade came down ringing and singing on her head…his battle-torch extinguished; the shining blade refused to bite.” Beowulf throws the sword away and is ready for hand-to-hand combat. “Then, in a fury, he flung his sword away…he would have to rely on the might of his arm.” “But the mesh of chain-mail on Beowulf’s shoulder shielded his life, turned the edge and tip of the blade.” Beowulf sees a huge, ancient sword in her collection. He chops her neck. “Then he saw a blade that boded well, a sword in her armory, an ancient heirloom from the days of the giants, an ideal weapon, one that any warrior would envy, but so huge and heavy of itself only Beowulf could wield it in a battle. So the Shieldings’ hero hard-pressed and enraged, took a firm hold of the hilt and swung the blade in an arc, a resolute blow that bit deep into her neck-bone and severed it entirely, toppling the doomed house of her flesh; she fell to the floor.” Beowulf sees Grendel’s corpse and cuts off its head. People are giving up on waiting for Beowulf to return. “The Geat captain saw treasure in abundance but carried no spoils from those quarters except for the head and the inlaid hilt embossed with jewels.” He swims to the surface. “His thanes advanced in a troop to meet him, thanking God and taking great delight in seeing their prince back safe and sound.” “It was a task for four to hoist Grendel’s head on a spear…” Hrothgar speaks of how men can take the high road or the low road. “Tomorrow morning our treasure will be shared and showered upon you.” “Happiness came back, the hall was thronged, and a banquet set forth…”

[Beowulf Returns Home]

“Warriors rose quickly, impatient to be off: their own country was beckoning…” Beowulf swears friendship with the camp of Hrothgar. Regarding Beowulf: “You are strong in body and mature in mind, impressive in speech.” Hrothgar says that he hopes Beowulf will one day become King of the Geats. Helping equals friendship. Here, there is a bit of foreshadowing: “…the good and gray-haired Dane…kissed Beowulf and embraced his neck, then broke down in sudden tears…nevermore would they meet each other face to face.” Weapons are viewed as status symbols. The story follows Beowulf home where he is given gold, a magnificent house and a wife. “A queen should weave peace, not punish the innocent with loss of life for imagined insults.” “Beowulf’s return was reported to Hygelac as soon as possible.” Beowulf tells his story to Hygelac after returning home. Beowulf then tells of how Grendel’s mother came for revenge. “…Hrothgar’s treasures…these, King Hygelac, I am happy to present to you as gifts.” “…thus Beowulf bore himself with valor; he was formidable in battle yet behaved with honor and took no advantage…” “…the best example of a gem-studded sword in the Geat treasury. This he laid on Beowulf’s lap…rewarded him with land as well…a hall and a throne.”

[The Dragon Wakes]

Hygelac dies and Beowulf rules for fifty years without incident “…until one began to dominate the dark, a dragon on the prowl from the steep vaults of a stone-roofed barrow where he guarded a hoard…” “The intruder who broached the dragon’s treasure and moved him to wrath had never meant to. It was desperation on the part of a slave fleeing the heavy hand of some master…” “…somebody now forgotten had buried the riches of a highborn race in this ancient cache.” The dragon found this underground lair and stayed there for three centuries. “When the dragon awoke, trouble flared again.” The dragon begins to terrorize the land. “The first to suffer were the people on the land, but before long it was their treasure-giver who would come to grief.” “…the Geat nation bore the brunt of his brutal assaults and virulent hate.” The dragon burns many homes to the ground, including Beowulf’s, “…so the war-king planned and plotted his revenge.” He has an awesome shield made and reminisces about a past victory. It is explained how Beowulf ascended to the throne. “Heardred lay slaughtered and Onela returned to the land of Sweden, leaving Beowulf to ascend the throne.” Beowulf and his men find the one who stole the dragon’s cup and make him work for them. They want him to lead them to the dragon’s lair. Beowulf “was sad at heart, unsettled yet ready, sensing his death.” He reflects on past rivalries and battles.

[Beowulf Attacks the Dragon]

“Now I am old, but as king of the people I shall pursue this fight…” “But I shall be meeting molten venom in the fire he breathes, so I go forth in mail-shirt and shield.” He doesn’t want his army to help. Beowulf shouts at the dragon. “The hoard-guard recognized a human voice, the time was over for peace and parleying.” Both man and beast were scared “[y]et his shield defended the renowned leader’s life and limb for a shorter time than he meant it to: that final day was the first time when Beowulf fought and fate denied him glory in battle.” Although he “struck hard at the enameled scales,” he “scarcely cut through.” “Beowulf was foiled of a glorious victory.” “…he who had once ruled was furled in fire and had to face the worst…that hand-picked troop broke ranks and ran for their lives to the safety of the wood.” Oh! Thanks, guys! But in his darkest hour, one dude had Beowulf’s back. “His name was Wiglaf…a well-regarded Shylfing warrior.” “He could not hold back: one hand brandished the yellow-timbered shield, the other drew his sword…” Seeing Wiglaf’s bravery, Beowulf “bequeathed to Wiglaf innumerable weapons. And now the youth was to enter the line of battle with his lord, his first time to be tested as a fighter. His spirit did not break and the ancestral blade would keep its edge, as the dragon discovered as soon as they came together in combat. Wiglaf gives a rousing battle speech. He promises to stand by Beowulf, but Wiglaf’s shield is destroyed. Beowulf shares his. “…the war-king threw his whole strength behind a sword stroke and connected with the skull. And Naegling snapped. Beowulf’s ancient iron-gray sword let him down in the fight.” Beowulf had never had much luck with swords; he always fought better with his bare hands. “When the chance came, he caught the hero in a rush of flame and clamped sharp fangs into his neck. Beowulf’s body ran wet with his life-blood.” Wiglaf “saw the king in danger at his side and displayed his inborn bravery and strength.” Wiglaf’s “decorated sword sank into its belly and the flames grew weaker.” Beowulf also stabbed a knife in the dragon’s flank, dealing the deadly blow. “…partners in nobility, had destroyed the foe. So every man should act, be at hand when needed…this would be the last of his many labors and triumphs in the world.” “Beowulf discovered deadly poison suppurating inside him” causing nausea. They washed his wounds although “…his allotted time was drawing to a close, death was very near.” Because he knows he has lived an honorable life, he feels he will go to heaven. Right before Beowulf’s death scene there is this: “I give thanks that I behold this treasure…I have been allowed to leave my people so well endowed on the day I die. Now that I have bartered my last breath to own this fortune, it is up to you to look after their needs…construct a barrow on a headland on the coast, after my pyre has cooled.” Call it “Beowulf’s Barrow.” He dies.

[Beowulf’s Funeral]

Regarding the cowards who abandoned the fight: “Before long the battle-dodgers abandoned the wood, the ones who had let down their lord earlier, the tail-turners, ten of them together. When he needed them most, they had made off.” “Then a stern rebuke was bound to come from the young warrior to the ones who had been cowards.” “…when the worst happened too few rallied around the prince. ‘So it is good-bye now to all you know and love on your home ground, the open-handedness, the giving of war-swords. Every one of you with freeholds of land, our whole nation, will be dispossessed, once princes from beyond get tiding of how you turned and fled and disgraced yourselves. A warrior will sooner die than live a life of shame.” We have to always assume that our enemies are ready to attack. There is a description of how the Geats became at odds with the Swedes. “…they will cross our borders and attack in force when they find out that Beowulf is dead.” “That huge cache, gold inherited from an ancient race, was under a spell–which meant no one was ever permitted to enter the ring-hall unless God Himself, mankind’s Keeper, True King of Triumphs, allowed some person pleasing to Him–and in His eyes worthy–to open the hoard.” “The highborn chiefs who had buried the treasure declared it until doomsday so accursed that whoever robbed it would be guilty of wrong and grimly punished for their transgression, hasped in hell-bonds in heathen shrines. Yet Beowulf’s gaze at the gold treasure when he first saw it had not been selfish…’Often when one man follows his own will many are hurt…’.” The village gathers wood for the funeral pyre. Some begin to think about the dragon’s treasure that is now unguarded: “hurry to work and haul out the priceless store…and backwash take the treasure-minder. Then coiled gold was loaded on a cart in great abundance, and the gray-haired leader, the prince on his bier, borne to Hronesness.” Many people were so sad that they began to moan and wail. One woman freaks out about their uncertain future. “…high and imposing, a marker that sailors could see from far away…their hero’s memorial…” “they let the ground keep that ancestral treasure…” The last lines read like this: “They said that of all the kings upon earth he was the man most gracious and fair-minded, kindest to his people and keenest to win fame.”

