Relational Evangelism & the Great Texts

What works of literature are on your “I really should read” list? Something by Austen, Dickens, or Dostoevsky? Or maybe Augustine, Shakespeare, or Faulkner?

I stare at my copy of Dante’s Vita Nuova and say to myself,” Maybe this summer I’ll finally finish it.”

Ellesmere Chaucer, Huntington Library

What keeps us from reading the great works of literature? Professors in the humanities continue to lament that today’s college students are not only not reading the great books in classes, but they’re seldom taking humanities classes period. Elizabeth Corey in a recent article in First Things attempts to address this major problem of the so-called crisis in the humanities by proposing the partial solution of mentoring and relational “evangelism.”*  

As Corey points out, the great texts are there “ready to be picked up.” In fact, “anyone can read them at any time and, if one is ready, harvest what they have to offer.” Never has this been more true than now, when electronic versions (PDF scans, e-texts, Kindle books) are available to readers 24/7.

Yet, we likely all agree with Corey that “these books are far from easy, and they often quickly end up back on the shelf. I cannot count the number of eager freshmen,” she says, “who have told me they wanted to get a head start on Plato’s Republic before reading it in class. I do not think a single one has ever successfully made it past Book 1. Nor do I blame them” (43).

I suspect that this anecdotal statistic extends to sophomores, juniors, seniors, and even grad students. I dare say it occasionally extends to professors. How many times have I picked up (true confessions) a Great Text for summer reading, whether Homer’s Iliad or William Langland’s Piers Plowman or Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, and not finished it? Would I have finished that work had it been required reading for a course or a group? Yes. Would I have finished it had I been sitting under a professor or even been part of a reading group of my peers? Yes, but what’s more, experience suggests that with the guidance of an instructor and/or peers I would have come away with more insight into and appreciation for the work.

This is the point that Corey comes to in her article: “[A]lmost all of us,” she states, “. . . require more than bureaucratic exhortation or the abstract knowledge that the study of humanities is important. More is required even than strong personal desire and a sense of incompleteness.”

“We need a particular person to tell us about a particular book or author or field of study, to demonstrate its significance in practice, to act as a master to whom we can apprentice ourselves,” says Corey. “We must, in quasi-religious terms, be evangelized so that we come to desire what we see and to understand it as beautiful, compelling, worthy of pursuit. We must see why it is worth loving” (43).

I think this is so true, even if there’s not quite the master/apprentice relationship. In my classroom of anywhere from 5 to 30, I am trying to help my students see why the great works are worthy of pursuit and worth loving. How many of them would have picked up Chaucer in Middle English on their own? Answer: maybe 1-2 per large class. And yet so many will come to appreciate and even enjoy reading Chaucer after grappling with the text with guidance, instruction, and discussion.

Milton’s Paradise Lost would not be one of my favorite texts today had I not first read it under the direction and instruction of a good professor. Neither would Laurence Sterne’s 18^th-century novella A Sentimental Journey (a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek work which I now greatly enjoy inflicting on my own students). My hope is that my students will come not only to see why that particular text is worthy of pursuit, but come to desire such qualities in the other things they read.

And according to Corey, this takes a personal connection.

* Elizabeth Corey, “Learning in Love,” First Things (April 2014): 41-46.

“Christmastide”

For Christmas this year, I returned to a few poems by Christina Georgina Rossetti, sister of a famous Pre-Raphaelite painter* and a prolific poet in her own right. Her most famous poem is “A Christmas Carol,” which many know by its first line, “In the bleak midwinter.” However, Rossetti’s lovely poem “Christmastide,” from the 1880s, has also been set to music:**

Love came down at Christmas,

    Love all lovely, Love Divine;

Love was born at Christmas,

    Star and Angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,

    Love Incarnate, Love Divine;

Worship we our Jesus:

    But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,

    Love be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and all men,

    Love for plea and gift and sign.

