Jan 31– Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, translated by Thomas Shelton

 I like when there's music named after the piece.

Reading

Jan 31– Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, translated by Thomas Shelton

Summary: Don Quixote fights windmills. Sancho Panza is a great straight man. DQ gets into a fight and there's a cliffhanger.

Commentary: After several days of complaining about which sections of books we read, I was super excited to read the chapter title as: "VIII. Of the Good Success Don Quixote Had, in the Dreadful and Never-Imagined Adventure of the Windmills, with Other Accidents Worthy to Be Recorded."

This is one of those books that's been on my list seemingly forever, that I'm glad T5FSOB gives me an excuse to read. It's a textbook example of committing to the bit. Don Quixote is even more over the top than we expect him to be from hearing about him in culture, the narration (I understand Shelton makes it a bit more over the top than the original) plays it totally straight (which makes it even funnier/sadder), and the frame story even gets in on it, by commenting on the end of chapter cliffhanger. But, as I discussed with The Odyssey the other day, it never veers into unbelievability. He fights a windmill and gets knocked on his ass, fine, but he doesn't burn down all the windmills and get away with it or something as a lesser comedy might. Definitely added to the read more list!

Jan 30– Antigone by Sophocles, translated by F. Storr

 One of the songs is called Antigone

Reading

Jan 30– Antigone by Sophocles, translated by F. Storr

Summary: I'm going to steal the body of independence.

Commentary: Wasn't able to get a decently formatted copy of the "right" translation. This one is actually from 1912, so a few years too new to be included in T5FSOB. 

It's pronounced, "Ann-Tig-Oh-Knee" not "Anti-Gone" in case you were wondering.

I think I read Oedipus Rex (probably an adaptation) in high school, but not Antigone. I remember liking it well enough. I was really impressed by Antigone though. (At least in this translation) the rhythm, dialogue, etc. really sparks. The iambic pentameter gives it a nice Shakespearean vibe. I don't think I actually read any of the histories, and now I kind of want to. Shakespeare doing ancient Rome, vs ancient Greece sort of doing Shakespeare. I'll have to read the whole Oedipus trilogy now I guess.

Like some of the other Greek dramas, it's impressive how many tropes are already starting to come into form, and how self aware they are. The guard running for it before he gets executed by the villain is great. I also just love the whole setup. "I'm going to go steal my brother's body so he can get a proper burial," is an awesome story concept, and I can't really think of ever reading anything else like it.

Jan 29– From The Voyage of The Beagle by Charles Darwin (1839)

Does this actually work?

Readings

Jan 29– From The Voyage of The Beagle by Charles Darwin (1839)

Summary: The Beagle visits Terra de Fuego. Darwin tells us about how goofy he thinks the natives are, and describes the land.

Commentary: I just wrote about how I wonder if Eliot could've stuck a little closer with theming/organization. Origin of Species and The Voyage of The Beagle are both in T5FSOB. They're 18 volumes apart. I thought maybe they were grouped somehow, like OoS in science and TVoTB in travel or something, but no.

I was pretty excited when I drew this one for today. I have a few friends who would, if they were 19th century aristocrats, love to be "naturalists," so I'm hoping this gives us something interesting to talk about next time we grab a beer. Second, I don't I've read more than a paragraph of Darwin. I feel like he's sufficiently important that I should've. I've read Marx, Einstein, Rosseau, any number of other famous science and/or philosophy guys.

This exists, if you're looking for more daily reading fun.

    Darwin's pretty euro-supremacist. For the sake of illustration, "Viewing such men, one can hardly make one’s self believe that they are fellow-creatures, and inhabitants of the same world." I think I look on my cat with more humanity than Darwin looks at the Fuegians. That's probably the second worst part, next to the captain kidnapping people to try to civilize them.

     He does have a certain eye for detail and knack for storytelling though. "Tierra del Fuego may be described as a mountainous land, partly submerged in the sea, so that deep inlets and bays occupy the place where valleys should exist." Awesome way to describe a mountainous island. He does a great job of peppering little anecdotes without getting sidetracked. The fact that he treats the environment as so totally alien, while gross in describing the people, does give us some cool fantasy-worldbuilding-type details about things like piles of mossy seashells that mark migration sites.

Reflection on Week 4 (Jan 22-28)

 Link to this week's readings

I feel like this was not a strong week. Let's see how the review looks.

Quick review on this week's readings:

22nd Polyeucte by Cornielle: 3/5 There wasn't a lot here to judge. It seemed decent, but it's not really enough to give full thoughts on. Will read more later.

23rd "The Art of Persuasion" by Pascal: 2/5 A passable guide on how to persuade/instruct someone, but it's a two or three page article stretched to around double that.

24th The Odyssey by Homer: 4/5 I quibbled a bit about the particular section selected here, but The Odyssey is both well written and significant. I look forward to reading the other excerpts later.

25th "An Account of Egypt" by Herodotus: 3/5 Again, there's nothing actually wrong here. It's just a passable little travelogue with some anecdotes Herodotus picked up along the way. The "other's view of others" effect was a little interesting to thing about.

26th Assorted Robert Burns Poems: 1/5 Mediocre poems written in an awkward dialect. 

27th Purgatorio by Dante: 4/5 I feel similarly here to how I did about The Odyssey. Not the excerpt I would've picked, but a little more thought provoking. We'll see it back again later.

28th The Imitation of Christ  by Thomas Kempis: 2/5 God says, "you suck!" repeat for five pages. I'm giving this two points for showing that Christian advice hasn't advanced at all in half a millennium, and that feels generous.

Weekly Average: 2.7/5  My leanings towards fiction are on full display with both The Odyssey and Purgatorio outscoring the rest of the week. This is a week that definitely benefited from my being willing to give a selection a point or two for making me think, even if I didn't actually like it.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

    This week was light on theme, and that made me think a little about the overall process of assembling the entries, reading guide, etc. I wrote a little about how I question including Burns at all. Given his stature in the poetry world (semi-official national poet of Scotland, has a pseudo holiday) I think it's fair to put him in the collection. I do, however, disagree with giving him an entire volume. From a skim of the list, I'm not seeing a ton of Celtic material in general. I'd have gladly taken a volume of Celtic folklore, poems, short stories, essays, etc. Throw "Address to Haggis" in there, that one's suitably goofy, and one of his most read. Likewise, I don't know that we needed an entire day of him. I'm very much trying not to shut out anything that isn't "standard English" or whatever out. Obviously, a ton of the works are translations, and the scope in time and style is part of what makes reading these interersting and worthwhile. I guess awkward written dialects is just where I draw the line.

    I do wonder if a less scattershot approach might be more useful in general. There are some other reading guides in one of the later volumes that're more course-like. But these are more, "if you want to learn about philosophy, read all of these," than the bite sized, curated nightly list. I wonder if the nightly list could've been themed week to week, month to month, etc. In a few weeks, it has seemed like that, but this week was pretty meandering.

Jan 28- From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis translated by William Benham (~1820)

 Music

Reading

Jan 28- From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis translated by William Benham (~1820)

Summary: You're a bad person, and you feel bad about it. If you were a good person, you'd feel good. But don't try to feel good or you'll be worse! And don't worry about other people, only yourself!

Commentary: Quick note, this is Chapter 4 of Book 2. Book 1 (from my skim) looked a little more concrete. How to relate to people, approach problems, meditate, etc. Book 2 is moving more into broad outlook on life type topics. 

Content-wise, we're very much in the traditional Christian advice vein. The only thing that matters is that you're good. It's actually impossible to be good. Bad people will be miserable and punished. You're a bad person. Good people will be happy. It's impossible to be good. Hate yourself. This one has the exciting bonus advice of "don't worry about other people, just take care of yourself, you shouldn't have any care for other people." I remember that part of the Beatitudes. "Blessed are they who take care of themselves and ignore all others..." It repeats this in circles for five pages or so. I skimmed some of the rest, and it looked a little better, but all and all, it's sticking with the core Old Testament misanthropy.

I've talked a fair amount (and have notes for dedicated entry) about Eliot, and his views on religion. This one skews more towards a traditional/conservative Christian viewpoint, compared to the more progressive Deism I've speculated on in other places.

