Writing a Dante's Inferno-Like Satire

Our son recently chose to write a Dante's inferno-like satire for his Omnibus class through Veritas Academy. Here it is:

The Heaven of the Philosophers

by

Krister Eide


At the midpoint of my adolescence, I found myself in a dark cavern. There was a dim red glow. The air was thick, musty, and hot, as in some ancient and poorly air-conditioned library in the middle of summer. I found it difficult to breathe without collapsing.

I saw the faint outline of a man in the distance. From what I could gather, he appeared to be a middle-aged man, and as with many middle-aged men there appeared to be a good deal of him about the middle. He came forward with a reassuring smile on his face and stood beside me, then put his hand on my shoulder.

"My name is Clive. Don't worry. I'm going to guide you. You will see some fascinating things in this place." He gave me a wry smile and gestured at me to follow him.

I followed Clive into a large, dimly-lit room. The walls, the ceiling, and the floor were all made up of dingy, warped mirrors. Throughout the room, I saw men standing on pedestals, all wearing different kinds of clothing, and each facing one of the mirrors. I inched my way through the crowded room towards one of the men who grabbed my fancy by his distinguished appearance. He was a handsome-looking person who wore a powdered wig and a red velvet waistcoat with brass buttons. He was looking around the room, observing his reflection from various angles, then he caught a glimpse of us staring at him in his mirror. He smiled, adjusted his clothing, and turned towards us.

"Come in, come in", the man said. "My name is François-Marie Arouet, but you might know me better by my nom de plume of Voltaire." He turned to look at himself in the mirror again. "You caught me in the middle of one of my finest soliloquies, and I cannot be troubled to begin again. As I was saying, this simpleton Rousseau appears to demand that we walk on all fours like... like common beasts!" The man adjusted his wig. "Man, the most perfect of creatures, the archetype of angels, behaving like savages! But man, it is a noble creature. And mankind at its height--" here he adopted a noble pose and glanced at himself fondly in the mirror from the corner of his eye "--is a paragon of reason."

"What?!" came an astonished and angry cry from across the room. Another man, presumably Rousseau, leapt off his pedestal and walked towards the first man, flailing his arms in anger. "You corrupt devil!" he shouted. "I never stated that men should act like savages! We have not the purity of soul now to resume our native innocence even if we should wish it, so corrupted have we been by the evils of society! I simply stated that men in their current condition should not have everything they want handed to them on a platter! You're putting false words into my mouth. You are a vain and foolish man! You are the very face of corruption itself, dressing like a fop with your finely laced shoes and your powdered wig! You are the perfect demonstration and proof of the truth of my brilliant observations!"

"C'est ridicule! You're just reinforcing my point, now aren't you?" Voltaire's face turned the color of a beet as he clenched his fists. "You want all men to be savages, and you act like a savage! How dare you interrupt me with such nonsense!" Voltaire replied.

Rousseau responded by knocking Voltaire off his pedestal and onto the ground. Voltaire lunged at Rousseau, and the two wrestled on the ground. Demons started to surround the two men, cheering on the fight. Clive whispered into my ear, "Perhaps we'd better move on to the next area."

The two of us walked on down a dark, musty corridor of mirrors. The air grew heavier and heavier, until we finally caught sight of a tiny lantern that dimly illuminated the scenery. When we got closer to it, I saw that it was being carried by an old, bearded man wearing a toga. He looked at us rather skeptically. "I am looking for a human being," he explained, "but all I can find are rascals and scoundrels." He took another look at us, and appeared disappointed by what he saw.

"Have you looked for a carpenter from Nazareth?" Clive replied. "He is the light of the world."

"Bah!" The man scowled and walked past us.

We eventually found ourselves in a somewhat larger room. I saw a dark-haired, bespectacled, mustachioed man wearing a smoking jacket. He was standing on top of a pedestal, similar to those Voltaire and Rousseau had stood upon. Despite his predicament, he seemed rather cheerful. He seemed to observe my surprise at his attitude, and this made him smile all the more. "Ah, you seem to be surprised by how contented I am."

"I must admit--" I began, but the man cut me off.