As often in Christina Rossetti’s religious poems, the words are simple, but the theology may go a bit deeper. At Jesus’ birth, the star marked the place and the angels conveyed the verbal message, but the poet asks in the second stanza what shall be the sign we today use to celebrate Christ’s birth? (“Wherewith” in the 16^th-century Geneva Bible and in Shakespeare is occasionally used to mean “with what?” But it can also be short for “wherewithal,” that is, the means needed for a particular purpose.***)

The poet answers her question in the third stanza: “love” will be that sacred sign, “our token.” A token can be a badge worn to indicate allegiance to a particular person. Scripture indicates that love should be what sets Christians apart and identifies them with the Lord (John 13:35).

A token can also be something to be exchanged for goods or services, and, as the Oxford American Dictionary states, that token is typically given as a gift. Christ was the love of God given to mankind: “Love Incarnate, Love Divine” (line 6): fully man (in a human body) and fully God (divine). This is one gift we can “exchange” for the justification before God that Rossetti alludes to in the last line: “Love for plea” (an appeal or entreaty).

The 3 stanzas of the poem emphasize the “Godhead” (Trinity) we worship, as well as the three “uses” in the last line of the Love/love that came down at Christmas.

Rossetti emphasizes Christmas as a holy season through the old-fashioned word “tide” in her title: “Christmastide” suggests a church feast day.*** Stanzas two and three reflect the communal aspect of a festival day through the first-person plural pronouns: “we” and “our.” Line 10 moves from the previous line’s collective “our” (together, facing outward) to the celebrants’ facing each other and “exchanging” love in the way that congregants exchange greetings. Line 11 then moves back, and further, outward, giving God’s love back to him and extending that love to all mankind (cf. 1 John 4:7-21).

God’s Son, the personification of Love, came down at Christmas, not just to be the center of the beautiful nativity story believers celebrate in crèche and chorus, but to be the gift we lift back up as our plea before God and our sign to all mankind.

*Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painter and poet

**See, for instance, a partial list of settings at http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/love_came_down_at_christmas.htm

***See the Oxford English Dictionary

Herbert’s “Justice” (Part One) (GH #35)

As I was looking for a sample George Herbert poem to practice analyzing with my class this semester, I came across a little-known, short poem called “Justice (1).”* Contrary to what one might expect of a poem by that name, Herbert’s “Justice” opens with the speaker’s complaints about God’s seeming injustice to him. The poem then takes a confessional turn as the speaker realizes that he has been the one acting unjustly toward God:

I cannot skill of these thy wayes.

Lord, thou didst make me, yet thou woundest me;

Lord, thou dost wound me, yet thou dost relieve me:

Lord, thou relievest, yet I die by thee:

Lord, thou dost kill me, yet thou dost reprieve me.        

                           But when I mark my life and praise,        

                           Thy justice me most fitly payes:

For, I do praise thee, yet I praise thee not:

My prayers mean thee, yet my prayers stray:

I would do well, yet sinne the hand hath got:

My soul doth love thee, yet it loves delay.        

                           I cannot skill of these my wayes.

Pre-Raphaelite window, Huntington Library, CA

  

In “Justice (1),” Herbert demonstrates his skill in creating a deceptively simple, yet densely rich, poem about his lack of “skill” in understanding the justice of God’s “wayes” with him.

To begin, the poem is deceptively simple. It’s quite short (12 lines), a majority of the words are monosyllabic, and the frequent repetition of words or phrases adds to this simplicity.

The first stanza, where the focus is on the Lord’s actions (“Lord, thou dost”), contains smooth, winding parallelism in lines 2-5. For instance, the end of line 2 about wounding is picked up at the beginning of line 3, and then the end of line 3 is revisited at the beginning of line 4.** In the italicized portions of both stanzas, each line is divided into half lines via a compound sentence and a comma. (This strong break in the middle of the line is called a “caesura.”)

