Web censorship and the Google cache

I never ceased to be amazed by the power of the Google cache:

Following up on a note from David Ker, here is a post from Dave Walker that was removed from his blog but is still in the Google cache:

July 22nd, 2008

‘Cease and desist’ demand from Mark Brewer

This morning I was sent a ‘cease and desist’ demand from Mark Brewer relating to the posts I have made about the former SPCK bookshops. The demand says ‘Confidential - not to be redistributed or posted’, so I am not posting the text.

The demand says that if I do not remove all SSG-related material by noon today, July 22, 2008, an injunction will be sought against me and legal action taken for damages for libel.

I have therefore removed all of the SPCK/SSG posts on this blog, as, although I believe I have not done anything wrong I do not have the money to face a legal battle. The removal of these posts is in no way an admission of guilt.

To say I am not happy about the decision I have been forced to take here is an understatement. I feel as if I have let many people down who have relied on this site over the last year or more.

I am not allowing comments on this post, though I can be contacted as usual. I cannot of course stop you writing about this elsewhere.

Here is the complete set of cache links for the removed articles.  Since this matter has formed a great deal of discussion, particularly in light of a tragic suicide, perhaps someone on the Web will archive these posts.  Nothing anyone can do to stop that:

1. Posts from June 11 to July 8, 2008
2. Posts from April 19 to June 10, 2008
3. Posts from February 27 to April 3, 2008
4. Posts from February 5 to 27, 2008
5. Posts from December 5, 2007 to February 4, 2008
6. Posts from October 11 to November 30, 2007
7. Posts from May 3, 2006 to September 30, 2007

If you wish to see an example of how easy it is to restore pages, I highly recommend using the Resurrect Pages add-on to Firefox.

 

Excellence in calisthenics

The Yakitori Jiisan is a dance from Fukushima Prefecture in Japan that has become popular around the Internet because of how funny it looks.  But it also looks like good exercise!

Sefer ha-Bloggadah blogging line-up

One of the more exciting blogging projects I am involved with is Sefer ha-Bloggadah – a group reading and study of Bialik and Ravnitzky’s The Book of Legends (Sefer Ha-Aggadah).  (See here for advice on purchasing this book in Hebrew or English.)

I am happy to say that our coordinator, BZ, has published the blogging line-up and schedule.

• Monday:  Marisa Harford & Sara Meirowitz

• Tuesday:   Jonah Steinberg & Howard White

• Wednesday: Chillul Who & Benjamin M.*

• Thursday:  Drew Cohen*, Iyov, & Neil Litt 

• Friday:  Alana Suskin, David Wilensky

• Shabbos/Sunday:  Bruce, Diane Klein, & Steve

• Coordinator:  BZ*

(* = also blogs at Jewschool)

However, not everyone will contribute each week, and some people will contribute extra articles.  It should be an exciting experiment.

Blogging begins on August 25, 2008.  See you there!

Don’t let this happen to you

Even though it is the summer:  Post.  Comment.  Link.

Booyah

A comment by ClooJew found to a DovBear post:

“Lulei demistafina, the cry ‘Booyah!’ is actually ‘Iyov’ backwards, indicating that one wishes upon himself the reverse of Job's travails.”

Liberal disinvited to hold visiting chair at U. San Diego

Inside Higher Ed is reporting that liberal theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether was first appointed to a visiting chair at the University of San Diego and then saw the offer rescinded after a conservative e-mail campaign. 

Rosemary Radford Ruether is a feminist theologian at the very liberal end of the spectrum.  She is an emeritus faculty at  Claremont Graduate University and previously at the Graduate Theological Union and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.

The announcement of her previous position can be found on this Google cached web paged (current version, cached version):

The chair as it has played out to date has been, in the department’s view, immensely successful. Students, faculty, administrators, and the entire university community have benefited from having senior theologians present to us in the classroom and at the lecture podium, down the corridor, in social engagements, and in mentoring and advising roles. The professorship has raised our national, indeed international, profile and created a circle of friends in the highest levels of theological scholarship, eminent colleagues who consider themselves close to the department and the university.

