Classical Pursuits

In March, I featured some poems inspired by lunar eclipses. I received a response from Bob Bernstein, a childhood neighbour of mine outside Philadelphia. He sent along a poem he wrote about witnessing a lunar eclipse as a young boy while at a Phillies baseball game with his dad. His poem brought back wonderful baseball memories from Connie Mack Stadium. Even if you are not from Philadelphia, I think you will enjoy his evocative and wistful poem. Bob now lives in Vermont.

Lunar Eclipse at Baseball Game

I was just a boy when baseball games

brought light at night

below the broad dark sky,

the city’s innocence that dimmed the stars.

Green grass was shrill,

the base path dirt was cheap and red, 

the billboards painted on the outfield walls

screamed suits and shirts and radio,

the white-blue lights that in clusters

blossomed up on scaffold stems.

were baby moons, or so I heard

some call them then, too bright to see,

the smelly kids, the poor adults,

the scent of popcorn spilled

and Ballantine’s beer, the three ring sign,

hot dogs and nuts.

With ball park mustard,

the soft bread white but brown outside,

I ate one juicy dog

and wiped my hand

on a paper slip 

I threw down crumpled

on the concrete floor.

My soda in its waxy cup

contained an acid bite.

Look, someone said--

I was with Father on the first base line--

above left-center.

And there atop the Phillies’ game

(Sawyer was the manager,

Boucher played first

and Ashburn still in center field)

the moon was rising,

the upper deck was just below

and all of us could see

how curious it was

the moon was brown, in lunar eclipse,

a burnt brown crescent

not too unlike the hot dog bun

that I’d just held,

the moon’s light shut off

by earth on which we sat

and watched a baseball game.

My father said, Bobby, the earth did that,

but I said nothing back,

and didn’t know what I could say.

As small as I then was

I knew that that much world

was more than I could take.

February 15, 2003; December 2, 2002

Of what use are the Humanities?

is the question raised in a recent New York Times column by the eminent scholar Stanley Fish. In it he raises several provcative questions about the role, value, and justification for funding the humanities and answers all of them them in the negative. I am decidedly of a different opinion or I would not have created Classical Pursuits. But I welcome your views. Below are some excerpts of Fish's argument. Please join the conversation.

Will the Humanities Save Us? (Excerpt)

How does one justify funding the arts and humanities? You can’t argue that the arts and humanities are able to support themselves through grants and private donations. You can’t argue that a state’s economy will benefit by a new reading of “Hamlet.” You can’t argue – well you can, but it won’t fly – that a graduate who is well-versed in the history of Byzantine art will be attractive to employers (unless the employer is a museum). You can talk as Bethany does about “well rounded citizens,” but that ideal belongs to an earlier period, when the ability to refer knowledgeably to Shakespeare or Gibbon or the Thirty Years War had some cash value (the sociologists call it cultural capital). Nowadays, larding your conversations with small bits of erudition is more likely to irritate than to win friends and influence people.

At one time justification of the arts and humanities was unnecessary because, as Anthony Kronman puts it in a new book, “Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life,” it was assumed that “a college was above all a place for the training of character, for the nurturing of those intellectual and moral habits that together from the basis for living the best life one can.”

Kronman…believes that only the humanities can address “the crisis of spirit we now confront” and “restore the wonder which those who have glimpsed the human condition have always felt, and which our scientific civilization, with its gadgets and discoveries, obscures.” We must turn to the humanities if we are to “meet the need for meaning in an age of vast but pointless powers,” for only the humanities can help us recover the urgency of “the question of what living is for.”

It is a stirring vision that promises the highest reward to those who respond to it. Entering into a conversation with the great authors of the western tradition holds out the prospect of experiencing “a kind of immortality” and achieving “a position immune to the corrupting powers of time.”

Sounds great, but I have my doubts. Does it really work that way? Do the humanities ennoble? And for that matter, is it the business of the humanities, or of any other area of academic study, to save us?

The answer in both cases, I think, is no. The premise of secular humanism (or of just old-fashioned humanism) is that the examples of action and thought portrayed in the enduring works of literature, philosophy and history can create in readers the desire to emulate them. Philip Sydney put it as well as anyone ever has when he asks (in “The Defense of Poesy,” 1595), “Who reads Aeneas carrying old Anchises on his back that wishes not it was his fortune to perform such an excellent act?” Thrill to this picture of filial piety in the Aeneid and you will yourself become devoted to your father. Admire the selfless act with which Sidney Carton ends his life in A Tale of Two Cities and you will be moved to prefer the happiness of others to your own. Watch with horror what happens to Faust and you will be less likely to sell your soul. Understand Kant’s categorical imperative and you will not impose restrictions on others that you would resist if they were imposed on you.

