All posts by philwade

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The Great Books Alone Are Not Enough

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Patrick J. Deneen, the Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, argues that teaching the Great Books is essentially worthless if the teacher treats them all as equally true.

contemporary arguments on behalf of the Great Books are often as pernicious, and even indistinguishable from, the forms of value relativism that they purport to combat. Many conservative academics have become lazy in the defense of the Great Books, content to let the phrase stand in for a deeper and potentially more contentious examination of the various arguments within those books and the West itself, and of the need for university faculties to provide some kind of organized and well-formed guidance to students on how best to approach these texts.

In short, teachers must have a bias for the truth in order to guide students through these great works. Reality must be recognized in the classroom. Because if an interest in ideas, no matter how ridiculous, is the highest virtue for a teacher, it barely matters what he is teaching. The outcome will be similar. Students will believe their own opinions are the only ones that matter, regardless their merits.

Poetry

Out of Light We Make a Dwelling

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Poster for National Poetry MonthThis year’s National Poetry Month promotional art quotes from this poem.

“Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour”

by Wallace Stevens

Light the first light of evening

In which we rest and, for small reason, think

The world imagined is the ultimate good.

This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.

It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,

Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:

Within a single thing, a single shawl

Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,

A light, a power, the miraculous influence.

Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.

We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,

A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.

Within its vital boundary, in the mind.

We say God and the imagination are one.

How high that highest candle lights the dark.

Out of this same light, out of the central mind,

We make a dwelling in the evening air,

In which being there together is enough.

Poetry

A Little John Keats

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April is National Poetry Month, and I’m told today is No Housework Day. The day may be a Web Rumor from those crazy guys who writing everything on the Interweb. Regardless, this is poetry month, so here’s a bit of Keats.

“On leaving some Friends at an Early Hour”

Give me a golden pen, and let me lean

On heap’d up flowers, in regions clear, and far;

Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,

Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen

The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:

And let there glide by many a pearly car,

Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,

And half discovered wings, and glances keen.

The while let music wander round my ears,

And as it reaches each delicious ending,

Let me write down a line of glorious tone,

And full of many wonders of the spheres:

For what a height my spirit is contending!

’Tis not content so soon to be alone.

Authors

Tatjana Soli on Story Types

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Tatjana Soli has her first novel in The Lotus Eaters. She writes about writing and her story on BookTrib:

What interested me about Vietnam was the impact that it had on lives — the lives of my characters, but also in a general way on the country as a whole. Life keeps on being lived — people fall in love — during and after war. It’s one of the ways we preserve our sanity as human beings during difficult times. A number of American soldiers stayed behind after their tour of duty was over. Many fell in love with Vietnamese women and had families. Many wanted to help a country that was being devastated by war. Is this a man’s or a woman’s story?

Authors, Writing

J. Mark Bertrand Interviewed by Octopus

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J. Mark Bertrand has a two-part interview on writing and shifting genres on Boxing the Octopus, which looks like a blog I should follow. Here are a couple quotes:

I don’t believe in “writing what you know,” but I do think it’s sound advice to write what you’re good at. For me, that’s turned out to be crime. The art of storytelling doesn’t change from genre to genre, and I’m more interested in telling a good story than a good genre story, if you see what I mean. The conventions are there, and for the most part I respect them, but at the end of the day I’m making use of the genre to tell a certain kind of tale about the detective as existential seeker and skeptic.

From the second part, Kathryn Paterson notes, “I find your suggestion of writing a 50-paged treatment prior to drafting to be daunting, but fascinating.” Mark replies:

In the film industry, a treatment is a summary–more detailed than a quick synopsis, but not yet a fully realized, scene-by-scene script–that communicates the rough contours of the story. Some are more detailed than others, but since Dan was convinced the problem with most of us young novelists was that we didn’t know our stories well enough, he recommended writing a fairly detailed treatment before starting. For writers who don’t like to stick with an outline, this advice can be liberating. Writing the treatment helps you to discover the story.

Fiction, Publishing

Editors Talk Christian Fiction Trends

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Publishers Weekly has a panel discussion of editors from Christian publishers, talking about trends in Christian fiction. Issue-driven books are waning a little. Romance within closed communities is big now. Speculative fiction is still being read.