All that being said, there's some small value here in looking at this as a cultural/historical document. The Imitation of Christ is held up as one of the most important,  most read, reprinted, translated, etc. Christian books of all time, and it shows. You could update the language a bit, plop this in the Christian section at Barnes and Noble, and hop on your Fox News interview today. It'd be fascinating to look at the cause and effect here. Did this one guy's crappy book about hating yourself for Jesus warp the entire religion because it was so popular? Or has Christianity just been like this for that long, and nothing has changed?

Jan 27– From Purgatorio from The Divine Comedy by Dante (1308) translated by Henry F. Clay

Doom Music (The third and final episode of the original Doom is Inferno, and references Dante.)

Reading

Jan 27– From Purgatorio from The Divine Comedy by Dante (1308) translated by Henry F. Clay

Summary: Dante finished up with Virgil in Purgatory, then gets chastised by his crush on the way to Heaven.

Commentary: I'm teaching The Great Gatsby right now. The Divine Comedy is clearly the better story about being obsessed with a woman.  Also, I like the 1993 Doom music (and game in general) better than the newer ones. I'm just full of pointless comparisons tonight.

From a modern perspective, Dante's relationship is pretty unhealthy. There's putting a woman on a pedestal, and then there's elevating her to near sainthood. Doubly so for a woman who doesn't even particularly care for you. Compared to other quests through (usually metaphorical) hells to save the princess, Dante also has no other objective. Mario goes to rescue Peach, but he's also trying to protect the Mushroom Kingdom from Bowser. Luke Skywalker is partially motivated by that sexy Princess Leia hologram, but he also hates the Empire and wants to train to be a Jedi. Dante is just chasing Beatrice. While she taunts him about not loving her properly.

I'm a little curious about why this section was chosen. There's certainly nothing wrong with it (and the transition from Purgatorio to Paradiso is significant), but if you're only going to read 10 pages of Dante, I'm surprised you wouldn't choose Inferno as the most known. Maybe that was less true 100 years ago than today. The first few cantos have "abandon all hope, ye who enter here," which seems like someone getting the "core" cultural experience would want. You could start around there, and still get the virtuous pagans, which would tie into the other readings. Alternatively, doing the last few cantos would get you some of Dante's historical/political commentary, and glacier Satan, which is both one cool (pun intended) and not what people usually expect, which makes it more interesting.

Overall, this was an enjoyable enough selection, and does provide some interesting critical fodder for the presentation of relationships in fiction.

Jan 25– “To A Mouse” and other poems by Robert Burns (1770-1794)

 No music tonight

Doc

Jan 25– “To A Mouse” and other poems by Robert Burns (1770-1794)

Got a little messed up with the order last night. Here's what should've been the 25th.

Summary: I. Hate. Phonetic. Accents.

Commentary: Seriously, half of these are unreadable. I think I'd have better luck reading Spanish poetry. Apparently yesterday is "Burns Day" when he's celebrated. I assume if I was Scottish it would be better. As it is, writing in both a dialect and a phonetic accent (neither of which are consistent) feels like a weird gimmick that might be tolerable for a minor character in one chapter of a larger work. As a major part of someone's body of work, it's baffling. I wouldn't write an entire collection of poetry using Pennsylvania slang and spelling it "wudder." Subject-wise, they're fairly generic. People have filled entire books with poems about respecting nature, the dignity of man, etc. All of them are readable, and thus better than Burns. I was going to write nonsense there, but then I remembered I actually enjoy nonsense poems, since they're still more readable (and cleverer). I think they'd be better set to music. I know many of his poems were, but I think we were specifically got a set that wasn't. Sort of makes sense (doesn't require you to know/find the song in the pre internet days) but maybe I'd have enjoyed them more. I'm doing these rather late, and am kind of tired, so maybe give it another shot later.

Edit: I did. They were worse. While I'm complaining about Burns here, I feel like I should be less upset with him than with Eliot. It's fine for a Scottish poet to write with a Scottish dialect/accent. Including them in T5FSOB feels like including the Engrish translation of Zero Wing in an anthology today. But not just including one as an example of a meme or whatever (which would be cool, and culturally relevant), but devoting an entire book of your anthology set to Engrish. 

Jan–26 “An Account of Egypt” from Herodotus’s Histories translated by G.C. Macauley (4XX BC)

 Herodotus was just trying to cover up the aliens.

Doc

Jan–26 “An Account of Egypt” from Herodotus’s Histories translated by G.C. Macauley (4XX BC)

Summary: Herodotus explains how the pyramids were built, along with some other Egyptian history.

Commentary:    There's apparently a fair amount of debate about the original date of  Histories. It's cool how much scholarship is devoted to conspiracy theories, filling in weird gaps, etc. 

    Herodotus needs to work on his paragraph breaks. Some of them are over a page long (this might be an edition issue, I looked at some other editions/translations and they're more reasonable.) 

    I think we're overdue for more modern ancient Egyptian based pop culture. Greece and Rome have gotten plenty for years, and Marvel has done a passing job with Norse mythology. Ancient Egypt has... Stargate? The Mummy? Not really getting too far on either of those. I guess there's Moonknight. I wonder if all the backlash from that Gods of Egypt movie stopped things for a while.

    There's some interesting point of view stuff going on here. To us, Herodotus (and ancient Greece in general) are "exotic." To him, the Egyptians are as well. It's like reading English subtitles for a Spanish dub of a Korean movie or something. 

    I like all the random things I learn while reading these that aren't directly related to the readings. Today I learned that a fathom is six feet. I thought it was like a quarter mile.

    Overall, not a lot of deep thoughts on this one. It's kind of scattered, like it's just some guys random stories about cool stuff he saw/heard while on a trip. 

Jan 24– Books XI and XII from The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Butcher and Lang

 Trying to get a little more creative here

Reading

Jan 24– Books XI and XII from The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Butcher and Lang

I'm glad I figured out where the translators are listed. The edition linked on one of my lists isn't actually T5FSOB one.  Even more confusing, since while it looks like all TF5SOB editions use the same translation, a few seemed to have different pagination. The break is also odd (which is part of what got me looking initially). We pick up about three quarters of the way through the underworld section (Book XI) and then read the first chunk of the Sirens (Book XII) without actually getting to the end. My instinct was to just cut XI and do all of XII (since this is the intent suggested by the reading guide, which only lists the Sirens section). But I skimmed the underworld section, and I like a couple parts of it (mostly the very beginning and the end) so I kept that and just marked where the reading is.

Commentary-wise, what hasn't been said about The Odyssey? It's the ur-roadtrip story, mythologies greatest hits, etc. I read it and The Iliad in high school or college, and I remember liking The Iliad better. That may have been burn out though. Reading them both back to back is a lot.

Instead, I'm going to ramble for a bit about what I'm going to call The 20% Cooler Principle. There's a popular (and fairly accurate) school of thought that comic books are the modern day version of mythology. I read an interview once with a writer (I forget who it was now) who explained how, even after he started getting hired by AAA companies, writing more serious books, etc., he always went back to his original inspiration: the comic books he read as a kid. The reason people liked his books, movies, etc. was that he always did the same thing that those comics did; they took an idea and pushed it up just one or two more notches. That's the zone that gets you cool/interesting/scary/funny (whatever tone is appropriate for the story you're telling) and surprising stories, but doesn't go off into absurdity. This contrasts with the "MAKE IT A BILLION PERCENT COOLER" approach that was super popular for a while in the late aughts (think Gurren Lagann) or that overlong series sometimes get caught in (sure we beat the emperor, the Dragon, Dragon Emperor, and the Dark God, but now we have to fight the Dark Dragon Emperor God of Doom!)

The Odyssey does this well. Odysseus doesn't have to go mano-a-mano with Zeus to get home, build a second Trojan horse that's actually an interdimensional space ship, or any other insanely over the top thing. What he does do is meet ghosts THAT DRINK BLOOD! That's 20% creepier than regular ghosts. Argos doesn't turn out to secretly be Cerberus and eat all the suitors, he's just a dog that lives for 20+ years so he can see Odysseus one more time. Odysseus doesn't romance the sirens (and he's not rationalist enough to just totally ignore them). Instead, he has his crew do the smart thing and bind him so he can't get them killed, but still listens. 

The best comic book heroes are the ones that still have normal human problems or are only "a little" super. My dad loves Captain America because he can't just punch out every Nazi WW2 in one shot. Spider-Man is popular because he still has to pay rent and get stood up on dates (or used to). Batman is more popular than Superman because he does sometimes get his ass kicked and have to limp back to the Batcave to figure out a better plan for round two.

20% Cooler. Homer gets it.