The Rev. Thomas O'Meara has been appointed to the Portman Chair for the academic year 2008-09. In 2009-10, our Portman Professor will be Rosemary Radford Ruether.

In the Inside Higher Ed article, the author states:

In an interview, Ruether said that she was strongly recruited by the university for the position. She said that she has more invitations than she can handle, but that she agreed to the visiting chair after faculty members attended a lecture she gave, and spoke about how much they wanted her to teach. Terms were negotiated and the announcement was made, she said. Subsequently, she said, Provost Julie Sullivan called her and explained that the theology department “had not consulted with the donor and the donor had a different vision” of the chair, so the offer to Ruether was being rescinded. (The donor is anonymous, according to a university Web site.)

“This is obviously a case where the faculty were not able to ask the person they wanted to ask because of ideological bias,” Ruether said. She added that her academic freedom would not be affected because she would continue to write what she believes, but she said that the academic freedom of San Diego faculty members had been hurt by having her appointment blocked. She said that “it’s their academic freedom being denied,” when the faculty have appointments vetoed just for being controversial.

Lance Nelson, chair of the theology department and the person who recruited Ruether, declined to talk about the situation and said that only the provost could talk about the matter. The provost did not respond to e-mail messages. Pamela Gray Payton, a spokeswoman for the university, confirmed via e-mail that upon “review of the specific purpose of the Monsignor John R. Portman Chair in Roman Catholic Theology, the University of San Diego is no longer considering the appointment of Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether as the 2009-2010 chair holder.” Payton added that Ruether was “never officially appointed” to the position.

LifeSiteNews.com, which had previously urged Catholics to call the university to oppose Ruether, is praising the university’s latest action and urging readers to write the university to express support.

Overly interpretive translations

Eccl 11:1-2 reads

שלח לחמך על־פני המים כי־ברֹב הימים תמצאנו׃

תן־חלק לשבעה וגם לשמונה כי לא תדע מה־יהיה רעה על־הארץ׃

Here it is in the KJV and NJPS versions:

KJV:  Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. 

NJPS:  Send your bread forth upon the waters; for after many days you will find it. Distribute portions to seven or even to eight, for you cannot know what misfortune may occur on earth.

Now, this is clearly evocative, and it can be interpreted in a number of different ways -- but remarkably a number of translations wish to "pre-interpret" the text for you.  They want to shove particular interpretations down your throat.

GNT: Invest your money in foreign trade, and one of these days you will make a profit. Put your investments in several places — many places, in fact — because you never know what kind of bad luck you are going to have in this world.

NLT 2:  Send your grain across the seas, and in time, profits will flow back to you. But divide your investments among many places, for you do not know what risks might lie ahead.  (Also includes footnote with Hebrew reading)

TNIV:  Invest in Many Ventures:  Ship^ your grain across the sea; after many days you may receive a return.^ Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.

NCV:  Boldly Face the Future:  Invest what you have, because after a while you will get a return. Invest what you have in several different businesses, because you don’t know what disasters might happen.

NIrV:  Be Bold:  Put your money into trade across the ocean. After a while you will earn something from it. Give shares of what you earn to a lot of people. After all, you don’t know what great trouble might come on the land.

The Message:  Be generous: Invest in acts of charity. Charity yields high returns. Don't hoard your goods; spread them around. Be a blessing to others. This could be your last night.

NET:  Ignorance of the Future Demands Diligence in the Present: Send your grain overseas, for after many days you will get a return. Divide your merchandise among seven or even eight investments, for you do not know what calamity may happen on earth. (Also includes footnotes with Hebrew readings)

Notice how these interpretive translations (a) close out alternative meanings (which certainly exist in the Hebrew); (b) postulate a certain Hebrew idiom that is not very well supported; (c) strip the passage of evocative and poetic moments; (d) make the passage mundane (and perhaps gives poor investment advice, e.g., the GNT); and (e) treat the reader like an idiot.  This is one reason I have so much difficulty with interpretive translations such as the ones quoted above.