Confessions by Augustine

From Book I [Childhood]

Discusses attempts at communication before he was able to speak. As he grows he observes how others use words to express themselves. He finds school lessons torturous, yet if he doesn’t learn he is beaten. It seems like no one thinks whipping children is horrible except him. Parents and teachers seem to think punishing him is no big deal. He loves to play which is punished, but he notes that grown men do the same things and are rewarded. He dislikes learning, especially when forced, but that is exactly what happens. No one does well when they are forced to do something—even if it is for their own good. God was right for punishing me because I eventually did learn, and that is the only way my education would have happened. “…every disorder of the soul is its own punishment.” He feels he is supposed to be more enmeshed in the stories he is learning in school than he is within his own life. As a boy I was wrong to love the empty and hate the useful. When I was able to interpret a piece of work better than others in the class I would win great applause. Was all that not just smoke and mirrors?

From Book II [The Pear Tree]

As a teenager I was bent on sinning. I had a strong appetite for flesh and was a horny youth. My parents cared less about my morals and more about me being able to give fine speeches. I ran with a gang and we would steal stuff just for the thrill of it. I loved the evil within me; I loved being bad for its own sake. It wasn’t that I needed pears because I had better pears of my own. Once I stole them I threw them away. Perhaps it was the thrill of acting against God’s law. I found pleasure in the forbidden only because it was forbidden.

From Book III [Student at Carthage]

I loved the thought of love. I wanted sex with no commitment. I hated the very thought of God. I was polluting my relationships but trying to cover my debased feelings and desires. I fell in love but made myself unhappy with jealousy. I wonder why the most popular plays are the ones that make us cry? We want to be joyful. Do we get some sort of thrill from being able to pity others? Everyone in my day wanted to be a lawyer. I thought the less honest I was the more famous I would be. As I studied I found much of my classmates’ behaviors disgusting. I would study Cicero to learn rhetoric, but what I really sought was immortal wisdom. While studying the book of Cicero I began to have thoughts beyond the book; it made me shift interests. When I read the bible at this time it seemed dumb and simplistic compared to Cicero and other authors I’d read.

From Book V [Augustine Leaves Carthage for Rome]

I was invited to Rome for more prestige and money, but the real reason was because I heard the students behaved better. I made the place I was living seem worse and the place I was going sound better than it really was. My mother cried when I left. In the bigger picture, my going away was to bring her more happiness than she could predict.

From Book VI [Earthly Love]

Mother had come to be with me. She was upset I wasn’t yet a Christian. At least I’d stopped being Manichean. I became engaged. Mom picked out the girl, but I had to wait because she wasn’t yet old enough to be married. About ten friends and I would debate how to make a better world. We became very excited about living in a communal house. Then we remembered our wives and knew they wouldn’t go for such a thing, so we dropped it. My girlfriend left and left the baby with me. My heart was ripped out. Then I realized that I didn’t want marriage, I just wanted sex. I took another woman, but my heartache did not go away.

From Book VIII [Conversion]

Continuing to sin was more comfortable than the way of the Lord I had not tried. My mind was telling me that I couldn’t break out of my old habits. I knew that I should go in a new direction, but I was so scared. I saw so many men, women and children turning toward Christianity. Why not me? The message was that I must turn away from my sin—stop my ears to my sinful desires. My buddy, Alypius, saw me struggling and crying. Will I forever have to apologize to God? Why not end all of my uncleanliness right now? I heard a voice on the wind that seems to say “Take and read” and I felt this message was about the bible. Whatever I read first will be a sign: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences.” From that moment on I was totally changed. Mother was overjoyed.

From Book IX [Death of His Mother]

On our way back to Africa mother died. My mother was the one that brought me to God. Over time, Mom became a big fan of wine. When she once got into an argument with another woman, Mom was called a drunkard. It hit her so hard that she never drank another drop. Mother treated her husband as her god and accepted all his actions with patience. Mother would not stand for servants speaking against her or disrupting the harmony of her family; they would be punished. She was a peacemaker. She did not tell people anything negative she had heard about them. Not only should we never use words to harm, we should speak kindly to engender peace. She converted her husband toward the end of her life. She treated everyone like she was their mother. We were discussing the presence of Truth—just us two alone. She said that she had attained all her goals and that there was really nothing on earth to keep her here. She asked her sons to remember her at every altar they may visit. She didn’t mind where she was buried because she would always be the same distance from God. My son (about 16) began to cry. We didn’t want to be sad because she had not died miserably, nor did she wholly die. My heart grieved because the situation was so new. When I was taking care of her she called me a good, dutiful son. We had always lived together. In front of others I would hold my emotions, but God knew my heart was crushing. I had a good cry session alone with God. I know my Mom is in heaven. I remind you of her good deeds and pray for her sins. Please keep her in your protection.

Circling the Mediterranean: Europe and the Islamic World

The Mediterranean Sea brought together Europe, North Africa and the Near and Middle East. Not only commodities, but also stories and songs continually circulated from place to place, crisscrossing the water to link nations. The opposition of “the Islamic world” and “Europe” is a modern invention: it was not the way medieval people described themselves or the world. The cultural ferment of the Islamic world was an essential element in the emergence of the early modern West. The story of pre-modern history and literature is, therefore, above all a story of connections, interaction, and mutual influence. In other words, the Middle East helped shape what we consider European texts.

Christianity and Platonism

The influence of the Roman Empire was spreading which worried other cultures. The expansion of the Roman Empire culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and scattering (or “diaspora”} of the Jewish community. About three centuries later this heterogeneous collection of new religious orientations became codified as a single Christian doctrine. Augustine’s autobiography, the Confessions, worked as the lynchpin between Roman philosophies and new Christian ideals. These moments illustrate the imaginative pull of classical literature which persisted during the period of Christianity’s emergence. The written works and other customs began to transform as Christianity grew in popularity. The yearning for a mystical faith that would provide a sense of purpose was ubiquitous in the late Roman Empire. In the 4th century Christianity became Roman state religion. It was an empire so vast that it had two capitals. The waves of invasions of Italy by Germanic tribes came to a head in the fifth century, when Rome endured a series of weak rulers. Augustine and Boethius, writing in the 5th and 6th centuries, bear witness to the decay of Rome and to the birth of something entirely new, as a Christian culture, various and diffuse, rose out of the ashes of empire. The simultaneous emergence of rabbinic Judaism and Christianity can be described as a kind of twin birth, both of them formed in the crucible of Roman aggression in the first century. The Jewish diaspora laid the groundwork for many Christian “beginning” stories.

The Spread of Islam

The dissemination of the Qur’an by Muhammad in the 7th century and the formation of an Islamic community affected the development of Mediterranean culture. In Ibn Ishaq’s account of Muhammad’s life, we find a community struggling to meet the expectations found in the Qur’an, and to the exemplary life of its prophet, Muhammad. The revealed book and the life were the religious guidelines of an empire that grew almost overnight to dominate large swathes of the Middle East and North Africa. Islamic rule extended westward through Spain into southern France and Persia to India. The spread of Islam took place not only through cultural and religious means, but also through direct military conquest. The most important of the many religious divisions is of the Sunni from Shi’a Islam: the former centers on a strict conformity to the exemplary life of the Prophet Muhammad and a literal reading of the Holy Book; the latter, instead, prescribes a special veneration of the family of the Prophet, especially his daughter Fatima, her husband and their sons. There was a later medieval emergence of Sufi mysticism.

