Tag Archives: learning

Lavransdatter and Learning

Posted on by
2

Buried in the end notes of Thomas Cahill’s Mysteries of the Middle Ages:

There is no single work that gives one a more intense and extensive understanding of the Middle Ages than Sigrid Undset’s astonishing three-volume novel Kristin Lavransdatter, set in Norway in the first half of the fourteenth century and covering the life of one woman from birth to death.  It has recently been republished (1997-2000) by Penguin in a much improved translation by Tiina Nunnally.  If an interested reader were to undertake but one more study of things medieval, Undset is your woman.  Her other medieval novels, The Master of Hestviken, a tetralogy and Gunnar’s Daughter, are almost as masterful.

This is the kind of thing which delights me on several levels.  When anyone enthuses about a book I love, I am ready to curl up into a ball and start purring.  When other books are mentioned in the same breath, I mark them on my ever expanding list of books to read.  But it is a particularly sharp jab of joy to learn something and soon after see a reference to it and recognize it. “Hey! We’ve just met!”  I’ve written about this synthesis here and here.

The process of learning can be compared to Velcro strips.  The loops of new information need little hooks to connect with.  This is a great reason to read a broad scope of material.  Every thing you learn is a new growth of little Velcro hooks that will snag some idea floating around.  In the absence of hooks, of connections, whatever you are learning won’t stick to you. 

I had the most hilarious Velcro moment while reading this sentence in Huizinga’s The Autumn of the Middle Ages, originally written in Dutch in 1919.  

“Beneath the medieval-satirical dress here is fully formed the mood of a Watteau and of the Pierrot cult, only without moonlight.” 

A month ago I would have read that sentence, shook my head and shrugged in ignorance.  Pierrot cult, without moonlight?  However, I’ve been listening to Professor Robert Greenberg’s How to Listen To and Understand Great Music, where he explained and played several portions of Arnold Schönberg’s 1912 composition Pierrot Lunaire [Moonstruck Pierrot].  Pierrot, a clown figure from French Pantomime, shows up in the music, poetry and art of the early twentieth century.  Europeans understand the connotations of Pierrot in the same way that we know what Uncle Sam or John Doe means.  Who knew there’d be a connection between such disparate studies?

  
Pablo Picasso’s Pierrot

Spring Reading Challenge Wrap

Posted on by
10

Completed:

The Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis
Civilization of the Middle Ages, Norman Cantor
An Anthology of Old English Poetry, trans. Charles W. Kennedy
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans J.R.R. Tolkien
Sword and the Circle, Rosemary Sutcliff
Light Beyond the Forest, Rosemary Sutcliff
Road to Camlann, Rosemary Sutcliff
The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris
Life is So Good, George Dawson and Richard Glaubman
The Famous Five, Five Get Into a Fix, Enid Blyton
Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
Too Small to Ignore, Dr. Wess Stafford with Dean Merrill
An Irish Country Doctor, Patrick Taylor
Getting Serious About Getting Married, Debbie Maken
Kristin Lavransdatter, The Bridal Wreath, Sigrid Undset
Mornings on Horseback, David McCullough
That Distant Land, Wendell Berry

Halfway There:

Divine Comedy, Dante
Scarlet Music, Hildegard of Bingen, Joan Ohanneson
The Autumn of the Middle Ages, Johan Huizinga
The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
Ascent to Love, Peter Leithart
Leepike Ridge, N.D. Wilson
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

On the Headphones, with thanks to The Teaching Company and my brother David:

How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, Prof Robert Greenberg
King Arthur and Chivalry, Professor Bonnie Wheeler
Augustine, Philosopher and Saint, Professor Phillip Cary
Medieval Europe: Crisis and Renewal, Professor Teofilo F. Ruiz
The High Middle Ages, Professor Philip Daileader
Medieval Heroines in History and Legend, Professor Bonnie Wheeler
Great Masters: Brahms – His Life & Music, Prof. Robert Greenberg
Great Masters: Robert & Clara Schumann – Their Lives and Music, Prof. Robert Greenberg
Great Masters: Liszt – His Life & Music, Prof. Robert Greenberg
Great Masters: Tchaikovsky – His Life & Music, Prof. Robert Greenberg
Great Masters: Stravinsky – His Life & Music, Prof. Robert Greenberg

My oldest son was at our house for dinner last night and with quiet excitement he told us that he had hit a personal best in bench pressing: 335!   He has been lifting and working out diligently and is now seeing results.  My bench pressing is pathetic (I was thrilled when I got five notches down) but I feel the same quiet thrill that I’m gettting stronger intellectually. 