Jan 23– “The Art of Persuasion” by Pascal (1660) translated by O. W. Wright

Finally, a music location/time I haven't looked up yet!

Reading

Jan 23– “The Art of Persuasion” by Pascal (1660) translated by O. W. Wright

    Tonight, I finally realized the translators are listed on the title page. I feel a little foolish, but at least I know for the future. Might go back and add them on some of the others at some point. 

    I also had Pascal mixed up with Pythagoras for a while, and was very confused by the fact that he was a 17th century Frenchman instead of an ancient Greek. Wrong "P" triangle guy.

    After complaining about the lack of philosophy/essays last week, we got a doozy of one this week. I don't know if this is Pascal or Wright, but this is incredibly wordy, repetitive. The first paragraph is basically, "persuading people is when you persuade them of things and the way you persuade them."

    We then get a page or so about how we should always use logic, not feelings, but we should have feelings for God, but mankind is corrupt so their feelings about most things are wrong. It goes on in similar repetitive/contradictory circles for a couple pages. 

    Once we get to the actual rules, he promptly discards a third of them. The remainder are sound, but he again repeats them over and over without actually explaining effectively (though I don't know how much you need to explain about "don't use words people don't know in definitions").

    Then we get some musing about people inadvertently copying other's ideas, and how different fields are related. Interestingly, John McWhorter posted a similar article about plagiarism in the New York Times today.

    Overall, this is another case like Mazzini earlier this month. He's mostly right, but this is two or three page essay stretched out to triple that, with a couple of questionable rants tacked on for fun.

Jan 22– Polyeucte by Cornielle (1643) Translated by Thomas Constable

The play as an opera

Reading

Jan 22– Polyeucte by Cornielle (1643) Translated by Thomas Constable

Summary: A woman has a dream that her husband is going to die. They talk about it with their friends and family in the most metal way possible.

Commentary: Kind of hard to comment on just the first act of a short play. Pauline is in love with Polyeucte, but she has a dream that her ex boyfriend is going to kill him. Acceptable melodrama. This translation makes it sound pretty metal.

     So doth the ghostly foe our souls abuse,

     And all beyond his force he gains by ruse;

     He hates the purpose fast he cannot foil,—

     Then he retreats—retreats but to recoil!

     In endless barricade obstruction piles,

     To-day 'tis tears impede, to-morrow—smiles!

     And this poor dream—his coinage of the night

     Gives place to other lures, all falsely bright:

     All tricks he knows and uses—threats and prayers

     Attacks in parley—as the Parthian dares.

     In chain unheeded weakest link must fail,

     So fortress yet unwon he'll mount and scale.

     O break his bonds! Let feeble woman weep!

     The heart that God has touched 'tis God must keep!

     Who looks behind to dally with his choice

     When Heaven demands—obeys another voice!

Probably the most interesting passage:

     PAUL.

     You say his words: at all my fears he smiles,

     But I must dread these Christians and their wiles!

     I dread their vengeance, wreaked upon my lord,

     For Christian blood my father has outpoured!

     STRAT.

     Their sect is impious, mad, absurd and vain,

     Their rites repulsive, as their cult profane.

     Deride their altar, their weak frenzy ban,

     Yet do they war with gods and not with man!

     Relentless wills our law that they must die:

     Their joy—endurance; death—their ecstasy;

     Judged—by decree, the foes of human race,

     Meekly their heads they bow—to court disgrace!

You don't often hear Christians described as wily, and you're more likely to hear (at least in 21st century America) Christians referring to other religions as repulsive, profane, etc. Obviously, there was a time where the opposite was true, but it's not a thing we think about today. More of Eliot's subtle crusade to make readers question their religion? Regardless, a helpful (if controversial) exercise to think of a dominant culture as an invader, etc. and how that'd affect things, how people would be treated, etc. 

I remember singing "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love" as a kid and thinking you could easily append, "for the way things are" to the end. Don't cut yourself on that edge 8 year old me.

Reflection on Week 3 (Jan 15-21)

Link to this week's readings

It was a big week for poetry, leaving only one slot for an essay (which was also on poetry). Also several bundles of very short pieces.

Quick review on this week's readings:

15th Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam of Nishapur: 4/5 several of these were fun, and there was some interesting history behind them. I think they'd be better scattered throughout than all in one night's reading. 

16th Aesop's Fables: 4/5 I always enjoy these chances to read original (or at least more original) versions of works that're engrained in out culture in different forms. People talk a lot about how a lot of original folk tales are, but Aesop is just straight metal. Eye gouging, mosquitos bleeding people to death, etc. Also some solid one liners.

17th Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin(again): 4/5 Not quite as good as the initial set from AoBF. I do like how down to earth and relatable these are. Ben Franklin was interested in finding out more about his family, like many people. Ben Franklin admits that he learned shorthand, and forgot it, like many people do with skills like that. Also, dads/granddads haven't changed in 250 years.

18th The Frogs by Aristophanes: 4/5 Aristophanes shows that the ancient Greeks were already doing a lot of staple comedy bits over 1000 years ago. 

19th "The Poetic Principle" by Edgar Allen Poe: 3/5 A little long, mostly due to awkwardly inserted excerpts of poems through. "Philosophy of Composition" is mostly the same, but better. Appreciate the raging at didactic and allegory.

20th "The Eve of Saint Agnes" by John Keats: 5/5 We need more swashbuckling romance poems!

21st "The Nightingale" by Hans Christen Andersen: 1/5 "If you love something, enslave it. It will return and agree to become a spy for you." Mediocre writing (possibly the translation's fault) and an insane theme single handedly ruining this weeks' average, which would've been a clean 4/5 without it.

Average: 3.6/5 Our best week so far, even after Andersen. Not only were these fun, but they were fun in genres that I normally don't love.

 Overall Thoughts on The Project:

A little lighter on the deep thoughts and philosophy this round, which I surprisingly missed. I went into this expecting the historical/philosophical/political essays to be a real drag, but I enjoyed most of them. If nothing else, it leaves me feeling like my brain didn't quite get the workout this week that I've come to expect from the previous two. I'm sure I could've thought about The Frogs more or something, so partially my fault.

On the other hand, both of this week's poetry entries scored at least a 4/5. As someone who doesn't love poetry, that's awesome! I've always felt like "I don't like poetry" is a bit of a lazy take (the same as people who say they just don't like any kind of sci-fi or romance or musical or whatever genre/medium), but it's been like 90% accurate in my experience. Getting some more exciting/fun poems obviously helped. Maybe I should try searching for "adventure poems" or something.

General question/reflection for the week: I've talked at length about how the best part of T5FSOB is the overall optimistic outlook most of the writers have, and this week continues with that. Today (at least in the US) I think it's fair to say that people are broadly not happy with the state of humanity/the world, and that there's a trend towards saying that if you are happy you're probably either an idiot or a bad person. What (if anything) changed? Were people happier 100 or so years ago? Did Eliot (and the writers he chose) belong to a particular class that was happy, even if most people weren't? Is it just a question of people being more informed about bad stuff? Is there actually more bad stuff now than there was then? Was being optimistic more valued then? Or is it a kind of emotional/intellectual survivorship bias, where the positive survives and the negative is forgotten?

Logically, I know that most people are better off materially than they were in the past, equality is better than it was, people are living longer, crime/danger is down in most of the world, etc. While a substantial portion of the authors in the collection were upper class, aristocrats, etc. it's certainly not all. Poe's family wasn't particularly wealthy, and he spent much of his adult life poor/sick. Aesop was literally a slave. Ben Franklin did well for himself... eventually. Overall, a lot of them seem like they'd have backgrounds that'd map out to being middle class writers (some full time, some as a side job) today, but their outlook is much happier than I'd expect in such a group. Hard (probably impossible) to tell if that's a result of the mood of the times, or simple Eliot's selections.

January 21st– “The Nightingale” by Hans Christian Anderson (1843)

 Birbs

Doc

January 21st– “The Nightingale” by Hans Christian Anderson (1843)

Summary: The emperor of China finds out that there is a nightingale with a beautiful song and sends a cavalier to find it. He succeeds (with the help of a little girl) and brings it back to the palace. It sings so beautifully that the emperor cries, which the nightingale is very flattered by. The emperor tries to hold it captive, but it escapes while everyone is distracted by a mechanical copy. Eventually the copy breaks down. Death comes to take the emperor, but the original nightingale returns and sings so beautifully that Death leaves to check on his garden. The Emperor agrees to let the Nightingale come and go as it pleases. It volunteers to be his informant. In return, the emperor will keep its existence secret.

