Chartres Cathedral. Dante.

Boot of Italy

Having thought of Chartres Cathedral and Dante for more decades than I can remember, I consider it a blessing  that he chose to guide me there. The Queen of Heaven, to whom I prayed as a child, found me, I hope, not entirely unworthy of her grace and mercy, though we human beings, from that perspective, are always undeserving. Europe, a hallowed tale, in colored glass.

One always wonders how to go on. How from here. But one does somehow. Through the labyrinth. On one’s knees.

Back in London, so soon. Outside Westminster Abbey.

Frederick Glaysher

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Job. Hebrew Poets. Baal.

An Ash Heap of Moon Dust

An Ash Heap of Moon Dust

It took months of study, thought, reflection, and prayer, but I found my way forward, rose from zazen on the lunar platform, spoke with Job on an ash heap of moon dust. The Hebrew poets of Andalusia widened the perspective, with Hanagid directing Yehuda Halevi to guide me below to Mt. Carmel and Elijah’s slaughter of the prophets of Baal. Dante lifted the Persona from that scene of horror, flying up the boot of Italy, into Europe….

Frederick Glaysher

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Ben Jonson. Bartholomew Fair.

Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson

Having seen Antoni Cimolino’s production of Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair a few weeks ago, I find myself continuing to think about it. A rare play rarely played, Jonson’s comedy, like Shakespeare’s, offers its audience a serious vision of life in all its plenitude, letting the hot air out of everyone. Cimolino gives the play a marvelous interpretation, bringing it to life for our own time. After seeing the play, it was a shock to learn that the Stratford Festival production was the first performance in North America. Bartholomew Fair deserves to be much better known….

Now available in

The Myth of the Enlightenment: Essays
Forthcoming, September, 2014.

https://www.earthrisepress.net/myth_of_the_enlightenment.html

Frederick Glaysher

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The American Scholar – Decline of the English Department

Having read The American Scholar for probably over thirty years, I could only feel the most seething contempt for the Autumn 2009 article by William M. Chace, “The Decline of the English Department: How it happened and what could be done to reverse it.”

I found myself repeatedly thinking while reading it, is this all you can come up with? What do you expect? The American English department is thoroughly sunk in doctrinaire nihilism and cynicism, as are all of the humanities, indeed, modern culture. We don’t believe there’s any value, meaning, or purpose to life. Who in their right mind would want to spend their lives studying the idiocies that the humanities have given themselves to over the last decades? I didn’t in the 1980s when I found myself subjected to bumbling fools prating about Derrida and the End of Everything, while composition “specialists” were busy draining off, in their own way, anything worthwhile to write about. Clearly fewer and fewer young people are interested. Good for them. There’s hope after all. Unfortunately, that leaves most of them grossly illiterate and nescient about human civilization. But that’s what you ultimately get when you have coercion of conscience by tutors, clerks….

Now available in

The Myth of the Enlightenment: Essays
Forthcoming, September, 2014.

https://www.earthrisepress.net/myth_of_the_enlightenment.html

On the American English department, also see my post For All Humanity.

Frederick Glaysher

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