“>
Today is St. Thomas’ Day, and is the 980th anniversary of the death in battle of Erling Skjalgsson, hero of my novel, The Year of the Warrior.
This evening they are holding a commemorative concert at Sola Church, near Stavanger. Wish I could be there.
On an entirely unrelated note, I’ve complained about Earthlink customer service enough times that justice demands I should make it public that I actually had a good experience with them last night, when I finally had to call about my connection problems. I only spent about a minute in call waiting, and the customer service rep got me connected again in about five minutes.
Neat coincidence. Just half an hour or so before checking the blog and seeing your entry about Erling, I watched again your 2002 guest lecture at Mayville State University. There should be some way it could be put on the Internet — it’s really good. I intend to play about two minutes of it (right about 37 minutes into the tape, which featured remarks by three other speakers before you took the lectern) to my Shakespeare students in January, to orient them about an honor/shame culture. Of course Christianity moderated this way of thinking and feeling, but you can see that there was certainly a strong element of honor/shame in secular society, and I think grasping this is really important for the way the opening of King Lear goes. When Cordelia does not go along with her father’s little “program,” of having each daughter proclaim publicly her great love of him, but says she loves him as she should, no more — she “shames” him, she makes him look a bit silly, publicly, and of course he’s terribly upset. But moreover, I think Cordelia too was feeling shamed, by the ridiculous remarks of her sisters (perhaps especially Regan), and the unbecoming way her father had behaved in setting up this thing to begin with. Her reaction is not just legitimate moral disapproval of hypocrisy, but acute embarrassment of how her family members are acting in really an undignified way. So I think, anyway.
I never thought of Lear that way, but I can see it. Definitely.
Reading and thinking about Lear and this shame-culture thing reminded me of some rhyme I’d seen somewhere, and I tracked it down; the epigraph to a late (the last?) novel by John Buchan, Mountain Meadow/Sick Heart River. It’s supposedly a “Proverb of Alfred”:
Hast thou a woe?
Tell it not to the weakling,
Tell it to thy saddle-bow,
And ride singing forth.
One one level that seems pretty fine to me. But of course there’s that shame-culture thing, that one is a superior person. You convey that well in your books, the attraction of the old viking dignity that, at its best, refrained from our own time’s dreadful cheapening of the heart by making displays for the gratification of others (talk shows in which people talk about their marital problems, etc.), and also the anti-Christian quality of pride, etc.
I thought about that “telling woe” a bit. Often our woes are connected with our sins. Christianity provides both for the need to “tell” (confession to your pastor) and the need for dignity and decency.
True, I think, but there’s also a prudential element involved. I would compare it to Stonewall Jackson’s dictum, “Never take counsel of your fears.” For a warrior, especially a leader whose decisions, good or bad, will cost men’s lives, it’s necessary to operate as if you were certain of success, regardless how you may feel. It’s something you owe your followers.
…. I checked back and I hadn’t quoted the “proverb” word for word.
Incidentally, that Mountain Meadow was quite a good book.