Internal squabbling finally gave way to utter chaos with the invasion of the Mongols in the early 13th century and their seizure of Baghdad in 1258. Damascus, Baghdad, and Cairo—the various nations yoked under Islamic rule, shared one crucial element: the Arabic language. Arabic was the standard language of conversation, administration, and poetic composition, not only for Muslims, but also for Christians and Jews who lived in regions under Islamic rule, such as al-Andalus. Arabic language served to unify diverse populations, in much the same way as Greek had done in the ancient eastern Mediterranean and Latin would do in medieval Europe. Poetic traditions in Arabia before the revelation of the Qur’an had placed special value on recitation and the musical quality of verse, its rhythmic repetitions and use of end rhyme. Because the Qur’an itself conformed to many of these pre-Islamic norms, it became a standard model for poetic excellence while maintaining its preeminent theological value. Persia came under Islamic influence and offered gifts as well. The Ottomans held Persian language, art, and poetics in high esteem, and imported painters as well as writers to serve their imperial court. Finally, the marriage of religious devotion and an exquisite poetic sensibility, so finely expressed in the lyrics of Attar, Rumi, and Hafez, would come to be a crucial part of the literary legacy of Islam, widely disseminated not only among the community of Muslim readers, but also among the diverse modern audiences of world literature.

A productive feature of medieval culture was the intersection of poetics and philosophy. In these strikingly parallel cases, Platonic philosophy supplied the means to express a religious worldview that focuses particularly—whether in Christian or in Islamic terms—on how the individual soul can come to experience the divine presence. Avicenna began to interpret the literal journey metaphorically or even mystically, understanding the singular ascent of the Prophet as a model for the journey that every soul must make toward God. This text, known as the Libro della Scala (or Book of the Ladder) was widely disseminated, providing a vision of the layered heavens that would inspire European Christian writers, including Dante. The influence of Islamic literature was felt not only through the exalted union of philosophy and theology with poetics but also on a more mundane, vernacular level. The vibrant tradition of frame-tale narratives, in which an outer layer organized a series of nested narratives that are contained within the frame like the layers of an onion, had a long history in the Mediterranean region. The genre took off in Persian and Arabic literatures. Other collections and their frame-tale form served as the inspiration for many European manifestations of the genre.

The Invention of the West

The idea of the West as a synonym for Christian Europe—which seems so natural and familiar to modern readers—did not even begin to emerge until the late Middle Ages. Christian European Jews were only sporadically tolerated, and Muslims were virtually unknown. Latin was used for religion and politics. Latin’s cultural hold was stronger: medieval Christians used it exclusively to compose their philosophical and scientific works, while both Arabic and Persian functioned as languages of literature and learning for Muslims. Beginning in the 9th century, however, and with increasing frequency from the 12th century onward, vernacular languages such as English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish became more common vehicles for poetic composition.

The medieval map, with its deeply religious imaginative geography and central focus on Jerusalem, illuminates the ways in which the repeated cycles of European warfare around the Mediterranean and into the Middle East—called “Crusades,” after the cross (Latin crux) sewn by the warriors onto their garments—functioned not just as actual military campaigns, but also as symbolic assaults designed to reclaim control of the spiritual homeland of the medieval Christian. The Crusades functioned mainly as opportunities for economic development and international cooperation among the nations of Europe, helping to unify these disparate Christian nations through their shared opposition to the Muslim enemy. Anti-Muslim violence in the form of crusades was therefore closely linked with the persecution of Jews and the early emergence of anti-Semitism. The opposition of Christian and non-Christian, so fundamental to the ideology of the crusades, permeates the epic literature of the Middle Ages. Metaphorically, the victory of Christian over pagan is presented as a template for all holy war.

The epic genre began to emerge, originally in oral form. Epic, whether in England or in Persia, creates a sense of national identity by evoking a common historical origin, but it also grafts upon the rootstock of native myth new forms of identity—especially religious forms imported from outside the borders of the nation. Epic is often opposed to romance: the former is portrayed as a masculine genre dedicated to the deeds of knights and the matters of war; the latter as a feminine genre that focuses on the relations of the lady and her lover, confined to the domestic sphere of the court. Both genres, which rose to prominence in the 12th century, share the idealized image of the knight: if he expresses his chivalry on the field of battle, the work is epic, but if his prowess is displayed in the private space of the bedchamber, the work is romance. The French origins of the romance genre are closely tied to the emergence of French as a literary language. Latin was unquestionably the primary language of scholarly learning, but vernacular or spoken languages increasingly came to be the first choice for poetic composition. In the 12th century, French was the first of the European languages to be elevated in this way; by the 14th century, other vernaculars had also begun to be widely used. Latin was still trying to hold on and expand out into literature. Petrarch is considered Renaissance—and used early 14th century Latin and Italian. Boccaccio is considered medieval—mid-14th century Italian/Latin. The example of these two contemporaries illustrates the ways in which period divisions, like geographical divisions, sometimes obscure the profound continuities that underlie literary history.

Even medieval authors longed for classical antiquity, even though we associated this idea with the Renaissance. While we can read Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Christine de Pizan in the context of the emergence of Latin humanism, they can also be seen as central participants in the late medieval European flowering of the frame-tale genre. Transmitted from India to Persia, then disseminated throughout the Islamic world and across the Mediterranean, frame-tale narratives such as the Thousand and One Nights were widely popular, both in written and in oral form. Petrus Alfonsi’s work is just one of the first in a long series of frame-tale narratives. The age of Boccaccio and Chaucer also witnessed the rise of yet one more genre centered on the crossing of cultural boundaries: the travel narrative.

Summer Reading Part 5: Walden, or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau Chapter 3: Reading

[What better ways to spend leisure time in the woods? You know I freaked out that Thoreau dedicated an entire chapter to reading!]

“Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that nation by which they are written, for there is a memorable interval between the spoken and the written language, the language heard and the language read. The one is commonly transitory, a sound, a tongue, a dialect merely, almost brutish, and we learn it unconsciously, like the brutes, of our mothers. The other is the maturity and experience of that; if that is our mother tongue, this is our father tongue, a reserved and select expression, too significant to be heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak” (81).

There are differences between the spoken and the written word. “No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions in a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips;–not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. The symbol of an ancient man’s thought becomes a modern man’s speech. Two thousand summers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal tint, for they have carried their own serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them against the corrosion of time. Books are the treasured wealth of the road and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind. When the illiterate and perhaps scornful trader has earned by enterprise and industry his coveted leisure and independence, and is admitted to the circles of wealth and fashion, he turns inevitably at last to those still higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and genius, and is sensible only of the imperfection of his culture and the vanity and insufficiency of all his riches, and further proves his good sense by the pains which he takes to secure for his children that intellectual culture whose want he so keenly feels; and thus it is that he becomes the founder of a family.”

One must be aware when reading a translation of the changes that occur between another language and your own.

“…reading as a noble intellectual exercise…this only is reading, in a high sense, not that which lulls us as a luxury and suffers the nobler faculties to sleep the while, but what we have to stand on tip-top to read and devote our most alert and wakeful hours to.

“I think that having learned our letters we should read the best that is in literature, and not be forever repeating our a-b-abs, and words of one syllable, in the fourth or fifth classes, sitting on the lowest and foremost form all our lives. Most men are satisfied if they read or hear read, and perchance have been convicted by the wisdom of one good book, the Bible, and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their faculties in what is called easy reading” (83-4). [Here, Thoreau goes into a discussion on light reading.] “The result is dullness of sight, a stagnation of the vital circulations, and a general delirium and sloughing off of all the intellectual faculties” (84).