Note to TNIV fans -- note the dramatic changes (for the worse) between the NIV and TNIV of this passage.

In particular, the "investment advice" angle seems particularly unjustified given parallel passages in Ben Sira (29:10) and the Egyptian contemporary Ancksheshonq ("Do a good deed and throw it in the water; when it dries up you will find it.")

One is also reminded of tashlich.

(This example was drawn to my attention by chapter 5 of The Uncensored Bible.  This particular chapter features an interpretation from Michael Homan that this is a reference to brewing beer.  The Uncensored Bible is a worthwhile and fun read.  In a simple, accessible way, the book analyzes a number of extraordinary interpretations of the Hebrew Bible that have appeared in the literature in the last few years.  A large number of those interpretations are from major Jewish scholars such as Jacob Milgrom, Mayer Gruber, and Susan Niditch.  Tyler Williams has also commented favorably on this book.  I'll post a full review in due course.)

Excellence in Anglican "retreats"

Doug Chaplin waxes poetic:  "The bishops are 'in retreat' and the Archbishop is acting as their retreat speaker, guiding them back to God, Jesus, and their episcopal calling and the Church’s."

Ruth Gledhill, who is actually there, has a different impression:  "Officially, the bishops are all on retreat at the moment. . . .  How strange then, to see so many bishops popping in and out of Top Shop, M&S and Tesco in the city center yesterday when they were meant to be praying or listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury. And who can the good bishop be who, asked why he wasn't on the retreat with his brothers and sisters, said: 'On f*****g retreat with all those w*****s? No f*****g way!' "

Tattoos

There is a considerable amount of discussion about tattoos on religious Jews.  I think that the Jewish law is quite clear on this point -- despite what the New York Times says, for observant Jews, voluntary tattoos are clearly forbidden.  Burial in a Jewish cemetery may be permitted, although tattoos are one of the few transgressions whose evidence is clearly visible after death.

But the real reason I find tattoos so unpleasant is because of the memories they bring up of victims of the Nazi concentration camps (see unpleasant tattoo photos below.)  Of course, for a tattoo involuntarily applied to the body, the victim has in no way transgressed the law.

For the population at large, David Ker was spot-on right when he wrote:  "When I see a tattoo I think 'minimum wage.' But I suppose there are some really smart, rich and biblically balanced people out there that have permanently vandalized the covering God gave them."

The human body is so beautiful that I have often thought it was evidence of the divine.  What a pity to see marks on it.  Whenever I see one, images such as the following come to my mind:

 

Photogenic (?) Anglicans

Some fantastic photography displayed on Ruth Gledhill's blog from the decadal Anglican "Lambeth" conference:

Rowan Williams, the man who oversees it all:

John and Victoria McIntyre, bishop and spouse from Gippsland, Australia, clearly not worried about Leviticus 19:28 or tznius:

A wonderful photo of the spouse of one of the East Zambian bishops:

The Green Bible

Claude Mariottini, James McGrath, and Jim Davila wrote in April about a Nancy Pelosi quote (she claimed it was from the Bible) about stewardship of the Earth.  I'd like to draw their attention to a new Green Bible edition of the NRSV forthcoming from Harper.  Here is the description from Harper as posted on Amazon:

The Green Bible will equip and encourage people to see God's vision for creation and help them engage in the work of healing and sustaining it. With over 1,000 references to the earth in the Bible, compared to 490 references to heaven and 530 references to love, the Bible carries a powerful message for the earth. This Green-Letter edition of the Bible will highlight scriptures in green ink that teach about God's care for creation and how God interacts with creation, in an effort to bring greater awareness to how this message is woven throughout the Old and New Testaments. Essays from leading conservationists and theologians on how to read the Bible through a "green lens" as well as a green topical index and Green Bible trail guide for personal study will be paired with teachings throughout the ages to show people how caring for God's creation is not only a calling, but a lifestyle.