"That's because you do not understand the greatness of the tragic artistic consciousness. I will my greatness, therefore I am great, even in these surroundings. I create my heaven, therefore heaven surrounds me. I am as happy in this heaven of hells as I was in Germany! Never forget, man is the play-actor of his ideals. Little wonder these fools around me still act as fools. Yet I, I am still the tragic hero."

"It is grand, I admit," I replied, "but don't you think it's a little silly when you could go to the true heaven if you chose?"

"Ah, but you see, it wouldn't be true to me. The truest mark of a great man is his overcoming of the prejudice of truth over the creative fantasy of the individual will. Where would I be if I preferred the true heaven over my heaven? I would be a mere bit-player in God's drama, rather than the star, writer, and director of my own--uh, could you move a bit, you're standing in my light."

I shifted a bit and the man went on with this self-aggrandizing drivel. We heard words like "master" and "slave" and "power" and "will", but all these words began to swirl together in my mind. Clive looked at me and said, "Perhaps its best to move on to where this more light and more air to breathe." I was very grateful indeed!

Reference: Photograph is from Dore's Inferno

Christmas Through Illuminated Manuscripts

If you enjoy illuminated manuscripts, check out Christmas: Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts. At the Getty Museum site, there's Making of a Medieval Book.

From a bishop's note to monk copyists at Durham Cathedral (reference):

"You write with the pen of memory on the parchment of pure conscience, scraped by the knife of Divine fear, smoothed by the pumice of heavenly desires, and whitened by the chalk of holy thoughts. The ruler is the Will of God. The split nib is the joint love of God and our neighbor. Coloured inks are heavenly grace. The exemplar is the life of Christ."

Pages were made from stretched animal skins and the feathers of geese or swans were used as quills. Illumination (from Latin illuminaire, to light up)came from burnishing gold leaf (coins hammered and flaked) into figures outlined with leadpoint. Paints were made from mineral and plant extracts as well as chemical reactions.

Finished manuscripts were sewn together and bound in leather, wood, or decorative fabric.


Merry Christmas!

Classical School Blog: Do-It-Yourself Illuminated Manuscripts and Monks Day

Old English Verse

" I have always best enjoyed things in a foreign language, or one so remote as to feel like it (such as Anglo-Saxon)." - J.R.R. Tolkien

As our son's Omnibus course wends its way through early English ecclesiastical history (Bede), we also finished watching he Lord of the Rings trilogy and Old Anglo Saxon verse seem to be the perfect complement.

In Saxon England, professional storytellers called scops would wander from town to town, receiving food and lodging in exchange for good stories sung or told.



From Beowulf's court: "'... now and then the poet raised his voice, resonant in Heorot... Then Hrothgar, leader in battle, was entertained with music - harp and voice in harmony. The strings were plucked, many a song rehearsed, when it was the turn of Hrothgar's poet to please men at the mead bench, perform in the hall... Thus was the lay sung, the song of the poet. The hall echoed with joy, waves of noise broke out along the benches..."

Caedmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. He was an Anglo Saxon herdsman who was ignorant of the "art of song", but called to write music in a dream. From Bede: "...some man stood by him in his dream and hailed and greeted him and addressed him by his name: 'Caedmon, sing me something.' Then he answered and said: 'I do not know how to sing and for that reason I went out from this feast and went hither, because I did not know how to sing at all.' Again he said, he who was speaking with him: 'Nevertheless, you must sing.' Then he said: 'What must I sing?' Said he: 'Sing to me of the first Creation.' When he received this answer, then he began immediately to sing in praise of God the Creator verses and words which he had never heard, whose order is this:

.
Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard
metudæs maecti end his modgidanc
uerc uuldurfadur— sue he uundra gihuaes
eci dryctin or astelidæ
he aerist scop aelda barnum
heben til hrofe haleg scepen
tha middungeard moncynnæs uard
eci dryctin æfter tiadæ
firum foldu frea allmectig

Now [we] must honour the guardian of heaven,
the might of the architect, and his purpose,
the work of the father of glory
— as he, the eternal lord, established the beginning of wonders.
He, the holy creator,
first created heaven as a roof for the children of men.
Then the guardian of mankind, the eternal lord,
the lord almighty, afterwards appointed the middle earth,
the lands, for men.