When you read a good book there is no one to talk to about it. [This is a sensation often felt by first generation college students as they progress in their studies. The higher they go, the tighter the circle becomes regarding who will be interested in your studies. This is why classrooms and study groups are so important. In these spaces, one can what I call “use ALL your words” and discuss the depth of the text and concepts with people who have been experiencing the same thing. Once outside that bubble, the number of people interested becomes much smaller. This can make higher learning an insular process.] “One who has just come from reading perhaps one of the best English books will find how many with whom he can converse about it? Or suppose he comes from reading a Greek or Latin classic in the original, whose praises are familiar even to the so-called illiterate; he will find nobody at all to speak to, but must keep silence about it. Indeed, there is hardly the professor in our colleges, who, if he has mastered the difficulties of the language, has proportionately mastered the difficulties of the wit and poetry of a Greek poet, and has any sympathy to impart to the alert and heroic reader; and as for the sacred Scriptures, or Bibles of mankind, who in this town can tell me even their titles? Most men do not know that any nation but the Hebrews have had a scripture. A man, any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered, and whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us of;–and yet we learn to read only as far as Easy Reading, the primers and class-books, and when we leave school, the ‘Little Reading,’ and story-books, which are for boys and beginners; and our reading, our conversation and thinking, are all on a very low level, worthy only of pygmies and manikins.

“I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this our Concord soil has produced, whose names are hardly know here. Or shall I hear the name of Plato and never read his book? As if Plato were my townsman and I never saw him,–my next neighbor and I never heard him speak or attended to the wisdom of his words. But how actually is it? His Dialogues, which contain what was immortal in him, lie on the next shelf, and yet I never read them. We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this respect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between the illiterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects. We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were. We are a race of tit-men, and soar but little higher in our intellectual flights than the columns of the daily paper” (85-6).

Somewhere there is a book that speaks directly to your situation. “It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life. Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn liberality. The solitary hired man on a farm in the outskirts of Concord, who has had his second birth and peculiar religious experience, and is driven as he believes into silent gravity and exclusiveness by his faith, may think it is not true; but Zoroaster, thousands of years ago, traveled the same road and had the same experience; but he, being wise, knew it to be universal, and treated his neighbors accordingly, and is even said to have invented and established worship among men. Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster then, and through the liberalizing influence of all the worthies, with Jesus Christ himself, and let ‘our church’ go by the board” (86).

Never stop learning! Each village should have books and wise men to teach year-round whatever we want to learn.

Summer Reading Part 5: Walden, or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau Chapter Two: Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

“…for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone” (68).

“The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?”

[You may have heard the following before:]

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or it it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion” (74).

“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry” (75).

“If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence…” (77).

[I particularly like the following:]

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine” (79).

OMG

Summer Reading Part 5: Walden, or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau Chapter One: Economy

Collier Books, New York. Introduction by Charles R. Anderson 1962 Paperback (1854)

You may want to review what I previously wrote about plot-sparse texts, but this is a bit different. There are stories that follow a narrative that have little plot. Walden, on the other hand, is a series of essays that do not follow a character or a storyline. I would describe these essays as descriptive writing. Thoreau followed the Transcendental doctrine of the all-sufficient individual. As a practice in this belief, he went into the woods, not too far from civilization, to live on his own for a while and observe what would happen. When my son handed me the book (he’s my book picker-outer) I groaned because the font is so small and the text-per-page so dense. Not that I don’t like Thoreau…I just recognized it would take a while. And it did. I do like, though, that introductory materials to Walden remind the reader to view these observations with a light heart; look for the humor and you will find it. Just because an author is writing about nature does not mean that everything has to be serious and forbiddingly contemplative. Even Chapter 1, Economy, opens with a light-hearted tone. “I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience” (15).

These are my margin notes along with direct quotes from the text.

In Chapter 1, Economy, Thoreau asks why humans must make everything about work? We work so hard that we actually contort ourselves into machines. We often work only to pay others for what we want. Further, we insist upon having money in the bank. [In Thoreau’s day] there are real slaves, but we also turn ourselves into slaves as well. “What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate” (18). We attempt to ignore oncoming death and play games only on vacation, but we do not PLAY in our daily lives. The world of work was set up [as a social construction], but we act like there is no other way to live. “It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion” (19). This quote points out that just because something has always been done a certain way does not mean it is the best way, or the most fruitful option for all people. Older people have taught me nothing, and I have yet to experience the world. “One farmer says to me, ‘You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;’ and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle” (19).

“But man’s capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried. Whatever have been they failure hitherto, ‘be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou has left undone’” (20)?

“The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be had, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well” (20)?

“The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one center” (20).

What do we truly need to live? Food, water, shelter, clothing, fuel. Would it not be a good thing to make intellectuals physically tougher? We all seek warmth in one form or another. “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor” (22).

“There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers…To be a philosopher is…to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust” (23). “How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men?” Once you have obtained the basics, begin to live! “When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.” I am speaking to those who are discontent. I like to live in the present and seize every moment.

“I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one’s while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men’s while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others” (26)?

“No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience” (28). “Often if an accident happens to a gentleman’s legs, they can be mended; but if a similar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected. We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches. Dress a scarecrow in your last shift, you standing shiftless by, who would not soonest salute the scarecrow” (28)? We must change before new clothes are even needed. “I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” Necessary clothing can be cheaply had.

Hey! Thoreau mentions tattoos! “Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable” (31).

“Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world, and wall in a space such as fitted him” (31). How elaborate must our houses really be? Big houses make you pay and pay. “…we may possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without suffering any of the disadvantage” (34). Great dwellings are for great men. “It is a mistake to suppose that, in a country where the usual evidences of civilization exist, the condition of a very large body of the inhabitants may not be as degraded as that of savages” (36). Why do we assume we must have a fancy house? “I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass…It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd so diligently follow” (37). Once we began living in houses we forgot how to live. “Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper” (39). All our ancestors made it their mission to secure things we wanted, “But are the more pressing wants satisfied now” (39)? Use what is beautiful and available. I cut the timber to build my house. A neighbor steals some of my supplies as he brings them. All humans dig below ground first. “The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a burrow.” So we need much more than a cellar? Each man should build his own house. “It would be worth the while to build still more deliberately than I did, considering, for instance, what foundation a door, a window, a cellar, a garret, have in the nature of man, and perchance never raising any superstructure until we found a better reason for it than our temporal necessities even. There is some of the same fitness in a man’s building his own house that there is in a bird’s building its own nest” (43). How can a carpenter create the perfect space for YOU? “The most interesting dwellings in this country, as the painter knows, are the most unpretending, humble log huts and cottages of the poor commonly; it is the life of the inhabitants whose shells they are, and not any peculiarity in their surfaces merely, which makes them picturesque; and equally interesting will be the citizen’s suburban box, when his life shall be as simple and as agreeable to the imagination, and there is as little straining after effect in the style of his dwelling” (45). I build my own small house. “I thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays annually” (46). If students built their own rooms they would be getting an education and also wouldn’t have the expense of on-campus dorms. “I think that it would be better than this, for the students, or those who desire to be benefited by it, even to lay the foundation themselves. The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.” “…they should not play life, or study it merely…but earnestly live it from beginning to end” (47).

We should teach through life experience, not books. Plus, experience is cheaper. “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate” (48). One can see more on foot than from a car; cheaper too! “This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once” (49).

Once animals are brought in to work it makes more work and comes with its own set of problems.

“Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon” (52). Man-made monuments are not worth anything; even furniture bogs us down. Furniture slows us and we can’t even take it with us.