Commentary: I have none. Look at that summary. This is the most insane story I have ever read. Moral: If someone likes your performance enough, you should forgive them attempting to literally enslave you, come back after you escape, and spy for them in exchange for the freedom that you already had.

January 20th– “The Eve of St. Agnes” by John Keats (1820)

 No music

Text

January 20th– “The Eve of St. Agnes” by John Keats (1820)

Summary: On St. Agnes Eve virgin women can supposedly see their lover if they complete a ritual. While Madeline does so, Porphyro (her forbidden love) sneaks in and they flee towards his homeland.

Commentary: "At midnight on the eve of St. Agnes there were certain solemn ceremonies which all virgins must perform to have "visions of delight and soft adorings from their loves." Porphyro took advantage of this custom to win his bride." That's the description in the reading guide. It makes it sound much worse than it is. 

    I was sure this was going to be one of those old-timey, "it wasn't rape back then, but it probably is now," stories. It's not! While Porphyro does sneak into her room and watches her undress (kinda sketch, but thematic), he explicitly asks her to wake up without molesting her or anything! That's like, level 10 affirmative consent by poem standards! She eventually wakes up, and he confirms that he's real and not a dream. Hurray! 

    Besides being surprisingly non-skeevy, I was also struck by how much fun the poem is. I feel like 90% of the poetry I've read (either by choice or assignment) is depressing and/or trying too hard to be impressively deep. This is an adventure story about a dude sneaking into a castle and whisking his bride away, with some light magic throne in for fun. Why are there not more swashbuckling romance poems? There probably are and I just don't know them. Adding Keats to the list to see if his other stuff is also interesting.

January 19th–“The POEetic Principle”, Edgar Allen Poe (1850)

Every band ever has covered Edgar Allen Poe. I do a whole lesson on it. 

Doc

Summary: Poems should have one goal, and be neither too short, nor too long.

Commentary: Poe's birthday is today. I appreciate Eliot lining up things like that. I like including "The Poetic Principle" but not "The Philosophy of Composition" a lot less. They cover a fair amount of the same ground, but "Philosophy" does so much more cleanly than "Principle." While I think both are worth at least one read for most artists, I'd flip them if I had to pick only one. (Sometimes I Frankenstein them both together when teaching. I'm sure that's unthinkable to some purists, but here we are.)

     "Principle" takes a lot more words to say mostly the same things, and the excerpts from other authors' poems that Poe chose have never really resonated with me. "Composition" simply uses "The Raven" as its core example, with very minimal excerpts. This does have the minor disadvantage that it more or less requires you to have a copy of "The Raven" open while reading, so you can flip to the sections he's referencing. I think (for the purposes of a single short essay) studying a single poem is much more instructive than the scattershot approach in "Principle." It has the added advantages of Poe's first hand knowledge of his own poem, and much more focused examples. The "Principle" there's a lot of, "look at this poem, see how it's so X", while "Composition" will specifically pull out a single verse to analyze.

     Poe is big on "unity of effect" and pieces finding their ideal length, and talks about them in each. "Philosophy" is more focused on unity of effect, while "Principle" spends more time on length. It surprises me that "Philosophy" is the older of the two, since it's much more refined in its treatment of the same topics. While "Principle" spends a considerable amount of time trying to narrow down the difference between too long and too short, "Philosophy" mentions it relatively briefly. If all of a piece is building towards a single central effect, I think it's fair to assume that it will probably find something approximating the right length naturally. In my experience, too long pieces are usually caused primarily by failing to identify the topic, theme, etc. and meandering around without saying anything useful. Too short pieces (rarer) tend to have the same cause. If you don't know that something is the focus of a piece, you're not likely to put enough detail/emphasis on it.

    I will give "Principle" credit for one thing that is absent in "Composition", a strong rejection of Didacticism. I spent some time thinking about how this might square with his "unity of effect" and I decided thus: First, Poe never comes out against Didacticism, per se. Rather, he talks about the value of art for art's sake and the futility of attempting to communicate Truth (capital T!) via art. Truth is best stated clearly and plainly. Trying to compose a whole work around it will compromise the work and the Truth, since it's not always pretty, interesting, etc. Truth is a matter of  the rational intellect. Duty is a matter of morals. Poetry (and I assume he wouldn't mind extending this to other arts) is simply a matter of taste.

    Something that I thought a lot about during my Master's is the politics of art. The statement, "All Art is political" has been bandied for years. In my program, this was accepted as a Truth. In fact, I think it would be less accurate to say that the position was "art is political" and closer to, "if it's not political, it's not art!" (With the ever fun corollary: if it's not political, it is, you're just too privileged to see it.)

    For myself, I think it's more accurate to say, "all art is political.*" With the asterisk representing the fact that an artist's worldview will almost inevitably seep into their art. This isn't necessarily conscious or profound. Something as simple as the existence (or lack) of characters in a story can will be political to someone. The level of detail (is it vulgar to describe sex/violence more than passingly) or basic functions of the world (do characters need to struggle to have their basic needs met?) all reveal things about an artist's politics. That doesn't mean they're the point of the story, or that the work is explicitly "political." Otherwise, every act is political. While a person choosing to smoke a cigar may be a political statement, it's more likely that a cigar is just a cigar. On the other hand, explicitly political work is liable to descend into propaganda. As Poe points out, such work will almost certainly fail as art, and has a good chance of also failing to properly illustrate whatever Truth or Duty it's advocating. Chick Tracts have never actually converted anyone. Probably.

January 18th– The Frogs by Aristophanes (405)

 I've just given up on picking "appropriate" music.

Tonight's Reading

Summary: Aristophanes fits every comedy bit ever into the intro to a play about frogs. And shit talks a bunch of other Greeks. There's a musical number.

Commentary: Bits include: A heckling chorus, a random musical number that characters don't want, suicide puns, something sort of like "Who's on First?", The rule of three, I feel like there's probably a lot of jokes I don't get since I don't know enough about ancient Greece. 

January 17th– More from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin, Another Kind of Hero

More Autobiography

Summary: Ben Franklin shares some stories about his family tree.

Commentary: Ben's still good. This one isn't quite as quotable as the other, since it's more of a series of semi-connected stories about his family than the direct advice we got on the first. It's interesting to read someone we lionize so much today talking about his interest in his family's history. Very relatable. Continuing to start to see more connections between the readings, as he discusses his development (or lack there of) of taste, I thought of Rousseau. Really, the only good Franklinism today was, "Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust not Providence." A fair turn on, "the harder I work, the luckier I get," but nothing spectacular.

January 16th– Aesop’s Fables

No music today.

Doc

Summary: A bunch of animals do a bunch of things. Like half the animals are dumb, lazy, etc. The other half are responsible. They learn stuff.

Commentary: I'm curious about how today's readings were listed. "Vol. 17, pp. 43-44; also pp. 31-43." I went back and double-checked the scan I have of the original list, and it's the same. Why not just write 31-44?

The introduction is also interesting for this one. The Grimm's tales are described as descending from animist myths of the common folk, while Aesop's fables are more enlightened. Interesting, given that Aesop himself was a slave. Similar to last night, who knows how many of them were actually collected by Aesop, vs just put in a collection with his name on it. At least a few are mostly from after his death.

Not surprisingly, it's a pain to track down the exact versions Elliot used. T5FSOB is awful about listing translators, and I couldn't find any edition easily accessible with the same fables in the same order. I wound up skipping a handful that weren't in the archive I was using, but I got a couple dozen and that seems good enough.

There's a wide variety here, so hard to kind of pin down any single angle. It's kind of understatedly dark in a fun way (contrasting with, say Anderson's almost gratuitous grossness). Always fun to see an "authentic" (in so far as a translation of a semi-anonymous collection can be) version of stories we've seen 1000 times. 

When people die, they get random one word exclamations. That's fun.

January 15th– “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam of Nishapur” by Edward Fitzgerald

 Iranian Piano

New week, new doc!

January 15th– “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam of Nishapur” by Edward Fitzgerald

Summary: I don't even know, man.

