Oh, Minos, or Rhadamanthus, or Persephone, or by whatever name you are called, I am to blame for most of this, and I should bear the punishment. I taught her, as men teach a parrot, to say, ‘Lies of poets,’ and 'Ungit’s a false image.’ I made her think that ended the question. I never said, Too true an image of the demon within. And then the other face of Ungit (she has a thousand) … something live anyway. And the real gods more alive. Neither they nor Ungit mere thoughts or words. I never told her why the old Priest got something from the dark House that I never got from my trim sentences. She never asked me (I was content she shouldn’t ask) why the people got something from the shapeless stone which no one ever got from that painted doll of Arnom’s. Of course, I didn’t know; but I never told her I didn’t know. I don’t know now. Only that the way to the true gods is more like the house of Ungit … oh, it’s unlike too, more unlike than we yet dream, but that’s the easy knowledge, the first lesson; only a fool would stay there, posturing and repeating it. The Priest knew at least that there must be sacrifices. They will have sacrifice—will have man. Yes, and the very heart, center, ground, roots of a man; dark and strong and costly as blood. Send me away, Minos, even to Tartarus, if Tartarus can cure glibness. I made her think that a prattle of maxims would do, all thin and clear as water. For of course water’s good; and it didn’t cost much, not where I grew up. So I fed her on words.
This is the Fox speaking, the beloved Greek tutor of Orual, the protagonist of C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. These are among his last words in the novel.
I post them here in answer to a question I have been getting rather often lately. Some of my long-time readers have been wondering whether I have lost interest in writing (perhaps even in thinking) about theology. I have not; nor have I substantially changed any of my core beliefs. But I have come to suspect my own theological glibness. Indeed, I am generally prone to glibness, but if I’m glib about information technology or the merits of the anti-Stratfordian case, that doesn’t matter very much. Theological glibness is a more serious matter. I am not taking a sabbatical from thinking theologically, but I am taking one from writing about what I’m thinking. I am pursuing other interests — or rather, I am pursuing the same old interests with the explicit theological inquiries kept to myself, at least for a while to come. I am neither good enough nor smart enough nor wise enough to pontificate about many things I have pontificated about in the past. I need to back off and learn to be silent — if not about everything, or even many things, then about the most important things.
questions to ask your local anti-Stratfordian
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You argue that William of Stratford couldn’t have written The Plays because he was too poorly educated, while The Plays demonstrate great learning. Are you willing to argue this position consistently? John Keats had an extremely limited literary education, but nevertheless wrote poems that demonstrate a pretty high level of learning — or did he? Would you claim that substantial self-education is impossible? If so, what explanation would you give for the apparent existence of gifted autodidacts like Benjamin Franklin, William Cobbett, and Abraham Lincoln, not to mention many of the world’s greatest scientists, and for the presence of undoubted literary genius and great learning before formal education was widespread? And if there are people of great achievement who have benefitted from little or poor formal schooling, why couldn’t William of Stratford be one of them?
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In supporting the claim that the Earl of Oxford wrote The Plays, you argue that only a member of the Elizabethan court could understand its workings so thoroughly. But you are not a member of Elizabeth’s court, which (according to your own logic) means that you do not understand its workings: so how do you know whether The Plays demonstrate deep inside knowledge or, rather, offer a tissue of misunderstandings and false assumptions? You assume that The Author “got it right”: do you have any evidence that in fact he did? Also: are you willing to argue this position consistently as well? Given how powerfully War and Peace recreates the social and military conditions of Russia during the Napoleonic Wars, must we conclude that the novel was written not by Leo Tolstoy but by an aristocratic Russian soldier who lived decades earlier? If we need not draw that conclusion, why not?
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In further supporting the claim that the Earl of Oxford wrote The Plays, you assert that many episodes and phrases in them are covertly keyed to topical events and events in the life of the Earl. Do you have any particular reason for thinking that The Plays are both topical and autobiographical? Are all plays (and other works of literature) topical and autobiographical? Were topical and autobiographical plays the order of the day in Elizabethan and Jacobean England? Is Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist either topical or autobiographical, or both? What about Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi? How can you tell?
Just asking.
The rejection of science seems to be part of a politically monolithic red-state fundamentalism, textbook evidence of an unyielding ignorance on the part of the religious. As one fundamentalist slogan puts it, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” But evangelical Christianity need not be defined by the simplistic theology, cultural isolationism and stubborn anti-intellectualism that most of the Republican candidates have embraced. Like other evangelicals, we accept the centrality of faith in Jesus Christ and look to the Bible as our sacred book, though we find it hard to recognize our religious tradition in the mainstream evangelical conversation. Evangelicalism at its best seeks a biblically grounded expression of Christianity that is intellectually engaged, humble and forward-looking. In contrast, fundamentalism is literalistic, overconfident and reactionary.
There’s some truth to this, of course, but — forgive the griping — it’s deeply annoying to me. First, it doesn’t say anything that Mark Noll didn’t say in 1994; and second, the only reason it’s in the NYT is that it flatters the prejudices of the readership. A more nuanced view of evangelicals, like the one Alan Wolfe wrote for the Atlantic some years ago, would never run in the NYT.
The problem here actually has little or nothing to do with evangelicalism per se: it’s the long-standing know-nothingism of American populism, which comes in varying religious and not-so-religious flavors, has connived at the evisceration of American public education, and makes millions of Americans unable and unwilling to understand evidential arguments. Blaming the evangelicals is cheap and easy, especially for evangelicals. The real issue is far larger and deeper, and its consequences can be seen even in New York City itself — and there are versions of it overseas as well, though not always populist ones. The very same intellectual flabbiness that makes some people trust Answers in Genesis makes others believe that the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s plays.
