June 11– “The Epithalamium” by Edmund Spenser (1594)
Summary: Mawwiage!
Commentary: This is the second or third time this year (not counting BURNSSSSSSS!)where the spelling in a selection was just so out there that I had trouble reading it. But, I'm not spending half an hour listening to a poem I don't know much about, so I made my way through. It wasn't worth it. Overwritten love poem #9001.
Back on time!
Quick review on this week's readings:
June 3 On The Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animal by Harvey: 2/5 This one was kind of dry compared to the other science ones we've had.
June 4 Edgemont by Goethe: 3/5 Plays with crossbows!
June 5 The Wealth of Nations by Smith: 4/5 Rent is like the bad version of the invisible hand.
June 6 Two Years Before The Mast by Dana: 3/5 Boats, boats, boats.
June 7 Hamlet by Shakespeare: 3/5 Not the best scene in Hamlet, but Hamlet none the less.
June 8 Journal of John Woolman : 3/5 Stop abusing poor people!
June 9 Psalms: 2/5 The least bad Bible selection so far.
Average: 2.86/5 Pretty good week.
Overall Thoughts on The Project:
The combination of Smith and Woolman here is interesting. We've talked before how Adam Smith wasn't really the the borderline ancap he's often portrayed as today. While the section on rent in TWON doesn't condemn it, it doesn't make much of a positive case either. Woolman, on the other hand, is flirting with some outright socialism. No way to know if this is wholly intentional, but it's easy to make a rather radical reading of a lot of the selections in T5FSOB.
When given the option, I always pick the play versions with crazy masks.
June 10- From Oedipus The King by Sophocles (~429) translated by E.H. Plumptre
Summary: Once again, violating hospitality ruins everything.
Commentary:
Filling his couch, and calling his wife mine,
He wrote this too.He wrote this too.
June 8– From The Journal of John Woolman (1774)
Summary: Slavery bad! Rich people should take better care of poor people!
Commentary: There's a page long footnote! Other than that, it's amazing how little class consciousness has changed in 250 years.
Which paradise // do you prefer? ("Gangsta's Paradise" is on the very short list of songs where I like the original as much as I do the Weird Al)
June 9– David’s Psalms, American Standard Version translation (1901)
Summary: Songs about God Jehova.
Commentary: I feel like the psalms are in general under appreciated, at least in modern mainline Protestant Christianity. You sing one between the readings, and... that's it? I don't think I've ever heard a sermon that focused on the psalm, maybe a little mention here and there. It's also interesting how heavily the intros and other related material in T5FSOB emphasizes the Hebrew character of The Old Testament/Psalms. I feel like that's something that gets kind of ignored in a lot of modern discourse. They're not (originally) books that Christians and Jews share, but Jewish books that Christians decided to accept.
I like that lovingkindness is all one word, since it's one word in the Hebrew I guess? Google even accepts the spelling as correct.
The scene, with Patrick Stewart!
June 7– Hamlet Act IV Scene V by William Shakespeare (1600)
Summary: It's Hamlet, without Hamlet!
Commentary: Hamlet "pretends" to go crazy, but his girlfriend is the one that goes crazy. Sad. (It's too late, and I'm too tired, to have anything profound to say. It's been a very busy week.
June 6– From Two Years Before The Mast by Richard Dana (1840)
Summary: Guy has a nightmare, and the weather is bad.
Commentary: The incident in the reading guide snippet is about a guy screaming in the middle of the night. Everyone panics, until they realize he was just having a nightmare, not overboard. This is one of those things that's totally realistic, but hard to get away with in fiction (he'd have to wake up from his nightmare and have the giant shark leap onto the deck and eat him or something).
Aside from that, anything with this many almost incomprehensible nautical terms is right up my alley.