It’s a pretty idea, but there is no evidence to support it and a lot of evidence against it. Teachers and students of literature and philosophy don’t learn how to be good and wise; they learn how to analyze literary effects and to distinguish between different accounts of the foundations of knowledge. …Teachers of literature and philosophy are competent in a subject, not in a ministry. It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by “do” is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.

To the question “of what use are the humanities?”, the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said – even when it takes the form of Kronman’s inspiring cadences – diminishes the object of its supposed praise.

Over to you...

FLANNERY O’CONNOR: WHAT MAKES HER STORIES SO ALLURING AND YET SO INCOMPREHENSIBLE?

I love these stories. I return to them over and over. I know they are written by a deeply religious woman and are supposed to contain elements of grace. But you tell me, where is the redemption?

In one story a grandmother, her son and daughter-in-law and their three children, are on a car journey. They encounter an escaped criminal called the Misfit and his two killers, Hiram and Bobby Lee. The family is casually wiped out by them when the grandmother recognizes the Misfit from his ''Wanted'' poster. The hallucinating grandmother murmurs: "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" The Misfit shoots her and says: "She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

In another, a young woman, Joy Hopewell, has an artificial leg as a result of a hunting accident. She has a Ph.D. in philosophy and she has changed her name legally from Joy to Hulga. Joy-Hulga tries to seduce a Bible salesman, a simple-seeming country boy, with the obvious phallic name of Manley Pointer. He turns out to be a scam artist and disappears with her artificial leg.

To the uninitiated, the writing of Flannery O'Connor can seem at once cold and dispassionate, as well as almost absurdly stark and violent. Her short stories routinely end in horrendous, freak fatalities or, at the very least, a character's emotional devastation. Her work is message-oriented, yet she is far too brilliant a stylist to tip her hand; like all good writers, crass didacticism is abhorrent to her.

Have you read Flannery O’Connor? What do you think these grotesque characters have to tell us?

Join us in Savannah this April to explore O’Connor’s mystery and manners. See http://www.classicalpursuits.com/learning-vacations-2008/savannah-tour-learning-vacation.php

Give a gift of Life, Love and Hope

I don't know about you, but I have for some years now studiously avoided stores in December, especially the dreaded malls. Endless imploring to BUY had poisoned the beauty of the season for me until I gave shopping a pass and turned my attention to gorgeous choral music and renewing contacts with cherished friends.

But I've noticed that I am not alone in realizing that I don't want to dispense with giving altogether. One year, when I was not long out of university I was living in Rome at Christmastime. None of my newfound friends had the money or inclincation to give costly gifts. Instead, we went out to the country and decorated a tree with candies that we delighted in anticipating others would find. Years later, I remember that one year one daughter, about ten years old, came to me quietly saying she did not want or need any presents. Instead, she wanted the amount that would have ben spent on her used to buy warm socks for the homeless. When we delivered a big bag of woolen socks to the Salvation Army, we both felt happy to the point of bursting. Another year, a younger daughter asked that her gift be a donation to Persons Living with AIDS in Toronto. Again, the satisfcation was great. Adorning outdoor trees with strings of popcorn and berries on trees for birds to feed on is another thing we used to do.

Now that the children have gone and started families of their own, those simple pleasures are not as easy to fine. But there are always ways, big and small, local and global, to give life, love and hope. I was saddened to find a sale sign on the lawn of some aged friends when I went to pay a seasonal call the other day, and then to learn that John had died and Olga been moved to a nursing home. Now, I must find Olga and take her some of her favourite cookies.

Write to tell your thoughts about gift giving. And watch for the December issue of Convivium, with my favourite Christmas story by Truman Capote, "A Christmas Memory." It captures far better than I ever could the joy of giving. 

Playing hide and seek with King Arthur

Arthur. The name and the legends that grew up around him still fire our collective imaginations and conjure mystical images and ideals centuries since his first literary appearance in the 12th century.  That is why Classical Pursuits decided to plan a trip to Cornwall in May of 2008 In Search of Arthur.

In fact the search for Arthur has begun long before we get to Cornwall. Simply chosing the texts we will discuss presents a huge conundrum, simply because there are so many. How would you choose from among the following...