To hear it read in Old English, click the links at the bottom of the page here.

Caedmon became a zealous monk and an inspirational religious poet living at Whitby Abbey (above).


Caedmon's Hymn
The Wanderer
Longfellow: Elegaic Verse
Old English Aloud
Wikipedia: Heroic Verse
Longfellow: Elegaic Verse
Old English Aloud
Wikipedia: Heroic Verse
Brief Powerpoint on Anglo Saxon Poetry
Exeter Book of Riddles
Image Beowulf
Music and Verse
Wikipedia: Caedmon

End of the Year Testing & Medieval Faire

The school year has finally come to a close. Our daughter's school took the SAT-9 as their end-of-the-year test, and in our homeschool, we used Piedmont Education Services to administer the ITBS. We've been administering either the ITBS or CAT at the end of every school year, and it's been helpful to give us reassurance that we're covering the necessary skills of traditional school as well as giving feedback about where more work may need to be done. Standardized tests are a reality for many hoops in the educational process, and most kids would benefit by a little exposure to them before they are really "high stakes." Another source for homeschool testing is Family Learning Organization. Here's info about Washington state homeschool test providers at the WHO site.

Our daughter had a wonderful medieval faire the next to last day of school. The children's costumes were wonderful (including some royalty, clergy, and Joan of Arc), and the children built catapults, a medieval village, and did calligraphy.

The castle (see below) was great fun to build. We printed the castle templates on glossy brochure paper, used spray adhesive / glue stick to attach it to posterboard, and then folded and taped to put it all together. We printed out the paper medieval soldiers and assorted characters, as well as relevant weapons like the trebuchet, cauldron, battering ram, and ballista. It was great fun!



Classical School Blog: Ancient Warfare: Medieval Siege Weapons

History of Music: Rounds and Canons

The oldest known found is Sumer is icumen in (Summer has come in) from the mid-13th century. The manuscript is written in Middle English and Latin (red ink), too, and it was written for several voices. One singer would begin, then the second singer would start when the first singer had reached the red cross (see below).



Here in the United States, children learn rounds through Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Frere Jacque, or Dona Nobis Pachem (Give Us Peace). Rounds are a great way to introduce singing in harmony to children. Here's a nice collection of rounds lyrics from Swarthmore. A shorter listing of rounds with short sound clips can be found here.

Rounds and canons both have repeating sequences of melody, but in canons, the repetitions can be complex, with backwards or upside down imitations, variations in the durations of sounds, and changes in pitch. In Pachelbel's Canon in D, repeated sequences are shown in different colors to make the pattern easier to see.



To listen to a brief excerpt, click here: Johann Pachelbel – Canon

Pachelbel's Canon has a remarkable history in recent history. It burst on the musical scene in the 1970's in relative obscurity, and then was played in countless versions and arrangements, and still enjoys a great deal of popularity among all age groups and musical traditions. One of the top ten watched videos at Youtube.com was of an apparently young baseball cap-wearing electrical guitarist playing a pretty incredible Canon in D variation here. It has been been viewed over 21 million times.

Round (music) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Canons and Rounds

The Classical Education of Queen Elizabeth I

As a child, Queen Elizabeth I was clever and verbally precocious. She received a language-rich classical education (Latin, Greek, French Italian), and also studied the Bible, ancient philosophers and history, and poets and orators. Roger Ascham said his aims of teaching were three: 1. to instill moral principles, 2. to provide an intellectual guard against adversity, and 3. to set an example for others to follow.

Elizabeth's palace-schooling routine was split into a morning and an afternoon session:

"The mornings were usually devoted to readings of the Greek New Testament, after which Ascham chose readings from the orations of Isocrates , the tragedies of Sophocles, and the works of Demosthenes to complete the lessons of the day.