We can feed ourselves; we can make our own bread. “Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any. For the most part the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of his own producing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome, at a greater cost, at the store” (56). “There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such questions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and to strike at the root of the matter at once,–for the root is faith,–I am accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails” (57).

“I would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that they should look in. The moon will not sour milk nor taint meat of mine, nor will the sun injure my furniture or fade my carpet; and if he is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still better economy to retreat behind some curtain which nature has provided, than to add a single time to the details of housekeeping. A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil” (58). [See? That last line is funny.]

“In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do” (61).

“…the man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off” (62).

Philanthropy is not really my thing. “There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoon, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me,–some of its virus mingled with my blood. No,–in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way. A man is not a good man to me because he will feed me if I should be starving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that will do as much. Philanthropy is not love for one’s fellow-man in the broadest sense. Howard was no doubt an exceedingly kind and worthy man in his way, and has his reward; but, comparatively speaking, what are a hundred Howards to us, if their philanthropy do not help us in our best estate, when we are most worthy to be helped? I never heard of a philanthropic meeting in which it was sincerely proposed to do any good to me, or the like of me” (63).

“I do not value chiefly a man’s uprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenness withered we make herb tea for the sick serve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is unconscious” (65).

Summer Reading: Part 4 About a Boy by Nick Hornby

Ah…finally something fun, if not exactly “light.” I have always heard about the works of Nick Hornby. “Nick Hornby. Nick Hornby!” everybody said. I’d never gotten around to reading his work, but on my shelf “About a Boy” did linger. Can’t recall if I’ve seen the movie, but the book was a welcomed experience while also reading some deeper non-fiction.

Obvious by the title, the story is about a boy named Marcus. He lives with his mom in London where his mom (Fiona) is deeply depressed and never keeps boyfriends for long. These two loners have been through divorce and it seems Marcus, a middle schooler, is a bit more adaptable than his mother. The tone of the writing is light and funny. Reading from Marcus’s point of view is a delight. I found myself smiling as I read.

Then we meet the other loner in the story, an adult male named Will Freeman. While Will’s friends are beginning to marry and have kids, Will becomes increasingly aware that he doesn’t understand this motive to pair off and settle down. When friends ask him to be a godfather he turns them down. He doesn’t even want to parent by association. We find that Will has never had to work because he lives off the royalties of a Christmas tune written by his father; a song he can’t stand. He has all the free time in the world and cannot understand how people live and work at the same time. “In fact, he had reached a stage where he wondered how his friends could juggle life and a job. Life took up so much time, so how could one work and, say, take a bath on the same day? He suspected that one or two people he knew were making some pretty unsavory short cuts” (81).

Cross-generational friendships are examined here. Many find the growing relationship between Marcus and Will to be strange and possibly unsavory. It begs the question: why can’t people of any age cultivate friendships with other people of any age? Through getting to know the intricacies of each other’s lives, Will comes to recognize that he and Marcus have similar family issues.

Marcus is not fitting in well at his new school. Even his teacher joins in with the other kids when they make fun of him. Although everyone is required to go, he feels that school is just not “him.” Just as Marcus does not fit in at school, Will increasingly does not fit in with his age group who is moving into the world of family and permanent homes. He dates a woman with a child and finds a clever way of remaining on the periphery of grown-up-dom without actually buying a ticket. We are starting to see a theme emerge about groups: are you in or are you out? Do you want to be in? Do you want out? Are you on the edges or are you asked to leave? Marcus is asked to leave his little rag-tag group of outsiders at school because Marcus brings bullies into their sphere; they can’t risk being noticed. When Marcus reflects upon his role in the group he realizes “That’s what had happened with Nicky and Mark: he had made them visible, he had turned them into targets, and if he was any kind of a friend at all he’d take himself well away from them. It’s just that he had nowhere else to go” (34).

This also draws us into the realization that all of our characters are essentially not only alone, but lonely. Just like the narrator in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, Will joins a group with which he has no affiliation: a single parent’s support group. He’s there to meet women of course, but now he must fabricate half a family so he too can present as a single parent. This shows us the lengths we will go to in order to associate, to assimilate, to connect…even when we are not telling the truth.

There is another thread that weaves throughout the novel involving depression and mental illness. One reader of the novel remembers the story as being sad because someone dies. This is not the case, but it does show us that depression and a suicide attempt impressed that reader to a point where he incorrectly recreated part of the plot. Marcus’s mother becomes so depressed that she is unable to care for her son. Both mother and son are taken by surprise at this development; no one (in real life) ever pictures it getting that bad until it happens. This novel is built within the real world and the plot and emotions are relatable and messy…funny too, sometimes all at once, just like life. For anyone who has experienced depression, there is an apt description within Fiona’s suicide note on page 72 when she writes: “A big part of me knows that I’m doing a wrong, stupid, selfish, unkind thing. Most of me, in fact. The trouble is that it’s not the part that controls me anymore. That’s what’s so horrible about the sort of illness I’ve had for the last few months–it just doesn’t listen to anything or anybody else. It just wants to do its own thing. I hope you never get to find out what that’s like.” There are lots of fun ‘90’s references and Nirvana, especially Kurt Cobain, is peppered throughout. When Marcus and his cool friend Ellie learn about Cobain’s suicide attempt, Marcus shares his story about his mother, bonding him closer to Ellie in their mutual confusion and helplessness.

Both Marcus and Will get their own chapters in which to build their characters. I appreciate this pacing because it allows the reader to get to know the players and invest in them before they begin to interact. Getting to know Will is just as much fun as getting to know Marcus. “Will had been trying not to think about Christmas, but as it got nearer he was beginning to go off the idea of watching a few hundred videos and smoking a few thousand joints. It didn’t seem very festive, somehow, and even though festivities invariably entailed The Song somewhere along the line, he didn’t want to ignore them completely. It struck him that how you spent Christmas was a message to the world about where you were in life, some indication of how deep a hole you had managed to burrow for yourself, and therefore spending three days bombed out of your head on your own said things about you that you might not want saying” (174). Much later in the novel, we see Marcus analyzing a conversation, and his way of thinking draws us closer to this character. “Even though what they were talking about was miserable, Marcus was enjoying the conversation. It seemed big, as though you could walk round it and see different things, and that never happened when you talked to kids normally. ‘Did you see Top of the Pops last night?’ There wasn’t much to think about in that, was there? You said yes or no and it was over. He could see now why his mum chose friends, instead of just putting up with anyone she happened to bump into, or sticking with people who supported the same football team, or wore the same clothes, which was pretty much what happened at school; his mum must have conversations like this with Suzie, conversations that moved, conversations where each thing the other person said seemed to lead you on somewhere” (203). Allowing us inside each character’s mind independently sets up a friendship between the reader and both of the male lead roles.

Marcus and Will do not meet until chapter eight when they both attend a single parent’s meeting. It is NOT love at first sight. Will gets drawn into Fiona, Marcus and Fiona’s loyal friend Suzie’s world by way of a single parent’s picnic. Because Will is interested in Suzie, he is with her when Fiona is found after a suicide attempt. Now Will sees that Marcus does not have a true support system, although he definitely feels it is not his responsibility to provide one. Fiona is taken to the hospital and survives. Marcus stays with Suzie.

Another observance of Hornby’s deft hand with pacing is that he doesn’t have his characters change and evolve too quickly. Sometimes lessons have to be presented, ignored, presented, rejected, presented, observed, before the final lesson being learned. For example, near page 200 Will is still making the mistake of not being truthful with possible love interests. In chapter 24 he meets a new woman named Rachel at a New Year’s Eve party. They agree to meet for a date and Will allows her to assume that Marcus is his son. When is Will going to own who he is and be proud of how he runs his life? Even Marcus is drawn into this ruse and “plays” Will’s son when they go to Rachel’s house to hang out. It doesn’t turn out well as Rachel’s son appears to be a spawn of the devil. It is not until chapter 30 that Will examines life, friendship and depression more deeply. He and Rachel take the next step in their relationship which also involves caring more deeply: she wants to help Fiona with her depression.