Commentary: I was a little confused by this one at first. I thought Omar Khayyam was the author, but it was in the English poets section. I don't think there are that many Anglo-Arabian poets in the 18th and 19th century. Surprise, it's actually Edward Fitzgerald! Except it's actually a translation! (Not really well noted in the original text). Omar Khayyam was a real person, though it's not confirmed he actually wrote the poems. It's apparently not a particularly accurate translation, but more of an adaptation. The whole thing is kind of convoluted. 

    Overall, the poems were fun. I think they're trading heavily on "exoticness" in the time, but it was an enjoyable enough read. A few are pithy, a few are quotable, etc. I think they'd be more enjoyable reading one or two at a time than fifty-plus in one sitting. Maybe another year's challenge. 

    Today, this feels like the kind of thing that you'd see as an in-universe text in another story. There's that one character that has a Rubaiyat quote for everything. Half way through, they find out it's not even a real book and/or they've been misquoting it all along.

    Anyway, here's a few that I enjoyed:

X

Well, let it take them! What have we to do
With Kaikobád the Great, or Kaikhosrú?
Let Rustum cry “To Battle!” as he likes,
Or Hátim Tai “To supper!”—heed not you.

XXXIV

Up from Earth’s Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate;
And many Knots unravel’d by the Road;
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.

XXXVIII

Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn

I lean’d, the secret Well of Life to learn:

And Lip to Lip it murmur’d—“While you live,

Drink!—for, once dead, you never shall return.”

LX

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,

Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape

Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and

He bid me taste of it; and ’twas—the Grape.

LXXX

YESTERDAY This Day’s Madness did prepare;

TO-MORROW’S Silence, Triumph, or Despair:

Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:

Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

Reflection on Week 2 (Jan 8-14)

 This week's readings

This week was a pretty varied slate. A play, part of the Bible, some political documents, and a few essays. Interesting to start to see how things are intentionally grouped.

Quick review on this week's readings:

8th The Book of Job: 4/5? This one is kind of weird to rate. If your goal is to build support for the Christian God, -666/5, God is an absolute monster. If this was the first/only bit of the Bible I'd ever read I don't think I'd believe you if you told me this was an actual religion. If your goal is to make people question religion (but not out and out say it) 5/5, God is an absolute monster. 

9th Sir Francis Drake Revived: 4/5 Fun real life swashbuckling story. Also, the least bad version of "people are wusses now." "People are such wusses now. Why don't they go COMANDEER SPANISH WINE SHIPS like they used to?" 

10th The Bacchae by Euripides: 3/5 This one was interesting, but kind of a weird selection/translation. Will read another one at some point to get a better feel for it.

11th The Federalist Papers by Hamilton and Jay: 4/5? Another weird one to score. #1 was great, probably the best political/philosophical essay we've had so far (and I really like BF's Autobiography). #2 was hot garbage. Jay seems to be completely delusional about the state of the country (everyone is in not in perfect union with each other), and doesn't really do much to advance the idea of Federalism anyway.

12th Inquiries on Inequality by Rosseau: 1/5 There's just nothing here. Rosseau attempts to argue for the consent of the governed, but does so using almost entirely unfounded assumptions that lead to nonsensical conclusions. 100% feels like that essay someone tried to pad out to the page limit an hour before it was due with no research.

13th "Introduction on Taste" by Burke: 3/5 I like the idea of this one a lot more than I do the rhetorical construction. Taste=senses+imagination+judgement is an interesting idea, his definition of imagination and rebuttal of a lot of common "nothing is real", "everything has been done", and related nihilistic arguments are interesting (if a little undeveloped). As a piece, I don't think he does a good enough job of delineating sense from judgement, and that hurts the overall piece.

14th The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut: 2/5 I don't really feel any more enlightened having read 5 pages of how colonial Connecticut set up their system of government. On the other hand, this isn't the kind of thing I ever really thought about, and I looked up a few others to learn more, so I guess it did its job. The overall history of rights/law/government is probably something the average person should be more aware of.

Average: 3ish/5 A real mixed bag this week. We got the whole spread of scores, including 2 that were very handwavy numbers. Overall, I think we hit on a lot of "better in idea than execution" this week. 

 Overall Thoughts on The Project:

The readings got a bit heavier this week. A lot of my thinking time was less on the selections themselves, and more on the overall construction of T5FSOB, and on Eliot himself. At some point in the next week or so, I'd like to do a little bonus entry on him. I still enjoy the overall optimistic worldview that most of the entries seem to espouse. Last week, I talked about the premise that anyone can be a good person that I think ran through many of the readings, and I think this week's only strengthen that. In today's gloomy political/philosophical climate, it's nice to see people who are looked at as past greats going, "no, really, people aren't all stupid animals."

January 14th– The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

 No music tonight

The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

Summary: A lot of God, and I did not need to know that much about the selection of delegates in 17th century Connecticut.

Commentary: Short and dry today, so not a ton to say. The one thing that was interesting is the requirement that the Governor must be a member of an "approved congregation." One, we obviously don't have religious requirements for office anymore. Two, how do you get your congregation approved? Seems like a good way to create a pseudo-dynasty. Just only approve a very limited subset of congregations.

I looked up a few other early charters, constitutions, etc. for comparison. PA mentions God some, but much less. It explicitly says that anyone who believes in Jesus Christ should be eligible, with no other stipulations. Criminals explicitly get the right to witnesses and council. You still get to pass down your estate if you commit suicide (destroying yourself through melancholy). It's much closer to a modern constitution or whatever, with rights, etc. than the Connecticut one, which is more procedural (but also 75 years older, so probably not fair). The Mayflower Compact is only one paragraph long, more like a preamble to a longer document. 

January 13th– “Introduction on Taste” by Edmund Burke

 In hindsight, there are only so many good 18th century playlists on Youtube. It's also a pain to actually verify some of them are from when/where they say they're from.

"Introduction on Taste" by Edmund Burke

Summary: Edmund Burke explains how, because our senses all work the same, we should all have similar tastes.

Commentary: This was a very dense one. Lots of rereading and stuff. I almost never actually do these in 15 minutes (since I have to set up the blog, do commentary, etc.), but this one took especially long.

Overall, this was a decent piece. Mostly encouraging, and with some good lines:

All the natural powers in man, which I know, that are conversant about external objects, are the senses; the imagination; and the judgment.

This is a fun phrasing of the classical mind/body/soul, Freudian trio, etc. I think it makes it a little more concrete and easier to get a handle on than some of the more abstract versions. It's hard to go "well this is how my id feels about this..." but easy to say, "this is what I can see, taste, etc.," "this is what I think about those things," and "this is how I evaluate them."

This sceptical proceeding will make every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even that sceptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to entertain a doubt concerning the agreement of our perceptions.  

 If you can't believe in your senses, it's pointless to even think about anything else. I think this is an elegant disarmament of a lot of the "nothing is real/provable" philosophical issues. You gotta accept that things are real, and do you best with that hopefully accurate information, or you'll never do anything.

    On the other hand, I think he doesn't clearly distinguish his three elements (sense, imagination, and judgement) quite enough (or may there's a fourth). He allows some room for people to judge things differently based on their different experiences, but insists that all people's sense and imagination are more or less the same. We'll allow sense for now (obviously people can be color blind, have different degrees of hearing, etc.) but he insists that imagination is, "combining those images in a new manner, and according to a different order." I don't necessarily disagree with this idea, but it should be obvious that different people in different places, times, etc. grow up with different stimuli, which would change what they can rearrange. On a super basic level, the books, TV shows, etc. I was exposed to as an American kid in the 90s are totally different from his in Ireland in the 1700s.

Now the imagination is the most extensive province of pleasure and pain

This is true, and speaks so much to our love of fiction as human beings. Also why imagining creating is sometimes more alluring than actually doing the work to make something.

In the last third, he talks a lot about how it can be easier to enjoy things that you don't understand, which I agree with. We tend to be pickier about genres, mediums, etc. that we love and know a lot about because we can find flaws more easily or know how they "should" be. 

Finally, I appreciate in the next to last paragraph his not that art advances. I think we often get stuck in this thought that art has been degrading for decades, centuries, whatever. It's obviously not true, we just look up to the great art from the past and forget about the mounds of crap that have always existed. It's like a mass cultural nostaliga/survivorship bias.

January 12th– From Inquiries on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

 No music tonight :(

Horrible essay

Summary: Rousseau writes a long essay (this is only an excerpt!) about how man's natural and highest virtue is liberty, but only in the exact way he describes it.