Non‐scriptural readings were carefully selected by Ascham to instruct Elizabeth in areas that “would be of value to her to meet every contingency of life” (I lxiii). Furthermore, as Ascham notes, the texts chosen were of those “best adapted to supply her tongue with the purest diction, her mind with the most excellent precepts, and her exalted station with a defense against the utmost power of fortune”. Other works that Elizabeth is known to have studied include those texts by St. Cyprian and the Commonplaces of Melanchthon, Luther’s disciple. These would have influence the development of her religious concepts.

Elizabeth’s afternoons were devoted almost entirely to the reading and studying the entire repertoire of Cicero and a significant part of Livy...Additional study time was divided between French and Italian, which she spoke as well as she spoke English."

Elizabeth didn't just sit with her books, though. She was also an avid horseback rider, danced, hunted. Elizabeth's training held her in good stead for the challenges she faced with the Protestant-Catholic tensions and attack by the Spanish Armada. She inspired her country with the following words in 1588:

"My loving people, we have been persuaded by some, that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear; I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject; not doubting by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and by your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over the enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people."

Ascham's The Scholemaster.
The Early Education of Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I portrait at PBS
Queen Elizabeth I's Speech Against the Spanish Armada

Art History : Caravaggio and Three St. Matthews

Michelangelo Mrisi da Caravaggio was a rebellious and impetuous personality who burst onto the art scene in the late middle ages, ushering in the Baroque style of art. Compared to the flat, emotionally placid, and stationary look of Saint Matthew in the Lindesfarne Gospels (below), baroque painting was life-like, moving, and often conveying powerful emotional feeling.




Above is Caravaggio's The Inspiration of St. Matthew. The figures are boldly appear out of the darkness and the angel swirls above Matthew to guide his thoughts. Interestingly, this painting was not Caravaggio's first on this subject - his first, below, was rejected by the Chapel San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome - perhaps because it portrayed St. Matthew in too humble an image. In the painting below (unfortunately destroyed in World War II, only this black and white photograph remains), Matthew is dressed as a poor man (rather than aristocratic philosopher)and the angel is seen to guide even his hand as he reads the lines of a book.


The three St. Matthews demonstrate the different interpretative choices that an artist must make when translating an event or a story into visual form.

By the way, it's thought that the word Baroque originated from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning an unpredictable and elaborately shaped pearl.
At left is the famous Canning Sea Dragon made in the late medieval period from baroque pearls.

For more about Caravaggio or helpful art history sites, check out the links below. Interestingly, there have been some recent startling Caravaggio finds in Church backrooms and lofts. Paintings of Doubting Thomas and Emmaus were found and verified just last year (for more, click here), and The Taking of Christ was found in a Jesuit House dining room in 1993 after it had disappeared some 200 years earlier.

Boston College: Biography of Caravaggio
Art and the Bible
Art History Today Blog

More Medieval Poetry Fun & Games

William the Conqueror (by Chesterman)

William the Conqueror, 1066,
Said to his captains, 'I mean to affix
England to Normandy. Go out and borrow
Some bows and some arrows, we're starting tomorrow.'
So William went conquering hither and thither
'Til Angles and Saxons were all of a dither
He conquered so quickly you couldn't keep count
Of the counties he conquered, I think they amount
To ten, or a doxen, or even a score,
And I haven't a doubt he'd have conquered some more,
But death put an end to the tactics, thank Heaven,
Of William the Conqueror, 1087.

Henry the VIII (by Farjeon)

Bluff King Hal was full of beans
He married half a dozen queens
For three called Kate they cried the banns
And one called Jane, and a couple of Annes.

The first he asked to share his reign
Was Kate of Aragon, straight from Spain
But when his love for her was spent
He got a divorce, and out she went.

Anne Boleyn was his second wife.
He swore to cherish her all his life,
But seeing a third, he wished instead
He chopped off poor Anne Boleyn?s head.

He married the next afternoon
Jane Seymour, which was rather soon,
But after one year as his bride
She crept into her bed and died.

Anne of Cleves was number four.
Her portrait thrilled him to the core,
But when he met her face to face
Another royal divorce took place.

Catherine Howard, number five,
Billed and cooed to keep alive.
But one day Henry felt depressed,
The executioner did the rest.