The repeated beginnings of lines 2-5 (“Lord, thou”) and their interwoven parallel lines create a smooth flow, marred only by the meter of lines 3 and 5. The smoothness of the first stanza suggests that the Lord’s actions have been constant, or at least consistent, toward the speaker. Lines 3 and 5 have in common that they are the “positive” actions of God toward the speaker: relieving and reprieving (as opposed to wounding and killing/causing the speaker to die). Unlike the smooth pentameter of lines 2 and 4, these two lines have an extra syllable. I suggest that Herbert prolongs the lines here to emphasize how God prolongs the speaker’s suffering by offering him times of relief, only to wound him again later.

While the two stanzas may at first glance look similar, there is a significant alteration in form between the two. For instance, while the parallelism and half-lines remain (lines 8-11), the interweaving ceases in stanza 2, where the poet’s focus is no longer on the Lord’s actions, but on his (the speaker’s) own failures. At last, he evaluates himself, his “life and praise” (6). The “straightforward” lines (e.g., “My prayers mean thee, yet my prayers stray” [9]) seem to indicate Herbert’s speaker is finally being “straight,” or honest, with himself: he has not been living up to expectations, and indeed his sense of “justice” has “strayed” (9), or been off the “mark” (6).

I’m only halfway done with my analysis of “Justice (1),” having looked at form, but hardly at content. Like the Psalmist, Herbert’s speaker cries out to the Lord with his grief and his grievances. Living in our finite moment in time, how can we understand the Lord’s greater purposes, His infinite “wayes”? Herbert’s little poem reminds us in those times of trial to “mark” ourselves before we question the appropriateness of God’s justice. ***

To be continued. . . .

  

* Because Herbert gave the same titles to several poems in The Temple, editors have added numerals after the titles (based on the order in which the poems appear) to create a clear differentiation between the poem titles. For instance, Herbert has two poems called “Justice,” five called “Affliction,” and so forth. Sometimes the poems are clearly related, as when “H. Scriptures (2)” immediately follows “H. Scriptures (1),” but sometimes the only relationship might be a loose thematic connection. 

** See Herbert’s “The Wreath” for another example of interwoven lines.

*** Just another reminder to students (and others) that all written work contained in my blog, unless otherwise indicated, is my intellectual property and to be cited accordingly. Thank you.

Science Finally Demonstrates That Reading Great Books Is Good for You

Ah, what would we do without science? Without science, how would we know that boys are different from girls, that parenting is stressful, or that reading good literature improves our imaginative abilities?

Or, as The Atlantic puts it in the title of their October 4^th news article: “Now We Have Proof Reading Literary Fiction Makes You a Better Person.” So, were Aristotle and Sir Philip Sidney right?*

Of course, long-time readers of good literature know that their exposure to “literary fiction” (as opposed to “popular fiction”) has helped develop their ability to imagine what other people in other places, other times, or other situations might experience. This ability to imagine other experiences, and therefore to empathize, is what the researchers of an article published this month in Science Magazine have focused on.

Others have recapped the findings in news articles, so here are links to The Atlantic and Scientific American. In the series of experiments, adults were given readings from what the authors call “literary fiction” (“serious” fiction? what might be contained in a literature anthology?), from “popular fiction” (including formulaic or genre fiction), and from non-fiction. While popular fiction, as Scientific American attempts to explain, tends to “follow a formula to take readers on a roller-coaster ride of emotions and exciting experiences,” good literature makes readers use their imaginations to explore the more complex characters and situations it presents.

I am immediately reminded of C. S. Lewis describing in An Experiment in Criticism the way “unliterary” and “literary” readers read books.

Sir Walter Scott monument, Edinburgh

The unliterary reader (these are his terms) looks for what Lewis calls “the Event,” with a capital “E.” Unliterary readers, says Lewis, “lack the attentive and obedient imagination which would enable them to make use of any full and precise description of a scene or an emotion. On the other hand,” he continues, “they lack the fertile imagination which can build (in a moment) on the bare facts” (chap. 4). In other words, the unliterary reader only wants a swift-moving plot, easy-to-figure-out (formulaic) characters, and an emotional high. The unliterary reader, therefore, has no tolerance either for in-depth description/character psychology/complexity or for that which is not explicitly spelled out and therefore calls for more subtle reading.