The poster has a genealogy, and it’s instructive. Two years ago, the same theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet was advertised as Shakespeare’s. But last year, the playhouse hosted an interview with Germany’s foremost Oxfordian, the publisher and essayist Kurt Kreiler, and after that interview, things changed. Kreiler’s book, Der Mann, der Shakespeare erfand (The Man who Invented Shakespeare), which largely rehearses the same arguments as the major Oxfordian publications in English, appeared in Germany last year, was widely reviewed, and received a very warm critical welcome. With academic Shakespeareans leaving the field largely to journalists, the “mystery-like” appeal of Kreiler’s narrative seemed to matter more than its credibility. And in the virtual absence of a serious scholarly dismantling of Kreiler’s arguments and assertions, they have begun to attain the kind of cultural authority that makes it possible for theatres to present Shakespeare’s plays as someone else’s without so much as an asterisk alerting audiences to the controversial nature of the claim.
All of which makes me think that we can’t afford to ignore the anti-Stratfordians anymore. Worse, it makes me think that it’s not enough to deconstruct the intellectual basis of their projects, as Shapiro did so brilliantly in Contested Will. I fear we will actually have to engage with what they consider evidence; we will have to explain, in venues and formats as popular and widely available as those used by the anti-Stratfordians, why their claims don’t make sense; and we will have to be much more robust in our presentation of the facts. I don’t find this an intellectually stimulating (let alone rewarding) prospect, nor do I think there are many constructive conversations to be had. I also don’t relish the thought of having to spend any of my time in the company of Charles Beauclerk’s writings. But if we don’t take part in the public discussion, if we don’t carefully detail our own position and debunk the supposedly skeptical point of view in as accessible a language and manner as the other side, we risk losing by default. Silence will be interpreted as defeat or, worse yet, consent.
The most troubling thing about “Anonymous” is not that it turns Shakespeare into an illiterate money-grubber. It’s not even that England’s virgin Queen Elizabeth is turned into a wantonly promiscuous woman who is revealed to be both the lover and mother of de Vere. Rather, it’s that in making the case for de Vere, the film turns great plays into propaganda. …De Vere is clear in the film about his objectives: “all art is political … otherwise it is just decoration.” Sony Pictures’ study guide is keen to reinforce this reductive view of what the plays are about, encouraging students to search Shakespeare’s works for “messages that may have been included as propaganda and considered seditious.” …
By bringing this unsubstantiated version of history to the screen, a lot of facts — theatrical and political — are trampled. Supporters of de Vere’s candidacy who have awaited this film with excitement may come to regret it, for “Anonymous” shows, quite devastatingly, how high a price they must pay to unseat Shakespeare. Why anyone is drawn to de Vere’s cause is the real mystery, one not so easily solved as who was the true author of Shakespeare’s plays.
Hollywood Dishonors the Bard - NYTimes.com
Breaking news: There are no limits to human credulity or our ingenuity to doctor and/or ignore evidence.
“So we aren’t any closer to unification than we were in Einstein’s time?” the historian asked.Feynman grew angry. “It’s a crazy question! … We’re certainly closer. We know more. And if there’s a finite amount to be known, we obviously must be closer to having the knowledge, okay? I don’t know how to make this into a sensible question…. It’s all so stupid. All these interviews are always so damned useless.”
He rose from his desk and walked out the door and down the corridor, drumming his knuckles along the wall. The writer heard him shout, just before he disappeared: “It’s goddamned useless to talk about these things! It’s a complete waste of time! The history of these things is nonsense! You’re trying to make something difficult and complicated out of something that’s simple and beautiful.”
Across the hall Murray Gell-Mann looked out of his office. “I see you’ve met Dick,” he said.
I love infographics like this as much as the next guy, maybe more than the next guy, but let’s face it: they’re posters. The only way they really work is if you print them out at 2’ x 3’, which of course no one is going to do. What I want to see more of is infographics designed for the internet, like this. Yeah, it’s a little busy, but it’s clearly made for the computer screen. We need more stuff like that and less like the NPR chart.
Writers are defined, in large measure, by what they can’t do. The mass of things that lie beyond their abilities force them to concentrate on the things they can. “I can’t do this,” exclaims the distraught Mother-Writer in “People Like That Are the Only People Here,” Lorrie Moore’s famous story about a young child dying of cancer. “I can do quasi-amusing phone dialogue. I do the careful ironies of daydreams. I do the marshy ideas upon which intimate life is built …” From the sum total of these apparent trivialities emerges a fiction which succeeds in doing precisely what it claims it can’t.Or take a more extreme example: Franz Kafka. Was ever a writer so consumed by the things he couldn’t do? Stitch together all the things Kafka couldn’t do and you have a draft of War and Peace. The corollary of this is that what he was left with was stuff no one else could do – or had ever done. Stepping over into music, wasn’t it partly Beethoven’s inability to conjure melodies as effortlessly as Mozart that encouraged the development of his transcendent rhythmic power? How reassuring to know that the same problems that afflict journeymen artists also operate at the level of genius.
How to write fiction: Geoff Dyer on freedom | Books | guardian.co.uk
I think this is profoundly important for young artists and intellectuals to know. Similarly, a story I often tell: when he was a young trumpet player in New York, Miles Davis was so intimidated by Dizzy Gillespie that he almost gave up music. He knew he could never match Dizzy’s virtuosity, his speed, his brilliance of tone. So Miles became the anti-Dizzy. He played slowly, using few notes; he tried to avoid vibrato, instead creating a thin, clean tone; he often played with a mute. The result: The Birth of the Cool.