Medieval

• Béroul
• Chrétien de Troyes
• Geoffrey Chaucer
• Geoffrey of Monmouth
• Hartmann von Aue
• Layamon
• Thomas Malory
• Marie de France
• Nennius
• Robert de Boron
• Taliesin
• Thomas of England
• Wace
• Wolfram von Eschenbach

Modern

• René Barjavel
• Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Gillian Bradshaw
• Bernard Cornwell
• Michael Drayton
• Hal Foster
• Parke Godwin
• Raphael Holinshed
• David Jones
• Debra A. Kemp
• Stephen Lawhead
• Rosalind Miles
• William Shakespeare
• Edmund Spenser
• John Steinbeck
• Mary Stewart
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Mark Twain
• Charles White
• T. A. Barron
• T. H. White
• Jack Whyte
• Charles Williams
• Elizabeth Wein

to say nothing of the many anoymous texts.

Unlike most literary masterpieces, like Dante's Divine Comedy or Wagner's Ring Cycle, with traceable sources and countless subsequent derivative works, there is no single Arhturian masterwork, no definitive telling of the tale. And the retelling of the legend in popular culture draws on different, and often contradictory, historical strands. Yet the puzzle is worth the effort. The draw of Arthur is too strong and too multi-dimensional.

Our search is proving to be a fascinating and meandering undertaking. We believe that our work will help you find the Arthur you are seeking.

To many, it is the allure of the "brief, shining moment" when the timeless ideals of chivalry were upheld and embodied as literature in ofttimes strange and beautiful prose, poetry and music. For some it is the eternal nature of the struggle between good and evil and the promise of an eventual return scribed therein that still speaks to the heart. Maybe it is the fact that these very human characters feel and think much in the way we do now.Others are drawn to the mystical and magical elements of legends like the Sword in the Stone, characters like the Lady of the Lake and noble endeavours like the Quest for the Holy Grail. To the psychologically-minded, it is the an allegory of human development and spiritual growth. Finally, to some, it is the missing history shrouded in eternal mystery, the fact that we may never know the truth about the King and his Knights of the Table Round, that drives them to forge on in study.

Classical Pursuits on Video

Just as blogging is new territory for me, so is on-line video. But lucky for me, I have a much younger and much more techno-savvy friend, Francis McGovern, who is trying to drag me into the 21st century. Francis is the creator of www.literarytraveler.com, a wonderful website where you can get lost in the abundant material about the relationship between excellent writers and the places that feature prominently in their work. It was Francis who persuaded me to introduce a blog, and it is also Francis who created a little video to help convey what is special about the Classical Pursuits experience to those who have never taken part. The genesis of the video occurred in Savannah last spring as we explored the stories and prose of Flannery O’Connor. Francis shot some footage of Nancy Carr and me in the lobby of The Marshall House, where we were staying. Nancy is a senior editor with the Great Books Foundation in Chicago and was the discussion leader for this trip as well as being a veteran leader at Toronto Pursuits each July. Some months later, Francis met with novelist Joe Coulson at his home in Cambridge MA where he offered his impressions of both Travel Pursuits and Toronto Pursuits experiences. What I would have most liked to do is to capture on film some actual discussion, but I think this 9-minute clip gives the viewer a glimpse into why we call Classical Pursuits a learning vacation with a difference. I would love to hear your comments.

Travel--Help wanted

Dear Friends,

This is my first experience with blogs. I confess that I do not read them, but I have been persuaded by others that I am in a decreasing minority. I am giving it a try, with the view to re-evaluating in a few months time. The only reason to post a blog is to make it easier to hear from you.

Let me tell you what I have been puzzling over lately and invite you to offer your opinions.

The program for 2008 is all planned, with the exception of a trip to Turkey that I hope to add to the fall 2008 roster.

I am now thinking about 2009 and, while the world awaits, with great literature and great destinations to fill several lifetimes, two factors are weighing into my thinking, sustainable travel and the concerns about declining value of the U.S. dollar.

Sustainable travel – As are many of you, I am concerned about the environmental footprint created by all that we do, including travel. Travel can be - and in an increasing number of destinations already is - a catalyst for economic prosperity, nurturing the natural and cultural environment. It can contribute to the improvement of quality of life and to a better understanding of cultures across the world. And yet air travel is unquestionably a big creator of carbon emissions. I welcome your suggestions about how Classical Pursuits can become more responsible in its travel options.

U.S. dollar – The U.S dollar is in decline. That means that the cost to Americans of travelling abroad will be higher than they are used to. (This is a switch for Canadians who are, at the moment, enjoying, a high dollar.) So, whether you are a Canadian or an American or live in another country, I would like to know the effect you expect the value of the U.S. dollar to have on your travel plans for the next couple years. Should I plan more trips in the U.S. and fewer in the more expensive parts of Europe, like Paris, Rome and London. What about Canada? I am considering trips to less expensive, but in no way less interesting, destinations – Portugal and Argentina for 2009. The truth is, that no one knows what the exchange rates will look like in a year or two.

I really do welcome your contributions. This blog idea has value only if you let me know your ideas.