Helen Vendler on William Butler Yeats for St Patrick's Day

Helen Vendler speaks about Yeats' poetry on Open Source. She asks, why does Yeats group so many different forms under one title? Noting that he takes the received forms and reinventing them, she declares that Yeats is a modernist.

Think of the graphic shape a poem might have. "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" is is 4 x 4 x 4. Four beats in each line. Four lines in each of the “quatrains” (each in the “perfect” rhyming order a b a b, in this case). And four quatrains (not separated here into four stanzas) in the poem.

So the one-off form of the thing is as elegantly, decisively squared away as the soldierly beat of the marching monosyllables: “fate,” “hate,” “love,” “cross,” “loss,” and the rest. Form makes a tight fit with the cool, collected thought the poem voices. The form itself is a statement of the sad but settled order in the airman Major Gregory’s mind. So the original shape of this poem becomes virtually inseparable from its “message.” Or as Helen Vendler puts it in her new account of Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form, “By such formal means Yeats confirms that the airman’s choice is the correct one for his soul.”

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

speciesism (SPEE-shee-ziz-uhm, -see-ziz-uhm) noun

The assumption of superiority of humans over other animal species,
especially to justify their exploitation.

[Coined by psychologist Richard D. Ryder (born 1940) in 1973. From Latin
species (appearance, kind, form), from specere (to look). Ultimately from
the Indo-European root spek- (to observe) which is also the ancestor of
such words as suspect, spectrum, bishop (literally, overseer), espionage,
despise, telescope, spectator, and spectacles.]

"At one point in Darwin's voyage to South America, James Moore told me, the
naturalist stopped in Brazil, where his blood ran cold to see slaves in
manacles being tortured by Catholic traders. Darwin was enraged as a
Christian, but also as a scientist, because he recognized that the slave
trade relied on the false notion that slaves were a different, inferior
and exploitable species.
"Upon his return to England, Darwin extended the idea to the way people
treated animals, an early precursor to Richard Dawkins's argument about
speciesism. 'To say man is the pinnacle of creation and all things were
created for him ... Darwin says that is the same arrogance we see in
the slave master,' said Moore."
Shankar Vedantam; Eden and Evolution; Washington Post; Feb 5, 2006.

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Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Documentary film of her first year

Women's Hour for March 17th reports on a new documentary by Siatta Scott Johnson, Iron Ladies of Liberia, about Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's first year in office.

In a clip, President Sirleaf talks to Firestone Tire Company about the dreadful living conditions of employees (houses without windows and no schooling for children). Apparently, she followed up this public criticism to see new houses being built for Firestone employees and children being sent to schools.

Here's a link to the movie itself.

According to a new report by the BBC from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, some members of ant colonies exhibit --oh dear-- selfishness.

Ants are renowned for their ability to work together, and put the good of the community ahead of personal concerns.

But new research suggests that their colonies are actually hotbeds of devious, selfish and corrupt behaviour.

And it is the royal family - or male ants carrying a so-called "royal" gene - that are largely to blame.

Scientists have discovered that some males pass the gene on selectively, to ensure that their offspring become reproductive queens, not mere workers.

PW's Religion Bookline for Weds March 12 notes:-

The Emmaus Readers: Listening for God in Contemporary Fiction
Edited by Gary Schmidt and Susan Felch. Paraclete, $17.95 paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-55725-543-3
It's rare for an edited anthology to be consistently good, let alone exceptional, but this unassuming collection of essays on 12 novels with religious themes offers rich satisfaction. The essayists—all Calvin College professors and staff members—formed a group called "the Emmaus readers" in 2006 to better understand the role of faith in creating and interpreting fiction. The novels include overtly religious books, like Mr. Ives' Christmas and Mariette in Ecstasy, as well as less predictable choices, like Life of Pi and the graphic novel Road to Perdition. Each chapter offers a plot synopsis, an analysis, questions for discussion and suggestions for further reading. Readers will be introduced to some novels for the first time, and will attain deeper understandings of others they already love. Fans of Peace Like a River, for example, will delight in exploring the biblical and literary allusions of Leif Enger's Midwestern masterpiece, and many who neglected P.D. James's Children of Men will expand their understanding of her story's projected dystopia. Perhaps the Emmaus readers can pen a sequel taking on novels by the likes of Graham Greene, Chaim Potok, Gail Godwin or Vinita Hampton Wright. (May)

The enduring power of Titian's Noli Me Tangere

Does everyone know the story of how pictures from the National Gallery were stored in Welsh slate mines during WW2 to save them from potential damage?

Winston Churchill sent a telegram forbidding the planned shipment of the National Gallery's paintings to Canada for safekeeping. "Bury them in caves or in cellars," he commanded then director Kenneth Clark, "but not a picture shall leave these islands."

The museum then decided to display one old-master work a month in response to public outcry. Somehow they canvassed a nation. "The picture that the public wanted most of all was Titian's 'Noli Me Tangere,'" Director MacGregor recounts, describing it as "surely the deepest investigation in Western painting of a love that survives death.... It is an incomparable meditation on love continuing without physical contact."

Something to ponder on the eve of Holy Week.

Time Magazine's David van Biema on Re-Judaizing Jesus citing Amy-Jill Levine and Bruce Chilton amongst others. His conclusion:

...the reassessment should increase both Jewish-Christian amity and gospel clarity, things that won't happen if regular Christians feel that in rediscovering Jesus the Jew, they have lost Christ. But, he ends by citing someone else, we are in too deep to stop. Sounds rather too reluctant to me.

Here's a far more beneficial mention of Jewish and Christian scholarly collaboration on the topic of resurrection from today's NY Times by Peter Steinfels. Here's the book the article mentions due out at the end of April from Yale.

Golden Eagle and other raptors

We went to a talk about raptors at a nearby nature reserve. These are injured birds (someone shot the Golden Eagle; the Barred Owl --not shown-- lost a wing in a road accident) now recovered as far as possible and living in captivity. Something good out of a tragedy is the education of all of us about supporting raptors even in our back yards.

Spring Break in Maine

Here I am for the week writing and editing the first third (the NT section) of my new book, surrounded by our six fur babies, while J goes off to work.

Open to the public for the first time this week are four rooms from the house of Emperor Augustus in Rome (scroll down the link for more images of "la casa di Augusto"). Classicist Mary Beard gives further fascinating details. Augustus lived in a house not a palace. However, his house on the Palatine hill "somehow linked directly to the temple of Apollo" which he had built. Thus, he could hold receptions "at home" in and around the temple, and by so doing, link himself to Apollo.

Fascinating article from the NY Times on texting and the generation gap indicating a new level of connectedness (but little sense of real presence):

Ms. Turkle recalled a vacation with her daughter in Paris, where she hoped to immerse her in the local culture and cuisine. “Part of the idea of Paris is being in Paris,” Ms. Turkle said. But during an afternoon stroll, her daughter received several calls and text messages on her cellphone from friends back in Boston. Her daughter, she said, felt compelled to return every one.

When Ms. Turkle asked why she didn’t turn off her cellphone and enjoy the city, she said her daughter replied, “I feel more comfortable talking with my friends.” But her daughter’s friends didn’t even really want to talk. “They just want to know where you are,” Ms. Turkle said. “It’s a new sensibility.”