We begin to see how families shift form and change over time. (Intertwined here is the idea that there not only is no ideal path…there is no path!) Sometimes your family is who steps forward; who volunteers at the time. Some people stay, some go; some are related, some are volunteers. Suzie is a volunteer mother although Will is not a volunteer father. He’s only willing to be a father to an imaginary son. Speaking of the created family Will muses, “So, there it was then: an enormous, happy, extended family. True, this happy family included an invisible two-year-old, a barmy twelve-year-old and his suicidal mother; but sod’s law dictated that this was just the sort of family you were bound to end up with when you didn’t like families in the first place” (83). Will extends a bit of pity and plans a day with Fiona and Marcus while Marcus begins to picture Will and his mother becoming closer. Marcus tries his hand at match making by prodding the nonexistent conversation between the adults who eventually loosen up, if just a little.

Related to families and created groups, we have to struggle with how much we want to care. Caring and loving involve commitment and effort, compromise and aggravation. The ability to NOT care can be a technique of survival as we see here with Will: “When he got home he put a Pet Shop Boys CD on, and watched Prisoner: Cell Block H with the sound down. He wanted to hear people who didn’t mean it, and he wanted to watch people he could laugh at. He got drunk, too; he filled a glass with ice and poured himself scotch after scotch. And as the drink began to take hold, he realized that people who meant it were much more likely to kill themselves than people who didn’t: he couldn’t recall having even the faintest urge to take his own life, and he found it hard to imagine that he ever would. When it came down to it, he just wasn’t that engaged. You had to be engaged to be a vegetarian; you had to be engaged to sing “Both Sides Now” with your eyes closed; when it came down to it, you had to be engaged to be a mother. He wasn’t much bothered either way about anything, and that, he knew, would guarantee him a long and depression-free life. He’d made a big mistake thinking that good works were a way forward for him. They weren’t. They drove you mad. Fiona did good works and they had driven her mad: she was vulnerable, messed-up, inadequate. Will had a system going here that was going to whizz him effortlessly to the grave. He didn’t want to fuck it up now” (102). This disengagement prompts Will to decide that Marcus and Fiona are not his cup of tea, but Marcus does not make this an easy break-up. He learns that Will has been lying about having a son. In a later discussion with Fiona, Will struggles to keep his standing in the circle of non-caring. “She was wrong, he was almost positive. You could shut life out. If you didn’t open the door to it, how was it going to get in” (149)? Hornby here seems to be saying that sometimes you do not have to open the door…the world (of emotions) will seep through the window. We see this idea come closer to fruition by page 234 when Will begins to fall in love with a woman named Rachel. This is complicated by the fact that she is discovering Will has been lying about Marcus being his son.

One way in which the plot progresses is that the wall of not caring must slowly and inevitably begin to transform. Marcus doesn’t know how to process his mother’s suicide attempt, so (wanted or not) Marcus arrives at Will’s doorstep every afternoon after school. Will keeps up his decision not to care. “Will could see how sad this was, but he could also see that it wasn’t his problem. No problem was his problem. Very few people were in a position to say they had no problems, but then, that wasn’t his problem either” (119). A crack is forming in Will’s defenses through the persistence of Marcus. Will, who is very cool and fashionable, feels that one reason Marcus is picked on so relentlessly at school is due to his nerdy non-fashion sense. He takes Marcus shopping and buys him cool tennis shoes (which are promptly stolen the next day at school). It is when Marcus reports the stolen shoes to the principal that he hears the same old story that all adults have given him all his life: fit in, change, engage, accept, blah, blah, blah. Fed up with adults who cannot understand a middle schooler’s angst, Marcus walks out of school. Through further conversation Will makes an important connection: Marcus has never really had a chance to be a kid. With his father having moved on to build another family, problems at school and at home, Marcus has been inundated with serious troubles. It hits Will that Marcus has been forced into a serious world. Wouldn’t it be helpful if Marcus could just be a kid? Who knows how to act like a kid? Will.

Will’s defenses are further eroded by being witness to a family Christmas party at which Marcus’s dad, Clive, is in attendance. As an excellent example of how deep the observational narrative can dig, let us examine what Will sees and feels: “Clive’s presents for Marcus were in themselves uncontroversial, computer games and sweatshirts and a baseball cap and the Mr. Blobby record and so on, but what made them seem pointed was their contrast with the joyless little pile that Fiona had given Marcus earlier in the day: a sweater that wouldn’t do him any favors at school (it was baggy and hairy and arty), a couple of books and some piano music–a gentle and very dull maternal reminder, it transpired, that Marcus had given up on his lessons some time ago. Marcus showed him this miserable haul with a pride and enthusiasm that almost broke Will’s heart…’And a really nice sweater, and these books look really interesting, and this music because one day when I…when I get a bit more time I’m going to really give it a go…’ Will had never properly given Marcus credit for being a good kid–up until now he’d only noticed his eccentric, troublesome side, probably because there hadn’t been much else to notice. But he was good, Will could see that now. Not good as in obedient and uncomplaining; it was more of a mindset kind of good, where you looked at something like a pile of crap presents and recognized that they were given with love and chosen with care, and that was enough. It wasn’t even that he was choosing to see the glass as half-full, either–Marcus’s glass was full to overflowing, and he would have been amazed and mystified if anyone had attempted to tell him there were kids who would have hurled the hairy sweater and the sheet music back in the parental face and demanded a Nintendo.

“Will knew he would never be good in that way. He would never look at a hairy sweater and work out why it was precisely right for him, and why he should wear it at all hours of the day and night. He would look at it and conclude that the person who bought it for him was a pillock. He did that all the time: he’d look at some twenty-five-year-old guy on roller skates, sashaying his way down Upper Street with his wraparound shades on, and he’d think one of three things: 1) What a prat; or 2) Who the fuck do you think you are?; or 3) How old are you? Fourteen?

“Everyone in England was like that, he reckoned. Nobody looked at a roller-skating bloke with wraparound shades on and thought, Hey, he looks cool, or, Wow, that looks like a fun way of getting some exercise. They just thought: wanker. But Marcus wouldn’t. Marcus would either fail to notice the guy at all, or he would stand there with his mouth open, lost in admiration and wonder. This wasn’t simply a function of being a child, because, as Marcus knew to his cost, all his classmates belonged to the what-a-prat school of thought; it was simply a function of being Marcus, son of Fiona. In twenty years’ time he’d be singing with his eyes closed and swallowing bottles of pills, probably, but at least he was gracious about his Christmas presents. It wasn’t much of a compensation for the long years ahead” (181-2). The deeper recognition of who Marcus is as a person fuels Will’s feelings for someone other than himself. Isn’t the writing beautiful?

By listening and getting outside of his own head, Will slowly begins to actually relate to other people, and to women outside the realm of sexual relations. Toward the end of the novel “he learnt a lot of things about Fiona. He learnt that she hadn’t really wanted to be a mother, and that sometimes she hated Marcus with a passion that worried her; he learnt that she worried about her inability to hold down a relationship (Will restrained a desire to leap in at this point and tell her that an inability to hold down a relationship was indicative of an undervalued kind of moral courage, that only cool people screwed up)…” (270). It is during this conversation that Will learns that one characteristic of friendship is not being required to solve problems, but just to listen. Being able to listen when someone needs to talk is one of those emotion things…we view Will evolving.