Barbara Scott of Abingdon said, “Calling a novel ‘chick lit’ seems to be the kiss of death these days in publishing, but if an author is interested in writing about younger characters, it can be done by deepening the story. Pure fluff is out; authenticity is in.”

Uncategorized

Download L'Abri Fellowship Recordings

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Now, we can download recorded messages from L’Abri Fellowship on their well-organized site. Hundreds of lectures are available with more being added.

And if you like the spoken word, look into the selection at Reformed Audio. Ryan Jankowski and Benjamin C. Richards appear to have good readings of weighty stuff by several dead white guys, so you know it’s got to be good. [Thanks to Mike Johnson for both links.]

Poetry, Religion

"Thou hast appointed repentance unto me"

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O Lord, Almighty God of our fathers,

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of their righteous seed;

who hast made heaven and earth, with all the ornament thereof;

who hast bound the sea by the word of thy commandment;

who hast shut up the deep, and sealed it by thy terrible and glorious name; whom all men fear, and tremble before thy power;

for the majesty of thy glory cannot be borne,

and thine angry threatening toward sinners is importable:

but thy merciful promise is unmeasurable and unsearchable;

for thou art the most high Lord,

of great compassion, longsuffering, very merciful,

and repentest of the evils of men.1

Thou, O Lord, according to thy great goodness hast promised repentance and

forgiveness to them that have sinned against thee:

and of thine infinite mercies hast appointed repentance unto sinners,

that they may be saved.

Thou therefore, O Lord, that art the God of the just,

hast not appointed repentance to the just,

as to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,

which have not sinned against thee;

but thou hast appointed repentance unto me that am a sinner:

for I have sinned above the number of the sands of the sea.

My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied:

my transgressions are multiplied,

and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of heaven

for the multitude of mine iniquities.

I am bowed down with many iron bands,

that I cannot lift up mine head, neither have any release:

for I have provoked thy wrath, and done evil before thee:

I did not thy will, neither kept I thy commandments:

I have set up abominations, and have multiplied offences.

Now therefore I bow the knee of mine heart, beseeching thee of grace.

I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge mine iniquities:

wherefore, I humbly beseech thee, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me,

and destroy me not with mine iniquities.

Be not angry with me for ever, by reserving evil for me;

neither condemn me to the lower parts of the earth.

For thou art the God, even the God of them that repent;

and in me thou wilt shew all thy goodness:

for thou wilt save me, that am unworthy, according to thy great mercy.

Therefore I will praise thee for ever all the days of my life:

for all the powers of the heavens do praise thee,

and thine is the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

“The Prayer of Manasseh,” written 200-100 B.C., as translated in the old King James Bible

1 Or “relenting at human misfortunes”

See more notes and a different translation of this ancient poem.

Religion

Luther on Meditating on Christ's Suffering

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Martin Luther (1483-1546)

[Some] so sympathize with Christ as to weep and lament for him because he was so innocent, like the women who followed Christ from Jerusalem, whom he rebuked, in that they should better weep for themselves and for their children. Such are they who run far away in the midst of the Passion season, and are greatly benefitted by the departure of Christ from Bethany and by the pains and sorrows of the Virgin Mary, but they never get farther. Hence they postpone the Passion many hours, and God only knows whether it is devised more for sleeping than for watching. And among these fanatics are those who taught what great blessings come from the holy mass, and in their simple way they think it is enough if they attend mass. To this we are led through the sayings of certain teachers, that the mass opere operati, non opere operantis, is acceptable of itself, even without our merit and worthiness, just as if that were enough. Nevertheless the mass was not instituted for the sake of its own worthiness, but to prove us, especially for the purpose of meditating upon the sufferings of Christ. For where this is not done, we make a temporal, unfruitful work out of the mass, however good it may be in itself. For what help is it to you, that God is God, if he is not God to you? What benefit is it that eating and drinking are in themselves healthful and good, if they are not healthful for you, and there is fear that we never grow better by reason of our many masses, if we fail to seek the true fruit in them?

… St. Bernard was so terror-stricken by Christ’s sufferings that he said: I imagined I was secure and I knew nothing of the eternal judgment passed upon me in heaven, until I saw the eternal Son of God took mercy upon me, stepped forward and offered himself on my behalf in the same judgment.