The literary reader enjoys the complexities of well-drawn characters and plots, as well as the way in which these elements are conveyed. It’s not that the literary reader doesn’t like the plot points and emotional experiences that come with a good story, Lewis hastens to clarify, but that the literary reader enjoys “the fullness of literary experience” (including elements of style), while the unliterary reader only looks for and enjoys “the Event” (chap. 4).

I notice that Lewis focuses on a developed imagination as one of the key differences in his two categories. It is this imaginative sympathy (or empathy) with others that Kidd and Castano focus on in their article “Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind” in Science Magazine. The ability to place ourselves in others’ shoes through an empathetic imagination “is a crucial skill that enables the complex social relationships that characterize human societies,” explain Kidd and Castano. And this study demonstrates that the “polyphonic”** nature of good literature exercises our imaginations to develop this skill.

But it is not only our relationships with those in our own society that are at stake. As Lewis reminds us in A Preface to Paradise Lost, it is our experience of our own humanity, as well as our relationship to human history, that can be affected by what we read and the way we read it: “To enjoy our full humanity,” says Lewis, “we ought, so far as is possible, to contain within us potentially at all times, and on occasion to actualize, all the modes of feeling and thinking through which man has passed. You must, so far as in you lies, become an Achaean chief while reading Homer, a medieval knight while reading Malory, and an eighteenth century Londoner while reading Johnson” (chap. 9). Lewis elaborates in other works on why it is good for us to have an understanding of humankind from the past. See, for instance, Screwtape Letters (letter XXVII) and the essay “Learning in War-Time” from The Weight of Glory.

Reading about Kidd and Castano’s research leaves me with many questions: Did they primarily use modern and contemporary “literary fiction”? In other words, might their results be different if participants were given poetry or even prose that pre-dates the psychological novel? After all, complexity of character and scenario have not always been the driving force of good literature. I have not yet finished reading the actual science article (as opposed to the journalistic simplifications), so I may re-visit the topic.

Kidd & Castano’s study shows how good literature can do what popular fiction and nonfiction often can’t. As Lewis stated so well 50 years ago, “[W]e seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves. . . . We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own” (Experiment “Epilogue”).

 

So, want to become a better person? Go read some Austen or Shakespeare!

* For instance, Aristotle in the Poetics on the benefits of tragic drama and Sidney in his Defense of Poesy.

** A term they borrow from Mikhail Bakhtin. Lewis had previously compared the many notes and “voices” of more complex musical pieces with the type of literature that a literary reader can enjoy, while an unliterary reader (who is only interested in the “tune”) does not (Experiment chaps. 3-4).  

Protecting Others' Reputations

In reading Beowulf for the umpteenth time to teach it in my survey class this semester*, I am struck yet again by a repeated theme: a good man (or woman) speaks well of others, covering over their weaknesses if needed. In Seamus Heaney's beautiful, although not very literal, translation of the Old English epic poem, he chooses to use the word "courtesy" to describe right behavior (for instance, in line 613 to describe Wealtheow's proper behavior as queen). The word is not an Old English one, and probably conjures up something more like the chivalric court of King Arthur than an Anglo-Saxon mead-hall, but it gets the point across.

inside the little Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon

I'll cite three instances in the poem of protecting someone's reputation (particularly when there's a weakness to gloss over). The first is when Beowulf is able to defeat the God-cursed monster Grendel when Hrothgar the king (either through his own might or through that of his men) cannot. This could be a "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands" moment (1 Samuel 21:11). But it's not. Instead, the Beowulf poet notes that when the heralds spread the news of Beowulf's conquest of Grendel, "there was no laying of blame on their lord, the noble Hrothgar; he was a good king" (861-2). In other words, they manage to both praise foreign hero Beowulf and protect the reputation of their (the Danes') own king.