Commentary: Much like Mezzini's "I'm going to tell you exactly how to tell you exactly how to be an individual," Rousseau writes at length about exactly how to be at liberty. He makes a long list of assertions with no evidence (and even sometimes say that things are so obvious that it would be ridiculous for him to offer any).

Not to beat a dead horse, but the invitation to respectfully disagree is one of the big appeals of the whole project. Ending the first paragraph with an out of nowhere assertion and saying disagreement would be, "a supposition too ridiculous to deserve I should seriously refute it," isn't living up to that ideal. The same thing happens over and over throughout the essay. This really contrasts with "Federalist 1." While I think that Rousseau and Hamilton would probably agree on a lot of things (they use similar logic to reach similar conclusions in some places), Hamilton's style is much more open to actually discussion policy. 

Rousseau also ping pongs a lot on what people can and can't want. All governments apparently begin voluntarily (the idea that someone could want a tyrannical government for any reason is apparently literally impossible) , but eventually become oppressive without the oppressed really knowing it. The idea that a government could be formed involuntarily (say by threats or conquest) is apparently impossible. Equally, people can't decide that they dislike their government and try to change it. If you somehow wind up with an oppressive government you clearly just don't know any better. It's like an extra shitty just world fallacy. 

I think my favorite bit of dis-logic is his assertion that," property I cede to another becomes...foreign to me, and the abuse of which can no way affect me." So, if I sell you something, I can't in any way be affected by your misuse of it. If I sell you a gun and you shoot me. Not abuse. If I sell you a car I love and you crash it, I can't be upset. It makes no sense.

He spends the first 3/4 or so of the essay arguing that all government is started consensually, and then finally mentions, "that everything returns to the sole law of the strongest," near the end. It seems to ruin the entire (misguided) thesis of the rest of the essay.

All in all, a very poorly constructed argument that doesn't really seem to even know what it wants to argue. Maybe better in a different translation, but I don't see myself going to find it.

January 11th– The Federalist Papers 1 and 2 by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay

 Probably not actually period appropriate music

ALEXANDER HAMILTON (and also John Jay)

Federalist 1 and 2

Summary: Hamilton and Jay each write an essay supporting the Constitution after the Articles of Confederation. Hamilton's is full of still intelligent political advise/commentary. Jay's is prettier, but either naïve or BS. Take your pick.

Commentary: I LOVE FEDERALIST 1! I think we read a couple small excerpts in social studies class, but nothing substantial. I wish we'd read more. Maybe it would've gone over my head at 15, but it's not that long and still resonates today. A few pull outs:

"The important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force." I think we're still more in the latter than the former, but I appreciate that he explicitly frames it as a an aspirational question.

Similarly, "unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected."

I am well aware that it would be disingenuous to resolve indiscriminately the opposition of any set of men (merely because their situations might subject them to suspicion) into interested or ambitious views. Candor will oblige us to admit that even such men may be actuated by upright intentions; and it cannot be doubted that much of the opposition which has made its appearance, or may hereafter make its appearance, will spring from sources, blameless at least, if not respectable—the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears.

So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy. And a further reason for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection that we are not always sure that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles than their antagonists. Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question. Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties. For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

I talked a little before about how the invitation for disagreement is one of the things I most admire about T5FSOB, and here it is directly in one of the readings. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're "bad", and just because someone does agree with you doesn't mean they're "good."

"We shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives." When someone tells you politics was better back then, they're lying.

History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

This is also a really fascinating quote. Is this true? If true, it says a lot about the populist movements around the world. I think it is, but I don't want to just agree because someone came up with a good quote for what I already believe.

 He talks about people saying, "thirteen States are of too great extent for any general system." I don't agree with this, but I do sometimes wonder (in regards to the local/state/federal power balance today) how the "size" of the country has been reduced by technology. We're more than 100 times bigger today, but you can get a message from Philly to LA faster than you could to opposite ends of PA in 1788.

Jay talks a lot about how united America is. No difference of language, religion, culture, etc. This is, obviously, bullshit. The Indians existed. The Pennsylvania Dutch existed. Catholics and Jews and Muslims existed. It's kind of hard to take the rest of the piece seriously after that, and it ontinues along much the same lines. He assumes America is perfectly united, and thus would be well served by being joined even closer. I lean Federalist (in so far as someone who lives 250 years later can) overall, but this is a poor argument. 

That said, he's not completely without merit. He makes the good point that the Articles of Confederation were kind scrambled together in rough circumstances, and that it shouldn't be a surprise that they had issues. 

"No less attached to union than enamored of liberty," is a great worker t-shirt quote.

Overall, we could probably have skipped Federalist 2, and still had plenty of good stuff to think about. Maybe there's another (Hamilton wrote like two thirds of them) one that could've been swapped in instead. Putting the rest on the to read list.

January 10th– The Bacchae by Euripides

Dionysus

The Bacchae

 Bold to say that a poet is, "generally regarded as the beginning of the decline of Greek tragedy," in your introduction, but here we are. Very short tonight, and kind of a pain to format.

Summary: Dionysus takes revenge on Thebes for not honoring as a god and talking smack about his mom.

Commentary: This one is four pages, and they're note even full pages because of the script formatting, so not a ton of commentary. It was fun. Plenty of good wordplay in the translation of Dionysus's intro. There's also a lot of "Lord" and "sinner", so I'm curious how accurate the translation is. I know that it used to be common to partially Christianize translations. It's interesting to see Dionysus in a wrathful mode here. Normally, we think of him as just being kind of fun and goofy. I'm sure that's more of a modern over simplification. Definitely one I'd like to read more of (and probably would tonight if I was feeling better) but probably in a different translation.

Extras To Read

 Just a little list of things that this journey has made me want to read. Maybe kept kind of up to date with some commentary? We'll see.

1. Anything by Ben Franklin

2. Paradise Lost It got a little better, but not much.

3. More of the Grimm tales

4. A more modern translation of The Bacchae

5. More Federalist Papers

6. Keats

7. More Divine Comedy

8. Polyeucte

9. Homer

10. Aeneid

11. Oedipus Trilogy

12.Don Quixote

13. Watch all the plays

14. Morte d'Arthur

15. 1001 Nights

16. Pepys

17. Longfellow

18. Spectator

19. Two Years Before The Mast

20. Compleat Angler

21. Francis Bacon 

22. I Promessi Sposi

23. Darwin

24. Renan Ireland

25. She Stoops To Conquer

26. Meditations

27. Hume

28. Kant

29. Faraday Candle

30. Machiavelli

31. Mabinogion

32. Thomas Hood

33. Whitman

34. Rousseau 

35. Harrison Dogs

36. Bacon Essays

37. Mills Liberty

January 9th– Sir Francis Drake Revived (compiled by Philip Nichols)

 Turn of the (17th) century music

Reading

Summary: Sir Francis Drake sneaks into a town and chases out the Spaniards, but is wounded. His men choose to save him (rather than the loot in the town) when Spanish reinforcements arrive. Fortunately, they had previously captured a ship full of wine, and manage to sail away with it.

Commentary: "Calling upon this dull or effeminate Age, to follow his noble steps for gold and silver." This is the reverse of "may you live in interesting times." I'm not sure how I feel about it. Gendered language aside, I think we could all afford to be a bit less dull and a bit more silver stepped.

This reading also has the excellent phrase, "even the fly hath her spleen," which I'm going to try to start using conversationally.

Beyond that, this is a fun little real life swashbuckling story. Two parts guts; one part smarts is the ideal plan ratio. I don't have a ton of insight (it's also pretty short), but I love a good age of sail adventure. There's entirely too many of them on my bookshelves, but it's cool to read a real life one.

January 8th– The Book of Job, Chapters 1-10

 No music tonight. It's late, and I'm not sure what I'd pick anyway.

The Book of Job

Oh boy, King James Bible time!

Summary: God makes a bet with Satan that, no matter how terrible he makes his life, God won't lose faith. Satan kills his family and destroys his farm, and then God gives him a horrible skin disease. Job sort of questions God in the end, but only to point out the futility of doing so.

Commentary: I think Job is very underrated as an example of  OT God as an abusive father/husband/just plain evil. We hear all about the flood, or that time he almost made Abraham sacrifice Isaac, etc., but most of those stories have at least semblance of justification and/or God "redeeming" himself in the end. Here, it's just straight up him being a dick for most of the book, then (after the end of the reading) chewing out all the humans for doubting him in the slightest, and sort of fixes things up with Job (by giving him a new farm and kids to replace the ones he murdered.)