A sea change has occurred through a series of barely perceptible increments.  My taste, my preference, my enthusiasm in books has swung from Janette Oke romances (yes, I read them in the 80’s) to college history texts and classic literature.  This has taken place over decades and was greatly enhanced by the challenge of educating my children.  What has been encouraging has been that upon completion of a challenging book, I am motivated and excited to read and learn more.  Yesterday I just ordered Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century and I hope I can find time to read it. 

There are Wendell Berrys, David McCulloughs, Anthony Trollopes, Jeff Shaaras and Frances Mayes books beckoning to me from my shelves.  I used to view them as a Frango mint waiting in the freezer as a reward for loosing five pounds.  But now they are more like certificates of deposit gaining in value and waiting for their maturity date.  Oh I feel like an heiress with riches beyond comprehension.  I have books of excellence, books of renown, books full of delights hanging there, ripening, waiting for the first delicious juicy bite. 

One last thing:  I have experienced a bit of loneliness in that much of what I’m reading is of no interest to the general public.  I sent my Latin teacher (a great medievalist) and his wife an SOS email yesterday.  They have moved across the country and are settling into their new home and environment.  But we. need. to. talk.  I miss our weekly dinners where we had the leisure to talk and visit and I could glean from their knowledge and wisdom.
My husband is in his own orbit of study and preparation.  I’m certain he would appreciate someone with whom to process and bounce and talk over stuff.  So I am going to ask him which book he’d like me to read so our pursuits can intersect. 




To the Class of 2007

Posted on by
6


“My concluding charge is this: First, love and honor your parents in all areas of life.  You graduates are going to be leaving home, but do not let your heart leave your parents….

Second, love God in all areas and corners of your life. You graduates will be leaving your homes, but do not let your hearts leave your God.“

         ~ from a graduation speech given May 26, 2007
             used by permission from Mr. Boyd, emphasis mine

Here’s a question: do you ever have standard gifts that you give for special occasions? 

I’m looking for new ideas for graduations, weddings and baby showers.  I used to buy five copies of The Joy of Cooking at a time, so it was handy and available whenever I got a wedding invitation.  There is something serendipitous  when you find the perfect item, on sale, and pick up several for the future.  I’m a little low on serendipity these days….

The Discarded Image

Posted on by
7

The Discarded Image by C.S. Lewis has been on my shelf for several years. 

Last summer while I was talking to my beloved Latin teacher, I mentioned reading Stuart Isacoff’s Temperament.  I had found it fascinating how both the ancient and medieval thinker linked all of life together.  Thus the numbers and distances of the planets were thought to be the link between the distances and ratios of musical intervals.  Even though their facts weren’t always correct they were certainly significant.  They looked at the details of life as symbols for some other reality. 

“Carol,” my teacher said. “Have you read The Discarded Image?  That’s precisely what that book is about!”  The Image in the title refers to the Model of the Universe, “the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organisation of their theology, science, and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental Model of the Universe.” (p.11) We cannot read medieval works with modern or post-modern minds and really know what they meant without understanding how they thought.

The first chapter was glorious and exciting. But, I’ll be honest: it was a hard book to read.  The difficulty lay in my own ignorance.  There were so many unfamiliar references and background chapters to wade through.  So I went to the last chapter, The Influence of the Model, and read that.  Next, I dipped into sections which looked interesting and then began again.  What helped me persevere were the lovely little pearls that were scattered across the pages.

The [evil] influences do not work upon us directly, but by first modifying the air…Hence when a medieval doctor could give no more particular cause for the patient’s condition he attributed it to ‘this influence which is at present i the air.’  If he were an Italian doctor he would doubtless say questa influenza.  The profession has retained the useful word ever since. (p.110)

To medieval folk looking into a night sky was not looking at darkness but through darkness.  They believed that space was not dark, nor silent. 

The ‘silence’ which frightened Pascal was, according to the Model, wholly illusory; and the sky looks black only because we are seeing it through the dark glass of our own shadow.  You must conceive yourself looking up at a world lighted, warmed, and resonant with music.  (p.112)

This just made me smile:

One gets the impression that medieval people, like Professor Tolkien’s Hobbits, enjoyed books which told them what they already knew.  (p.200)

This book is worth the effort required in reading it.  After reading this book I guarantee that you will read Lewis’s children’s literature differently. 