To be a part of Marcus’s inner world, traveling through the narrative in his mind, is a delight. Even though the topics may appear heavy, the writing is performed with such a deft hand that the reader is often having fun in the midst of real-life issues. We find that in many ways, this twelve-year-old is so much wiser than the the adults who surround him. We see him growing and struggling to become more autonomous. He begins to notice how much control his mother exerts over his life; how many choices are not left up to him. Marcus has to tell his mother that he wants more freedom to make his own decisions. One of the choices Marcus wants to make is to bring Will further into his life because he needs a father figure. We also see Marcus trying to navigate new friendships when he catches the eye of one of the “cool” trouble-makers at school. As It girl Ellie lies her way out of trouble again at school “Ellie caught his eye and smiled, and for a moment he really felt as if the three of them were a trio. Or maybe a triangle, with Ellie at the top and he and Zoe at the bottom” (170). Even though the girls choose Marcus, and these connections are questionable, they help make Marcus feel cool…a feeling he rarely gets to experience. Over the course of the novel these friendships deepen. Ellie and Marcus attend an adult party together and later they begin to hang out more. Zoe is the one on the outside of this relationship; she’s always tagging along on the fringes. These girls are helping Marcus’s image around school. Another way Marcus slowly takes control of his own choices is when his dad suffers an accident. When Clive breaks a bone he requests Marcus come visit. Marcus takes offense that his father only wants him there when his son can be of service. Unbeknownst to all the adults, Marcus invites Ellie along for the long train ride to dad’s in order to give him the old what for.

All the characters grapple with the truth and the boundaries of safety regarding with whom to share what. As we travel with the characters toward truth we root for them to gain comfort within themselves. We root for them to reach out to others. We root for them to stand tall in their truth and allow that to be enough.

Confucius 551-479 B.C.

To this day there is virtually no aspect of East Asia on which Confucius and his ideas have not had some impact. He became well known only after his death. 350 years later, Confucian values became known and revered and became the basis for official Chinese state ideology during the Han Dynasty. He is a national icon for China’s venerable past. His works were critiqued vociferously during the 20th century.

Life and Times

Confucius came from the lower ranks of hereditary nobility. He left Lu and spent many years wandering from court to court in search of a ruler who would appreciate his talents and political vision. No leader ever took him on as a guide.

The Zhou Heritage and Confucius’s Innovation

Confucius’s philosophical vision brims with admiration for the values of the early Zhou rulers. Confucius admired 1) a concern for the people and enforcing wise policies 2) The Duke of Zhou who protected his nephew from rebellions and challenges to the newly founded dynasty and was an exemplary regent, with an eye to the welfare of the dynasty, not on his personal ambitions. In the Analects Confucius often sharply criticizes the irreverent behavior of the feudal lords toward the Zhou king and showcases their corruption to explain his vision of proper government. He built a new tradition. Political chaos could be avoided by returning to the moral values of the venerable founders of the Zhou Dynasty. There was an emphasis on the importance of social roles and rituals to reinforce existing hierarchies. Everyone has inner potential to find a meaningful place in society. We can read a group of texts like the “Confucian Classics” and apply them to life’s challenges. These works enabled people to better understand and take control of their lives. The works suggested following moral models, historical precedents and words of wisdom.

Diversity and Core Values in the Analects

The Analects is best translated as “Collected Sayings.” A collection of brief quotations, conversations, and anecdotes from the life of Confucius, the Analects were not written by the master himself, but compiled by later generations of disciples. The Analects throw light on people, concrete situations, and above all, the exemplary model of Confucius himself. “Goodness” or “humanity”, “ritual” and “respect for one’s parents” were important. He might utter different, even contradictory, maxims. Since the Analects was compiled over several centuries, they include the changing opinions of the compilers.

Ritual

Confucius set forth a core set of values; one was ritual which makes social life meaningful. We should strive to learn from historical figures of exemplary moral conduct.

Social Roles

A second recurrent concern in the Analects is Confucius’s attention to social roles. Humans owe each other “goodness” or “humanity”; empathy and reciprocal concern; mutual respect and obligation. There should be a balance between self and society.

Efficient Action

A third concern is efficient action which helps maintain the other ideals. It is possible to harmonize one’s natural impulses with social norms and thus become an efficient, harmonious agent in society. The notion that the moral charisma of a sage ruler can be so powerful that there is no need to resort to lowly means of war and violence became the basis of the traditional Chinese view of rulership. Efficient thinking and speech were prized.

The Importance of Canonical Texts in Confucianism

Confucius and his followers, called Ru, or “traditionalist scholars,” considered the study of the ancient texts that contained the legacy of the Zhou as paramount to self-cultivation. Today hardly anybody believes that they were written or compiled by Confucius. These books became the curriculum in the first Chinese state university, founded in 124 B.C. For more than two millennia these texts were the backbone of the training of political and cultural elites throughout East Asia.

Classic of Poetry

Classic of Poetry is the oldest poetry collection of East Asia. The poems reflect the breadth of early Chinese society. There are images of nature and distinctive, fresh simplicity. There is now centuries of commentary and interpretation and is an important element of the traditional curriculum.

The Anthology and its Significance

The anthology contains compact, evocative, lyric poetry. Because Chinese literature originated with the Classic of Poetry, short verse gained a degree of pedagogical, political, social importance in East Asia not enjoyed anywhere else in the world. The Classic of Poetry contains 305 poems and consists of three parts: the “Airs of the Domains”, the “Odes/Elegances” and the “Hymns”. The choice and arrangement of the poems were seen as an expression of Confucius’s philosophy. Moral virtue contributes to social order. Confucius’s high opinion of the Classic of Poetry led to its inclusion in the canon of “Confucian Classics.” The Confucian Classics became the curriculum of the state academy (124 B.C.). A “Great Preface,” written for the anthology, became the single most fundamental statement about the function and nature of poetry in East Asia. It claimed there were “six principles” of poetry: the three categories in which the poems were placed and the three rhetorical devices of “enumeration”, “comparison” and “evocative image”. Scholars have debated these issues ever since. They developed the idea that poetry and song can bridge the gulf between social classes, that they can serve as a tool for mutual “influence” and “criticism.” Poetry and songs give the people a voice, helping them keep bad rulers in check, and was central to the Confucian understanding of poetry and society. Poetry made room for social critique and created the institution of “remonstration”: the duty of officials in the bureaucracy to speak out against abuses of power.

The Poems

Almost all poems in the Classic of Poetry are anonymous and give voice to many different players in Zhou society. The constraints imposed by society, and the conflict between individual desire and social expectations, are important themes in the “Airs” section. The protagonists in the romantic plots that appear in the poems of the “Airs of the Domains” could be from any culture, past or present. The central stylistic device of the Classic of Poetry is repetition with variation. Enumeration is often used and is the telling of sequences of events in straightforward narrative fashion. Poems from the “Airs” section, by contrast, mostly employ “comparisons” and “evocative images.” Evocative images are much more elusive and do not easily translate into any rhetorical trope in the Western tradition. Xing, the term rendered as “evocative image,” literally means “stimulus” or “excitement.” Xing brings natural images into suggestive resonance with human situations, stimulating the imagination and pushing perception beyond a simple comparison of one thing to another. This collection was part of the education of political elites. They contain pristine simplicity and evocative power to voice fundamental human emotions and challenges.

Classic of Poetry

Fishhawk

About how women should act and a young man tormented by desire. The pretty girl is fit for a prince and she is forever desired. Went looking for her; she is always in my thoughts. Couldn’t sleep. We play music for the pretty girl. We play music to make her happy. Does this poem encourage women to not be jealous if their men take another lover?

Peach Tree Soft and Tender

The peach tree has cycles like a woman who will become a wife and mother. The bride is like a blossom. She will plump and ripen like the peach. She will mature into a bride.

Plums Are Falling

The fruits become fewer with each repetition until the woman decides whom she wants to marry. Seven men want me; I hope I end up with the fine one. Now there are three; I want a steady man. Although many men want me, I want only to be the bride of one.