I don't think we used Job much when I was in church as a kid, and it's easy to see why. I talked in my reflection on last week about how the best part of T5FSOB is the idea that anyone can be a good/smart person, and most people probably are most of the time. Job crushes that. Even the best people are completely clueless before God, and probably secretly evil in a way that they can't understand even if told about it. It couldn't be any less "liberal" (in the "liberal education" sense). Part of me wonders (I can't find any definitive information on his religion) if Eliot purposely chose such an outrageously repugnant selection as a subtle way of questioning traditional Christianity. I was a little surprised that it ended so early (we have no idea what happens to Job, if God restores him, etc.), but it would make sense to end "on a low note" if your goal is to make people question God.

Reflection on Week 1 (January 1-7)

This week's doc.
 
    I figure I need to take a moment now and then to reflect on how the whole project is going, and break up the doc so it's not 9001 pages. I was leaning towards monthly, but then the Aeneid was 50 pages, and weekly is probably better anyway.

Quick review on this week's readings:

1st Ben Franklin's Autobiography: 5/5 Mostly good advice, and well written. I've read excerpts from this a million times, but I started reading the whole thing last week. Ben Franklin is the guy every Medium/Substack writer wishes they were.

2nd John Milton Juvenilia: 3/5  It was really fun to see that high school poetry basically hasn't changed in 400 years. Unfortunately, that means its still bad. 5/5 for the experience, 2/5 for the writing. Creepily horny for baby Jesus. Going to read some Paradise Lost to see if he improves. 

3rd Cicero on Friendship: 4/5. Agreed with most of it, disagreed with a few parts. Writing in this translation is fine. What bumps it up to a 4/5 (for me) is that it's an ancient philosopher talking about people and not being a total downer. This is probably not that uncommon, but new for me. Go learning!

4th "Fisherman and His Wife" by the Brother's Grimm: 4/5 Slightly generic, but the way it's written/translated is fun.

5th Essay on Byron and Goethe by Mazzini: 1/5 It's just bad. Repetitive, whiny, contradictory. 

6th The Aeneid  by Virgil: 3/5 I'm a sucker for epic poetry, but there was nothing particular here that stands out compared to a good translation of Beowulf or The Odyssey. Might read more in a more modern translation at some point.

7th Introduction to The 1001 Nights: 4/5 Well executed frame story, iffy actual story.

Average: 2.9/5 Honestly, not a great start numerically. I think I'd rate the overall experience higher. Mazzini is really driving this down, but (as I talk more about below) you're "allowed" to disagree/dislike a piece is helpful. A better translation of The Aeneid would probably pull it up as well.

Overall thoughts on the project:

    I think the big thing that I took away from this week is how encouraging the entire idea of T5FSOB is. Any person, with some time and effort, can learn from these things, become a better person, etc. This was very much not the consensus of my formal post secondary education, which was that 90% of people are idiots, that that's impossible to change, and that your station in life, attitudes, etc. are determined by your identity. And  if you have some kind of a "contradictory" identity (atheist Hispanic, masculine gay man, etc.) then you just don't exist. The idea that any person (in fact, most people) is moral, can think, and make good decisions for themselves is refreshing. And probably true.

January 7th– Introduction to The Thousand and One Nights translated by Edward Lane

 Scheherazade

The Thousand and One Nights

Another one with a named translator! At this rate I'll just stop noting it at all. This one is apparently rather censored.

Summary: A prince catches his wife in bed with another man, kills them, and goes to hang with his brother. His brother's wife also cheats on him, and he also kills her. Then they go on a road trip and meet a woman who is cheating on the Efrit who is keeping her captive. They go home, and the one brother decides to just have one night stands and murder women after, until Scheherazade shows up and talks him into letting her tell him a story, which ends with a character telling a story.

Commentary: I love the entire meta concept of The Thousand and One Nights. It's one of the cleverest ways of framing what is, effectively, an anthology series. The progression from the initial Ass and Bull story between Scheherazade and her father, followed by the story of the merchant talking his way out of the Efrit killing him, which then leads to a story-within-a-story is a great way to commit to the bit from the get go. A big issue with a lot of heavily episodic/anthology style stories is how they often meander too much within unrelated internal stories before engaging with their own story. This is almost a lose-lose, since if the anthology stories are strong enough to stand on their own, then the frame story can slow things down and detract from them. If they aren't strong enough, then people won't follow long enough to get to the meta narrative. The Thousand and One Nights goes almost from the first line (after a bit of praising God/Allah that I assume was more or less requisite at the time), with a spicy soap opera cheating/murder scene on the second page. This also preemptively establishes the stakes for Scheherazade before she is even introduced. The king is very willing to kill women. In the next 10 pages we get multiple short stories that all link reasonably well to the main narrative, and the first cliffhanger. The only thing I would've liked is Scheherazade more explicitly signaling the end of night cliffhanger.

Some really weird stories, though. Not really sure why we needed that entire coda of the wife getting beat at the end of the Ass and Bull. Besides being offensive to modern sensibilities, it's just weird to tack an entire extra moral on at the end of the story. It'd be like if the Tortoise and the Hare ended with someone killing a bunch who squirrels who were watching to show you shouldn't gamble.

January 6th– The Aeneid- Virgil, translated by John Dryden

I was tempted to cheat a put "The Pines of Rome" here. 

The Aeneid

  FINALLY, ONE WITH THE ACTUAL TRANSLATOR CLEARLY LISTED! The version used here, by John Dryden, appears to still be reasonably respected, even if it's not the most popular.

Summary: Aeneas tells the story of the end of the Trojan war, and his origin story as he fleas Troy to eventually start Rome.

Comments: I love epic poetry, so when I saw this one coming up tomorrow I was excited. I appreciate Dryden keeping it in verse. While I do generally prefer prose to poetry, I think epics usually work better in the original form. I read The Iliad and The Odyssey in school, but not The Aeneid, so appreciate the chance to catch up. It's fun to see all the Greeks' names and think about how they've been referenced in pop culture since. 

We get plenty of good epic poetry dialogue. It's always so over the top. No one is ever just "sad" they're always tearing their clothes and stuff. The narration is dramatic too, of course, but the dialogue just sells it.

The gods make people blind/death/stupid a lot (same as The Iliad). 

I like Sinod telling his story (wish this version had line numbers), because you can just imagine Ulysses coaching him through it, making sure he gets mentioned enough times. He's probably listening in from the horse, angry that he forgot to say his name for the 17th time.

Not a ton of comments, relative to the length of the piece. This was a fun one, but I think I'd have to read more (possibly a different translation) to really dig in and critique it.

January 5th– “Byron and Goethe”- Giuseppe Mazzini

Tonight's reading

1800s Italian Organ Music

Byron and Goethe by Giuseppe Mazzini

    Trying a new archive tonight. Bartleby, which used to be a public domain archive until Barnes & Noble bought them. But they didn't scrub all the old stuff. They're nicely formatted like Gutenberg, and taken directly from the T5FSOB versions, so that's helpful.

Summary: A guy who has all the answers writes an essay about how bad individuality is.

Comments: I didn't love the Milton poetry, but I was willing to chalk that up to a matter of taste. This was just terrible. Repetitive and dramatic, it could easily have been cut in half (how many times do I need to reread some slight paraphrase of "people don't know what to do with their liberty" or "Byron is more X and Goethe is more Y." Always in italics. He likes his italics. He is from Italy.) and would still have probably felt over long. Ostensibly a critique of society's obsession with individualism, Mazzini's continued insistence that he knows better than anyone who disagrees with him feels contradictory at best, with constant insistence that his reading is the true "soul's eyes" reading, and all others are "superficial" idiots.

    On the other hand, a large part of the point of this exercise (and essays and philosophy in general) is to learn and challenge ideas, so it did have some value in that regard. I appreciate that one of the intros to T5FSOB explicitly gives the reader permission to disagree, and that engaging with ideas we disagree with is valuable: 

 The sentiments and opinions these authors express are frequently not acceptable to present-day readers, who have to be often saying to themselves: “This is not true, or not correct, or not in accordance with our beliefs.”

It is, however, precisely this encounter with the mental states of other generations which enlarges the outlook and sympathies of the cultivated man, and persuades him of the upward tendency of the human race.