Here is a diamond of a quote which you need to copy into your journal or commonplace book. 

Literature exists to teach what is useful,
to honour what deserves honour,
to appreciate what is delightful.
The useful, honorable, and
delightful things are superior to it:
it exists for their sake;
its own use, honour, or delightfulness
is derivative from theirs.
(p. 214)

I Love My Job

Posted on by
7

I had a spurt of growth last night.  While I was reading on my side of the bed, everything came together in a tangible and tingling synthesis.  I almost woke my husband so he could share the tingles; but he’s heard Hildegard this and Dante that, Lewis said this and Sayers said that enough while his eyes are open; I didn’t want to disturb his dreams of finding the great tamarack. 

I had just gulped in a Teaching Company Course on the High Middle Ages in which I learned about Frederick II Hohenstaufen [what a great name!] and here old Hohenstaufen “stupor mundi” (wonder of the world) makes an appearance in Dorothy Sayers’ introduction to The Inferno.  It was like bumping into a guy in the Safeway produce section the day after a party where you first met.

Back in December, I determined to read a Charles Williams book this year but hadn’t a clue where to start.  Charles Williams was a close friend and mentor to C.S. Lewis; my previous attempts to read Williams were DOA.  In Sayer’s last paragraph of her introduction she acknowledges her debt to Charles Williams’ The Figure of Beatrice.  Score!  It’s in my Amazon shopping cart.

But the real tingles came reading the first 70 pages of Peter Leithart’s book Ascent to Love.  In the first chapter Leithart takes a stroll through medieval literature and examines the treatment different writers give to the differences between pagan and Christian outlooks.  It recapped our year of study in five gorgeous pages, referencing The Fairie Queene, Beowulf, The Song of Roland, Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight and the Canterbury Tales.  I don’t knit, but it was like gathering up a flat piece of knitting into a recognizable sweater.  Or perhaps it was more like putting the last piece into a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. [I have been known to hold on to a piece so I get that pleasure, she says with a reddening face.]  It fits!  It connects!  It jives!

I. Get. It.  !!!!!  It is a glorious life.

Until this morning.  My husband woke up very early and was bouncier than Tigger.  He started a load of wash, walked around the house at a fast clip, opened and shut closet doors carelessly, and actually chuckled the second time I hit the snooze button.  As I left on my walk, I tossed Ascent to Love in my 16 yr. old son’s direction.  Read the first chapter, I instructed.  It will pull the whole year together – it’s Just … Incredible.  When I returned my son said, Mom, what was so great about this?  It was Boring.

Sigh.  We still have work to do.

  

Looking Out and Gathering Up

Posted on by
3



We should give attention to reading,
every day that we live.

We should strive to bring all our reading
to bear on our work.

We ought to keep our eyes open continually,
and be ever picking up ideas for our ministry–
as we travel by the way,
as we sit by the fireside,
as we are standing on the platform
at the railway station.

We should be keeping in our mind’s eye
our Master’s business–
observing, noting, looking out,
gathering up something
that will throw fresh light on our work,
and enable us to put the truth in a more striking way.

He that looks out for something to learn
will always be able to learn something.

Advice to Those Who Serve
~ J. C. Ryle
(updated English by Tony Capoccia)

Laying Foundations

Posted on by
3

To A Son on His 16th Birthday

Every moment that you now lose; is so much character and advantage lost; as, on the other hand, every moment that you now employ usefully, is so much time wisely laid out, at most prodigious interest. These two years must lay the foundations of all the knowledge that you will ever have; you may build upon them afterwards as much as you please, but it will be too late to lay any new ones.

                               ~   Lord Chesterfield, letter to his son Philip Stanhope, May 1748

So….what do you think?  What exactly are the foundations?  Is it too late after age 18?  I heartily agree with the first sentence, but I have my doubts about the second.  I agree with the principle in general.  Hmmm.

Happy Helps on a Hopeful Day

Posted on by
4

I only have minutes before my piano students arrive.  Here are three things I’ve learned which also may be helpful to you:

Alt Codes:  I have a young friend named Änna (pronounced AH-na); the umlaut is essential to her name.  If you press down (hold it down) on the Alt key and then type 142 –  voilà! – you get Ä. Yesterday, when I was typing Søren Kierkegaard’s name my handy little chart didn’t have ø.  So I went here and found it.  Here is a chart (it’s a good idea to print it out and have it handy), but it’s not as cool as the one my sweet Katie gave me.