The second example is after Beowulf has fought and killed Grendel's Mother. In an effort to make up for insulting Beowulf upon the Geat warrior's arrival in Hrothgar's realm (an example of discourteous behavior), Unferth has lent Beowulf his ancestral sword. This sword, Hrunting, has failed Beowulf in battle--or, rather, regular swords don't seem to work against the scaly skin of these monstrous creatures. Upon return from the (successful) battle, Beowulf doesn't disparage the sword (which would reflect badly on its owner). Instead, he thanks Unferth for the loan. Beowulf "said he had found it a friend in battle / and powerful help; he put no blame / on the blade's cutting edge" (1807-12). In other words, Beowulf tells Unferth, "thank you so much for the help," and leaves it at that. He covers over Unferth's sword's/Unferth's weakness.

The third instance is the one that I'd forgotten about, and that is after what basically amounts to Beowulf's failure in the battle against the dragon. In his old age, and against a fire-breathing foe, Beowulf has found himself outmatched, his own sword this time failing against the dragon's scaly hide. The only reason this foe is conquered is that a young hero, Beowulf's distant cousin Wiglaf, steps up to join in the struggle, plunging his own sword into the dragon's belly (always a more tender spot) and weakening the dragon enough to allow Beowulf's knife to finish the job. Spoiler alert: Beowulf dies from his wounds. Yet, when Wiglaf, immediately afterward, tells what happened in his battle, he puts Beowulf's deeds at the forefront and his own in the background:

. . . God who ordains
who wins or loses allowed him [Beowulf] to strike
with his own blade when bravery was needed.
There was little I could do to protect his life
in the heat of the fray, but I found new strength
welling up when I went to help him.
Then my sword connected and the deadly assaults
of our foe grew weaker, the fire coursed
less strongly from his head. . . . (2874-82)

In other words, Wiglaf subtly protects Beowulf's reputation as the consummate warrior, while Wiglaf is the helper against "our foe." He doesn't emphasize how Beowulf would have been toast (both literally and figuratively) had he, Wiglaf, not joined in the fight.

In these examples of protecting others' reputations, not only am I reminded of the Bible's commands not to gossip or slander (how we tear down others' reputations) (Colossians 3:8), but of the truth that love covers over a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8) and of the exhortation to consider others as better than yourself and their interests before your own (Galations 2:3-4).

How can some people think Beowulf is just a story about fights and feasting with no relevance to contemporary life? . . .

* This is an "old book" that is truly a great work. It gets better and better each time one reads it in that there are more things to notice, to appreciate, etc.

Defining Moments on My Academic Path (GH #34)

What follows is a brief talk I shared yesterday with the College of Arts & Sciences faculty at my university, and, of course, it involves literature. :-)

Path through gardens, Scone Palace, Scotland

I grew up loving books.

My mom often read to me when I was little. And by the end of elementary school I was making weekly runs to the library, filling my arms with a stack of books that reached up to my chin. It was a pattern that, more or less, continued up through high school.

When it came time to decide on a major for college, and I visited the school that would become my undergraduate university, I met with a professor to whom the “undecided” students were often directed. I can see now why. Her advice to me was “major in what you love.” So I did: I majored in English, and I’ve never regretted it.

The summer after my sophomore year, I went on a six-week trip with Greater Europe Mission to teach English as a Foreign Language in Latvia. At age 20, I barely knew what I was doing in the classroom, but it was an excellent experience overall.

After that, I knew I wanted to become a professor.

These were the defining moments that led to my choice of discipline.

In grad school at Baylor University I immediately discovered the richness and depth of medieval & Renaissance literature, of poetry, and especially of the devotional poet George Herbert.

It may come as a surprise to some of my colleagues that my doctoral dissertation was a gender studies approach to George Herbert’s poems. It was a lengthy academic exercise, with a critical approach that did not focus much on what I had fallen in love with about Herbert’s poetry—the faith-filled richness of it and the resonance with human experience and the Christian life.

At my dissertation defense, my 3^rd reader—from Baylor’s religion department—was very perceptive. She asked about my topic, “Did it feed your soul?”

The answer was “no.” This defining moment, at the very end of my schooling, was an influence on my choice of approach to my academic discipline.