I'm undertaking this project in part because I feel like the universities I went to were lacking, and this quote really sums that up. The main thing I learned in college is that you never question anything in college, because it's impossible for you to be right. The development of knowledge stopped X years ago when you professor got their degree, and things have only gone downhill since then. (I keep reading about this publish or perish thing, but many of my professors hadn't published anything in years.) Being actively encouraged to disagree and challenge ideas is refreshing.

And, while I don't care for the writing or attitude, I don't disagree with a lot of Mazzini's points. His points on unfettered capitalism are (if somewhat basic) the exact same thing people are saying today. And, while I haven't read much Goethe, I do enjoy Byron. 

January 4th– “The Fisherman and His Wife”- The Brothers Grimm

The doc

 Approximately relevant music

The Fisherman and His Wife- The Brothers Grimm

Summary: A poor fisherman captures (and very nicely releases) a magical fish prince. His wife makes increasingly greedy wishes until they wind up back where they started.

Commentary: Really enjoyed this one! I think this is the first time I've actually sat down and read a direct translation of a Brothers Grimm story, and not an adaptation of some kind.

This was also the first time I had to dig around to try to find the correct translation. Gutenberg's formatting is much better for copying and pasting, but they don't always have T5FSOB version. There was no specific translation listing that I could find, so after some research I went with one that was common at the time and seemed close. "15 minutes a night" indeed.

I like that the fish has a whole speech to ask to be let go, but the fisherman just goes, "you can talk, of course I won't eat you!" There's not enough respecting sapient animals in fairy tales. Also, very amused by a fish based wish gone wrong story. Fish are inherently silly, you can take any story and make it less creepy and more funny by making it about a fish (instead of a mummified primate hand). 

While it's obvious from the setup that the wife is going to wind up being greedy, the husband comes off harsh initially. She asks to live in a small cottage, not rule the world (yet), and he's all "she wills not as I'd have her will." Sorry she wants a house, man, she's allowed to want stuff. (He's probably a lousy lover.)

Of course, it only takes another page for her to devolve into cliché greed, while he turns into a pushover. Cicero would've told him that friends don't ask friends to abuse magical fish privileges.  She even says she'd go ask the fish herself. I think he'd be totally fair to say she can ask, but he doesn't want to.

I appreciate halfway though when he just says he doesn't want to be king. Way too much responsibility and/or not respecting others rights. I'm also curious why it's king and not queen for her. Maybe king is just more prestigious.

When she decided to be emperor, all I could think of is the classic God Emperor of Dune cover (the new foresty one is weak), but fish instead of worm based. 

The slow decay of the sea is such fun classic fantasy stuff:

1. Clear and calm

2. Green/yellow, "not smooth"

3. Purple/blue, grey, and thick

4. Dark grey, heaving, and putrid

5. Black, thick, boiling, bubbly, and "curdled" from the heavy winds

6. Somehow causes huge storm, leaves fall from the trees, ships sinking, mostly red sky

7. A tsunami that destroys houses.

Likewise, her cartoonish hair sticking out when she's mad near the end. It's just so fun and visual, even if unrealistic. It's a magic fish story, go nuts! Modern pop culture is so influenced classic cartoons/comics, but there's none of the style. 

I like the slight ambiguity in the ending. Is she being punished, is it a statement on the omnipresence of God, or both? I think it's intended mostly as the first, but I like it as both.

Finally, have a sweet illustration I found on Wikipedia by Anne Anderson:

I don't think I'd want to ask that fish for anything either.

Overall, a fine ATU-555. Why don't we have serial numbers for more modern plots and tropes? "Yeah, Battlestar Galactica is a pretty good QRJ-77 (searching for Earth), but I'm really a bigger fan of the QRJ-77a variant used by Planet of The Apes (it was Earth all along)."

January 3rd– Treatises on Friendship and Old Age- Cicero

 Today's excerpt

You Got a Friend In Me

Summary: Cicero explains why he values friendship, how friends should treat each other, and what is required for a strong friendship.

Commentary: I was excited when I saw this section. My exposure to the classical philosophers is fairly minimal, but I wasn't led to believe they'd bother with anything as "petty" as friendship. From what I read, I don't think most of them were likely to have many friends, since their writings were 90% complaining about everyone else in the world being an idiot. I suspect this is more my Intro to Philosophy prof's fault more than theirs. That's the point of this, isn't it? To read this stuff firsthand instead of skim it and rewrite whatever a professor said to get the gen ed credit.

I assume many others in the last hundred years have had a similar "stuffy" impression of the  philosophers, so having a nice personal piece early in the year as an introduction is smart. I also appreciate some light shit talking about prior philosophers and their "irritating" use of words differently than most people.

I was less enthused with Cicero's repeated insistence that friends need to be in agreement about everything. This is shortly after several paragraphs on how you have to be a good person to have friends, so I hope he's merely referring to "big" things like morals, not what kind of fish (the Romans ate a lot of fish, right?) you prefer. He later says its nearly impossible for friends to have complete wisdom of each other, which would make knowing you were in "complete accord" about everything impossible.

He then spends some times extolling the virtues of having and being a good friend, "How can life be worth living, to use the words of Ennius, which lacks that repose which is to be found in the mutual good-will of a friend?" Again, I appreciate the good will here.

I was amused, a page or so later, when he said he had nothing else to say about friendship. Today's selection goes on for several more pages, and only covers two thirds or so of the total piece. I skimmed the part after the selection ended, and found it mostly repetitive, but still amusing.

It was interesting to see how much of what he says is repeated today by self-help authors and the like. On the whole, I think his phrasing is generally more healthy/practical (people are good friends when they the like themselves vs you can't like other people if you don't like yourself).

I was amused by his anecdote about burning down the capitol if your friend asks. I don't really believe in unconditional love, and often ask my wife if she'd still love me if I was a serial killer. She is very sure I am not, and says that if I was I'd be deceiving her, which means she can stop loving me without it counting as conditional, since I am not the person she loved. I don't think I agree with her, but it's interesting to see modern questions repeating (backwards) in antiquity.

He follows this up by saying that you shouldn't be friends with anyone who asks you to betray the republic. On the one hand, I largely agree with not being friends with people who try to overthrow democracy. On the other hand, it's rare to see someone say "put loyalty to your country/government above loyalty to your friends." I think we all do so, whether we admit it or not, though the exact extent varies. For some people, it's even the opposite, they wouldn't want to be friends with you if you don't hate your country as much as they do.

In the next to last paragraph, he talks about needing to be honest, even sharply critical, with your friends if they are making a mistake and says you should listen to your friends when they do. I think we hear the first often today (even if we don't always practice it) but the second half is good advice as well that is rarely said.

January 2nd– School-Day Poems of John Milton (1624-1632)

 Reading and comments

Timely playlist

Summary: A couple poems about the birth of Jesus, a pair of psalms adapted into poems, and a bonus poem about dying on vacation.

Commentary: I am not a poetry fan. I have slowly come to appreciate it a bit more as I've gotten older, but I still prefer prose. I did learn they tend to go better if you read them aloud. Nothing in tonight's selection is going to change that. Tonight's poems were all written when Milton was in his teens or early twenties. Crappy horny-hipster poetry has not changed at all in 400 years. Seriously, I have never read a hornier poem about Jesus in my life.

There's some really forced rhymes (unsufferable with council-table). There's a "wisard" with sweet-odours, which is funny to read, and an Angel Quire, which is a great character name.

I remember reading an article once about how Paradise Lost is the world's most successful fanfiction. You can see that in Milton's earlier work, which are just fan poems about the gospels, and rewrites of the plasms. One of the first things I wrote in elementary school were retellings of Sherlock Holmes radio plays that I listened to with me dad, so I can relate. 

Throughout, there are references to gods and figures from other religions. I feel like this was common up until 20 years ago or so. All the classical authors drop a reference to Apollo three lines away from ones to Moses, and it was a staple of old school fantasy and sci-fi. Don't see it much anymore though. I feel like Christian references are fairly rare outside of explicitly Christian writing, and explicitly Christian writing rarely mentions other gods, because that'd be heresy (idolatry? blasphemy?)

Honestly, I could've lived without all of tonight's "assigned" reading, but I did enjoy the extra poem I tacked on at the end, "On The University Carrier Who Sickn'd In The Time Of His Vacancy, Being Forbid To Go To London, By Reason Of The Plague"

That "Of The Plague" at the end is funny (black death humor!) and it's a much more interesting and compact poem.

Where are we all on prose vs poetry vs script here? Drop a line in the comments.