Sixth and last was Catherine Parr
Sixth and last and luckiest far
For this time it was Henry who
Hopped the twig, and a good job too.

For education-lite breaks, check out these Games and Animations:

Tudor Britain
Elizabethan Spying Game
Re-enact the Battle of Hastings
Odd Man Out Game (What Doesn't Belong?)
Dress King Henry
Build a Medieval Arch Animation

References:
Poetry Library Quotes

Ancient Warfare: Medieval Siege Weapons

Siege weapons were an essential feature of medieval warfare. At home, catapults can be made with popsicle sticks or a plastic spoon and rubber band. Here's a page of Lego trebuchets and what looks to be a simple Lego catapult. Here's instructions for a K'nex trebuchet. Nova's medieval siege site is here.

If you have Shockwave, you can play the game Destroy the Castle, but you must adjust the stone ball weight, sling length, counterweight, distance from the castle, and wheels in order to use the trebuchet effectively.

The trebuchet must have been a scary weapon. More detail about its operation can be studied at Trebuchet Physics or History of the Trebuchet.



To see a large one in action (tossing pianos or a car), check out this trebuchet video at Youtube.com ...

At home, it might be easier to toss marshmellows or ping pong balls. You can build a paper castle or medieval town by printing up these cool templates. Print up battle-specific paper medieval knights here.

Art History: Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell

We found that studying the medieval paintings of Hieronymous Bosch and etchings of Durer were a perfect complement to our reading of Dante's Divine Comedy.

There is something striking about Dante's punishments fitting their crimes, and the organization of hell makes more sense when one realizes that Dante's hierarchy of evil places a greater burden on those who oppose the will of God than those who commit crimes against their fellow men.

Medieval paintings were very important for helping the illiterate Christians gain the basic truths of the Bible. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) said, "Painting can do for the illiterate what writing does for those who can read."

WebMuseum: Bosch, Hieronymus
University of NC Lesson Plan: The Nightmares of Hieronymous Bosch
Early Medieval Painting at Beyond Books
Powerpoint of Albrect Durer's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Spark Notes: Themes, Motifs, and Symbolism in Dante's Inferno
Art of the Book in the Middle Ages

Resources for Dante's The Divine Comedy

We're just reading excerpts from the Divine Comedy (Inferno) on our current journey through the Middle Ages, but we found some of these sites helpful for visualizing the structure of Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

We found this Flash Dante's Inferno site from Eastern Kentucky helpful:

In addition, the Dante Study Guide has helpful listing of symbols, allusions, and discussion points, and different versions of The Divine Comedy in translation are available at Digital Dante

Animated Bayeux Tapestry

Check out this beautiful animated Bayeux Tapestry at YouTube.com



History of Britain's Bayeux Tapestry

Want to make your own tapestry? Here's a great (and free)Bayeux Tapestry Game Online

Thanks, TAGMAX for the HT.

Technorati tags: classical education, history, middle ages, medieval, education, lesson plans, homeschooling

Monk's Day, Illuminated Manuscripts, and Book of Kells

In school, our daughter's 4th grade class has been studying the Middle Ages, and in order to understand more about life in the monastery, they had a Monk's Day, where they fasted (a little), wore simple Monk's clothes, took a vow of silence (broken a little), and devoted themselves to monastic devotions like singing and reading and copying Scripture. About a week later, she surprised me by telling me that that was one of her favorite days. Why? I asked - and she answered, "I loved doing the calligraphy. It was so beautiful."

One of their activities was to write verses from the Bible using calligraphy pens on parchment paper. Her teacher had copied a beautiful border onto the sheets and they meticulous hand-painted it in watercolors. They also stitched together the different pages with needle and thread.



Illuminated manuscripts are a beautiful legacy of medieval monasteries. One of the most remarkable is the Book of Kells, copied around 800 A.D. and tucked away in the monastery for safekeeping so it wouldn't be destroyed by Viking raiders.



We really are out of town now - we'll be back blogging later this week.

Book of Kells Images

Book of Kells, Austin College

Technorati tags: art, Christian, illuminated manuscripts, medieval