Recently Consumed:

Tacitus: The Histories

As tedious and uninteresting as I found Tacitus' annals, I was surprised to become so involved in this volume. I attribute this to several factors:

Tacitus died writing the Histories. They are therefore shorter.

My attention span has improved since I read the Annals one year ago.

I came up with a cool pnemonic for the order of the Caesars: All the Caesars can never grow old! I intended to continue the sentence to include the entire parade of Caesars, until I realized that there were hundreds of them. These are the important ones, and I got bored, so I stopped.

Unlike the Annals, the History fits into my historical database nicely. As a child, I had certain dates and names drummed into my head, as they pertained to Biblical content. For instance, Sergius Paulus laid siege to Jerusalem, only to be called away.This gave the Christians, who were privy to prophecy, time to escape before Titus came back and levelled the place. What I didn't know at the time was the historical context of these events. The gherman tribes were rebelling, and the troops wree needed elsewhere. After Vespasian consolidated his power, his son (and successor) Titus was at liberty to deal with the Jews, of whom Tacitus say, ". . . their other customs, which are at once perverse and disgusting [no doubt referring primarily to the act of circumcision], owe their strength to their very badness" (V.5). Not only does Tacitus demonstrate the light in which the Romans held the Jews, he also sheds a bit of light on the enduring puzzle of Moses' punishment int he wilderness. In relating the history of the Jews, he records, " . . . they had sunk in all directions over the plain, when a herd of wild asses was seen to retire from their pasture to a rock shaded by trees. Moyses [sic] followed them, and, guided by the appearance of a grassy spot, discovered an abundant spring of water" (V.4). Although this does not entirely clear up the matter, it adds valuable information that was inconveniently left out of Genesis.

Tom Stoppard: Dirty Linen/ New Found Land, Dogg's Hamlet/Cahoot's Macbeth

I can think of no better description of Dirty Linen and the play within it, New Found Land, than Stoppard's own, which I have previously used to frame his entire oeuvre: " . . . the thing defines itself in practice first and foremost as recreation. This seems satisfactory."

As for the latter pair, It feels as though Neil Simon had a love child with Vaclav Havel. Stoppard's brilliant idea of taking Wittgenstein's theories about language to thier natural conclusion exemplifies what I think of his best work. In this and such other plays as Hapgood and Jumpers, he pokes fun at Philosophy while explicating philosophy in a genial and hilarious manner. Also of interest is his habit of plays within or beside plays, unrelated to each other and yet complementary. It is just simple entertainment, after all.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: The Princess

Oh, William Schwenk Gilbert, you old rascal. Who else would think to dramatize a poem of Tennyson's? And I didn't even realize until I read it that "The Princess" is the source of Gilbert's "Princess Ida". However, as much as I love Gilbert and Sullivan--more than sushi, but not as much as sour cream--it is more Neil Simon than William Shakespeare: cute but shallow. This source material, on the other hand, could keep me busy for months. I could write a term paper on this. In fact, I give Princess Ida credit for rekindling a love of reading in me, as opposed to reading something simply to have read it.

Whenever I read Tennyson, my cheeks flush as though I've been drinking Port and suddenly tried to stand up. The lines are so delicious, so rich, than I can only take so much before it goes to my head and my faculties dull. The lines are addictive, however, so I continue to read, filling up with ideas that may never fully find expression. For instance, three things caught my eye about "The Princess". For one thing, Tennyson goes to great lengths to set things in threes. To a certain extent, One feels it is natural. there are, after all, three graces, three fates, etc. so it does not feel out of place at first. But Tennyson takes it beyond simple congruity. The lady Psyche inherits three castles. The students take a three year vow. Homer, Plato and Verulam are compared with Elizabeth, Joan and Sappho. "With Ida, Ida, Ida rang the woods" (IV.413). "On me, me, me the storm first breaks" (IV.478). The pattern is so recurrent as to border on the heavy handed, and one cannot help but wonder what Tennyson's point is.

Likewise, the the musical interludes that punctuate the various sections of the poem seem out of place. While the narrators iterate the virtues of women, their female counterparts sing mainly of childbirth, a topic barely touched in the body of the poem. What could be the point of that? And what is the recurring image of the fountain about?

The answer to all of this comes in another seemingly out of place item. WherIn fact, the answer almost always comes from something that seems out of place. I think I'll teach that to my students: if you trust the author, look for something that doesn't fit in. Herein lies the key to "The Princess":

"At last
[Ida] rose upon a wind of prohecy
Dilating on the future: 'everywhere
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,
Two in the tangled business of the world,
Two in the liberal offices of life,
Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss
Of science and the secrets of the mind" II.153-160).

Heretofore, Tennyson has been seemingly obsessed with threes. They have been everywhere, seriously. And now he switches to twos for one brief moment; surely, meaning is afoot! Examining Ida's little speech more closely, one realizes that she thinks of perfection as an equal partnership, a duo, a team of two. Perhaps Tennyson disagrees with his eponymous creation. Perhaps he thinks of perfection, not as a sterile coupling, but as a trio: woman, man and child. The unnamed Prince (Gilbert christens him Hilarion) suggests as much to Ida when he speaks of "what every woman counts her due, / Love, children, happiness" (III.229ish-- I lost count). Ida's response is to call him a savage, but Tennyson is clearly on Hilarion's side throughout. Ida is a sympathetic, well-meaning but misguided character. Hilarion is the real hero. After all, what is a fountain without issue?

While these themes are interlaced throughout the poem, they are by no means the only thing wirth noting. I could write a treatise on this, easily. The idea of love dwelling in the valleys, in the shadows of life smells particularlly rich at first glance. But I am not in college right now, so nyah. Write it yourself.

BTD: 24, although this measure has become a bit meaningless.