[In the Airs section we can see how individual desire interacts with societal expectations.]

Dead Roe Deer

A girl who has just been seduced and now sits beside a dead deer. Death hovers ominously over deer, woman and maidenhood. The deer is wrapped in white rushes and the maiden is also white as marble. The maiden says to not touch her or make her cry out because the dog will bark.

Boat of Cypress

A heart that refuses to bend to society’s wishes. The wine does not calm my restlessness. My brothers do not help me with my grief. Neither you nor I can tell my heart what to do, but my behaviors have remained dignified. I contemplate little injustices. These troubles of the heart are like unwashed clothes and I cannot get away.

Gentle Girl

I pretty girl waits for me, but she is in shadow and I cannot see her. She gave me a scarlet pipe. I find delight in her beauty. She also brought me a reed, but what made it beautiful was the giver.

Quince

She gave me a quince and I gave her a garnet. Even though the exchange is unequal, our love will last. She gave me a peach; I have gave her an opal. She gave me a plum and I gave her a ruby. The gifts are not equal in monetary value, but we continually give to each other which will make our love last.

Zhongzi, Please

A suitor with very strong desires! The girl fears a scandal. Zhongzi, don’t cross my village wall and break the willows. My mom and dad already know you are trying to see me…and they don’t like it! Don’t cross my fence and crush the mulberries. My brothers will see that and there’ll be trouble. Don’t come into my garden and trample the sandalwood. The neighbors will talk.

Zhen and Wei

Festival scene along two rivers: the Zhen and the Wei. Erotic flirting. The man and maiden frolicked at the river’s edge. They throw flowers in the water.

Huge Rat

A voracious rodent compared to an exploitative lord. This huge rat has been eating my grain for three years, but I get nothing in return. I should leave and go to a happier place. I feed you, but you never thank me. In a happy realm I will find what I deserve. You do not reward my toil. I need to escape to a place where no one wails or cries.

She Bore the Folk (from the Odes section)

Enumeration lends structure here. The miraculous birth of Lord Millet: ancestor of the Zhou and inventor of agriculture. A resourceful mother who steps into a god’s footprint. She gave birth to Millet with no pain. He was protected everywhere he roamed. He wailed when he was left alone. When he became hungry he began to plant. The art of agriculture. “He passed us down these wondrous grains…he spread the whole land with black millet.” The gathering and using of the harvest. Because of him we are able to live comfortably.

Early Chinese Literature and Thought

China is the oldest surviving civilization whose literary tradition stretches over more than three thousand years. Its earliest literature set patterns and posed questions for thousands of years to come and gave its civilization a sense of continuity and unity. China went through many changes and has hosted many languages. China was an idea tied to cultural values and the power of the written word. The people could resist change through cultural values, institutions, and writing and thus become “Chinese.” There is belief in cultural and political unity.

Beginnings: Early Sage Rulers

There was contact between sections, but they developed independently. In the second millennium B.C. a lineage of sage rulers laid the foundations for Chinese civilization. One can research an entire list of early rulers and what each contributed. Encapsulated in this lineage of legendary rulers are fundamental values of Chinese civilization: the importance of writing and divination; an economy based on intensive agriculture and silk production; a political philosophy of virtue that emphasizes fixed social roles; and practices of self-cultivation and herbal medicine.

Earliest Dynasties, China During the Bronze Age and the Beginning of Writing

China’s Bronze Age began around 2000 B.C. They used bronze for molding weapons, spoke-wheel chariots and bronze vessels used in ceremonies. The second dynasty was the Shang from 1500-1045 B.C. They had a complex state system, large settlements, and, most important, a common writing system. Writing was part of ritual practices that guided political decision-making and harmonized the relation between human beings and the world of unpredictable spiritual forces in the cosmos. The Chinese venerated their dead ancestors and various gods.

The Zhou Conquest and the “Mandate of Heaven”

Around 1045 B.C. the Zhou people overthrew the Shang. The Zhou claimed a higher moral ground. After the Zhou conquest, the claim to power in China depended on the claim to virtuous rule, which in large measure meant holding to the statutes and models of the earliest sage rulers and the virtuous early Zhou kings.

The Decline of the Eastern Zhou and the Age of China’s Philosophical Masters

In 771 B.C. the king was killed. The Eastern Zhou Period was one of the most formative periods in Chinese history. There was interstate diplomacy, new military technology, and a new class of advisers and strategists. The Warring States Period (403-221 B.C.) was characterized by coercive drafts, raw power politics and strategic deception. The crossbow was invented. Confucius formulated visions of how to live and govern well in a corrupt world. “A hundred schools of thought bloomed.” Chinese call the texts written by masters or compiled by their disciples “Masters Literature.” Masters Literature flourished from the time of Confucius through the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 C.E.) during which there was a broad spectrum of opinions on fundamental questions. The most prominent schools were the Confucians, the Mohists (named after their master, Mozi), the Daoists, the Logicians, the Legalists, and the Yin-Yang Masters, each advocating its own programs, adopting different styles of argument, and engaging the rival camps in polemical disputes. Confucianism and Daoism became the intellectual and religious backbone of traditional China, joined later by Buddhism. There are differences between the Confucians and the Daoists. Confucius, the first and most exemplary master whose sayings are preserved in The Analects, believed that a return to the values of the virtuous early Zhou kings, a respect for social hierarchies, self-cultivation through proper ritual behavior, and the study of ancient texts, could bring order. The most radical opponents of Confucius and his followers were thinkers who advocated passivity and following of the natural “way,” or dao. The Daoists had a deep mistrust of human-made things: conscious effort, artifice, and words. Laozi, a collection of poems and the foundational text of Daoism, proposed passivity as a means of ultimately prevailing over one’s opponents and gaining spiritual and political control. By contrast, many passages in Zhuangzi, the second most important Daoist text of Masters Literature, renounce any claim to societal influence and celebrate the joy of an unharmed life devoted to reflecting on the workings of the mind and on the relativity of perception and values.

Foundations of Imperial China: The Qin and the Han

The state of Qin, which had a reputation for ruthlessness and untrustworthiness, but whose armies were well disciplined and well supplied, destroyed the Zhou royal domain in 256 B.C. and conquered the last of the independent states in 221 B.C.: one of the most important dates in Chinese history. Conscious of the historical moment’s weight, the king of Qin conferred the title “First Emperor of Qin” upon himself to mark the novelty of his achievement. Although the Quin was a short-lived dynasty, many of its measures—designed to create a new type of state with a strong centralized bureaucracy—were adopted and adapted by the rulers of the subsequent Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 C.E.). With the Qin unification, China was finally an empire. Imperial China, with its upheavals, dynastic shifts, and momentous changes, would last another 2, 100 years—until the Republican Revolution of 1911. The kings of Qin reduced the power of the old nobility and based governance on a direct connection between ruler and bureaucrats controlled by the strict rule of written law codes and policies that were adopted by the new empire. The “Qin Burning of the Books,” of 213 B.C. was one of the most traumatic events in Chinese history. Liu Bang became the first emperor of the Han Dynasty; a Dynasty that lasted more than four hundred years. The Han was the crucial phase of imperial consolidation that set patterns for future Chinese dynasties. The most influential Han ruler was Emperor Wu. He was the first emperor to privilege Confucian scholars and teach the so-called Five Classics: the Classic of Changes, Classic of Documents, Classic of Poetry, Spring and Autumn Annals and the Record of Rites. During Emperor Wu’s reign, the first comprehensive history of China was written. These first 1,500 years of Chinese history, from the Shang Dynasty to the end of the Han Dynasty, saw the emergence of enduring political institutions and ideologies, of moral standards and social manners. The literature produced during this period encapsulates these values and formative patterns and is still the canonical foundation of Chinese civilization.