Cache:  This is so basic, but if it was new to me, maybe there is someone else it might help.  Do you ever conduct a google search, click on the page, and scroll into next Tuesday looking for your word or phrase?  On the last line each search result, you see the site address highlighted, the size, and sometimes the date.  Next to the date or size (i.e. 67k) is Cached.  If you click on that instead of the site address you will see your phrase highlighted on the page.  It’s very clever, and I never knew…. 

Frozen Sugar Snap Peas:  Safeway sells sugar snap peas in the frozen veggie section.  They keep until you need them (does anyone else end up discarding rotten produce from the bin in the fridge?) and they are the ingredient that makes a difference in stir-fries.  This week I’ve become addicted to a mixture:  sliced red onions, red bell peppers, garlic, sugar snap peas, broccoli and artichoke hearts.  The bold colors are as scrumptious as the fragrant aroma and the delicious flavor.

 

Medieval Milieu

Posted on by
Reply

It’s a time of personal renaissance as I immerse myself in the Middle Ages using several resources:

Norman Cantor’s  The Civilization of the Middle Ages;

C.S. Lewis’s The Discarded Image,

Teofilio Ruiz’s Teaching Company lecture series Medieval Europe: Crisis and Renewal;

Johan Huizinga’s classic, The Autumn of the Middle Ages.

I finished Cantor’s book last week and picked up Autumn last night.  It is my habit to become familiar with a new book: by reading the contents and introduction, looking at the layout, glancing at the 40+ plates of artwork, reading random paragraphs, and scanning the notes and index.  Huizinga wrote about life, thought and art in the fourteenth and fifteenth century France and Netherlands. 

The chapter titles alone make my lips numb:

The Passionate Intensity of Life

The Craving for a More Beautiful Life

The Heroic Dream

The Forms of Love

The Vision of Death

The Depiction of the Sacred

The Pious Personality

Religious Excitation and Religious Fantasy

The Decline of Symbolism

The Failure of Imagination

The Forms of Thought and Practice

Art in Life

Image and Word

The Coming of a New Form

Quotes to come……

Words

Posted on by
9

Hey, all you word birds: do you have an “aha” moment when the meaning of word became clear to you?  Do share them; I love words and I love aha moments.

I remember:

window = wind hole
to make manifest (make clear)  = comes from hitting palm (hand, manus) against forehead,
                                                    the action you make when you  “get it”

Here are some words which have tickled me in my medieval history reading:

Canterbury = Kent town (Augustine of Kent)
vassal = Celtic word for boy
cardinal = hinge of door (hinges of the great papal door)
sheriff = shire reeve

Janie once again has inspired me – this time to list new vocabulary I learn in my reading. If I wasn’t sure-certain about a word, I looked it up.  What a great thing, because the author of this college textbook uses these words regularly. 

vicissitude = changeable
hegemony = preponderant influence, authority, especially one nation over others
jejune = lacking nutritive value, dull, unsatisfying
lugubrious = mournful
compurgation = to clear completely, clearing of accused person by oaths
fisc = a state or royal  treasury
febrile = or or relating to fever, feverish
autarky = self-sufficient, policy of establishing a self-sufficient and independent national economy
abnegation = denial, especially self-denial
nexus = connection, link, a connected group or series
tautologies = needless repetition of ideas, statement or word
efflorescence = period or state of flowering, blossoming, culmination
turpitude = depravity, inherent baseness
apotheosis = deification, quintessence, the perfect example
eremitic = a recluse or hermit, especially a religious recluse
cenobitic = member of a convent, from koinos, common + bios, life

When I looked up the last two, I found this quirky poem.  Does anyone understand the last two lines?  Will you make them manifest to me, please?

    O Coenobite, O coenobite,
        Monastical gregarian,
    You differ from the anchorite,
        That solitudinarian:
    With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;
    With dropping shots he makes him sick.
                                       Quincy Giles

[Addendum: 
Old Nick = the Devil.
you = cenobite, one from a group 
vollied prayers = simultaneously discharged, from a group
dropping shots = anchorites besides being alone were on mountain tops
he = anchorite
him = Old Nick]