That approach is to point toward what we can see in literature that “feeds the soul”:

·      truths of human experience and of the spiritual life that remind us that all truth is God’s truth;

·      the beauty of image, or phrasing, or sound that reflects God’s beauty; and

·      the goodness toward which imaginative literature has the power to move perceptive readers.

The opening stanza of George Herbert’s poem “The Elixir” encapsulates the way I hope to approach my life as both scholar and professor:

     Teach me, my God and King,

     In all things thee to see,

And what I do in any thing,

     To do it as for thee (1-4)

  

It took a while, but I have slowly been redeeming my dissertation, carving out portions, reworking them, and publishing them as pieces that will, I hope, gently guide readers to set their sights on things above.

Under Contract (GH #33)

"Light of the World" by William Holman Hunt, Keble College, Oxford

How often do we pay attention to what words could mean? Most of us go for the most obvious or first definition that comes to our minds. The English language has such linguistic richness to it, yet sometimes we miss that richness. I've been digging into George Herbert's poem "Christmas," and, in reading it for the hundredth time, I suddenly thought about one of the words: "contracted." I'll quote the stanza, the closing sestet (6 lines) of the sonnet that forms part one of "Christmas":

  O Thou, whose glorious, yet contracted light,

          Wrapt in night's mantle, stole into a manger ;

          Since my dark soul and brutish is thy right,

      To Man of all beasts be not thou a stranger :

          Furnish and deck my soul, that thou mayst have

          A better lodging, than a rack, or grave.*

I've always read the word “contracted” (first line above) in its meaning of "condensed": God's great glory shrunken to fit into human form in the Incarnation. His "glorious ... "light" drawn into the flesh, blood, & mind of a smaller, lesser being.

But in what other potential ways could the light of God be "contracted"? Why had I never seen the word "contract" contained within "contracted"? So obvious! Time to turn to the Oxford English Dictionary.

For those not familiar with it, the OED is extremely helpful in that it not only gives definitions the word has had over time, but it supplies examples of historical usage of the word. This way I can check to see what meanings the word would have had during Herbert's time of the late sixteenth & early seventeenth centuries, but also examples of how it was used.

So, the word "contracted" in Herbert's time indeed had the meaning of "agreed upon by contract." Now this opens up a new meaning to Herbert's sestet about the Incarnation. Contract: or how about a more familiar word for us: covenant. The New Covenant is an unconditional covenant between God and man that Christ came to fulfill and that he instituted at the Last Supper.

Let me go even further with the now-obsolete definition of "contracted": "agreed upon." What about the Triune God having agreed amongst the 3 persons to establish this new contract to replace the old? (See Herbert's poem "Redemption" for his metaphor of this replacement of old with new.) What about Jesus Christ having agreed to fulfill the New Covenant, not just before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20), but in the Garden of Gethsemene on the eve before: "not my will, but Thine be done" (Matt. 26:39)? I love how Milton's Paradise Lost pictures the Son's agreement in the salvation plan. In Book 3, the Son of God stands up before all Heaven and offers himself as the substitute for mankind: “Me for him, life for life / I offer. On Me let thine anger fall” (3.236-7).

So we have “contracted” as “condensed” (also “shrunken” or “narrowed”) and as “agreed upon by contract,” but we're not done with definitions. Another definition of the adjective "contracted" used in Herbert's time is "betrothed," a theologically rich idea. Christ the Bridegroom is betrothed to his Bride, the Church. The Incarnation of the Son of God anticipated, set into motion by instituting the Church, the ultimate happily-ever-after wedding between the Lamb and his righteous Bride (Revelation 19:7-8). Reflecting on the holiness of Christ and his great sacrifice in both putting aside his divine glory to take on human flesh and bearing the weight of our sins upon the cross, the speaker in “Christmas” feels keenly his own unworthiness: his “dark” and “brutish” soul (line 3 above). Therefore, he asks that his soul be redecorated by the Lord to be a fit place of habitation for God’s glorious light.  

* You can find Herbert’s poem “Christmas” on Luminarium’s Herbert page: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/christmas.htm