This Bible will include the following distinctive features:

• Green-Letter Edition - verses that speak to God's care for creation will be highlighted in green ink

• Inspirational poems from St. Francis of Assisi and Wendell Berry

• Essays from key leaders and thinkers on various aspects of scripture and its mandate for creation care

• Quotes from Christian teachings throughout the ages from St. Augustine to C.S. Lewis

• A green topical index

• Green Bible Trail study guide

• Appendix to include information on ways to get involved and practical steps to take

• Printed on recycled paper, using soy-based ink, with a cotton/linen cover

• Will utilize the NRSV translation, the most trusted, most accepted, and most accurate translation of the Bible on the market

Brief notes (13 Tammuz 5768)

• In response to my most recent post on translation, e-Kvetcher first posted a link to an essay by Nabokov (I finally remembered that I had seen this in his Lectures on Russian Literature).  The essay deserves comment and I will post on it soon.

• Then, e-Kvetcher posted an excerpt to a fascinating 2002 article in The Guardian on a book that I was not previously aware of, Christoph Luxenberg's , The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran (many links are given in this Wikipedia article).

• Speaking of Islam, I for one enjoyed the infamous New Yorker cover.  I think that Maureen Dowd had it right when she pointed out that Barack Obama is not exempt from satire.  She begins:  "When I interviewed Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for Rolling Stone a couple years ago, I wondered what Barack Obama would mean for them. 'It seems like a President Obama would be harder to make fun of than these guys,' I said. 'Are you kidding me?' Stewart scoffed. Then he and Colbert both said at the same time: 'His dad was a goat-herder!'  I did especially enjoy this quote from Andy Borowitz regarding the liberal "irony deficit":  "A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, 'I was expecting the farmer’s daughter.' Barack Obama replies, 'She's not here. The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American dream.' "

• I was pleased to see that the NLT translation now has a blog.  The NLT is not my favorite translation, but I appreciate the thoughtful way that the NLT writers are engaging with their public.   Mark Taylor has already commented on this blog.  I must say that this level of interaction has already increased my respect for this translation.

• The New York Times has a wonderful article on the slow decline of Buddhism in Japan.   Part of the reason is the focus on "funeral Buddhism" -- and the high expenses for "posthumous Buddhist names."  In response, an Kazuma Hayashi, a Buddhist priest without a temple, has formed an online service, obohsan.com, which offers funerary Buddhist priests at rock-bottom prices.

• I'm in a busy period right now, so please be patient with me if my posts appear more slowly than you have been used to.  I do appreciate those of you who take the time to comment here or on your own blogs.

Voices 1: The Actress and the Bible

Here is a video of a talented actress doing a number of voices.  How many voices does she do?  Can you catch them all distinctly?  And, what could possibly be her name?

Well, I count 21 from . . . well, can I call her Amy?  The point is that she uses many different voices, with many different effects on us, the audience.

The Bible, like most great literature, speaks to us with a great number of voices.  Can you distinguish them all in your favorite translation, or do they run together for you?  Perhaps you have a simple translation, such as the NLT, which makes the Bible very accessible in a continuous reassuring voice.  Or perhaps you prefer a sophisticated translation, such as the REB, which uses elevated language not unlike that we might expect from an Oxbridge don.  But all of these translations each speak in a single, consistent voice.  Indeed, Bibles are often translated by committee, with "stylists" to assure a common voice throughout.

But of course, the real text is not at all like that.  Each book in the Bible has a very distinct voice.  It is often hard to discern in English translation. 

Here's a simple example I recently saw posted by Nathan Bierma from an article by Avi Shveka in JSS:

Did you know that, or suspect it?  Could you detect that some words in the book of Job are foreign, or that some words are unknown? (Or did your smooth translation make it look like a coherent book of extended poetry -- which it is not?  Perhaps the difference between a biblical scholar and you is that your Job is an easy read, and he still can't figure out what many of the sentences even mean!)  Can you tell the difference -- as a matter of style -- between the voices of Job, Job's wife, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, Elihu, Satan, and God?  Well, if not, all you got out of Amy's video is that she is 25.

Now, in translations of other books, we demand to hear the different voices.  When we read George Bernard Shaw or Jane Austen (or even P. G. Wodehouse) , much of our joy comes from the interactions of people with different voices, from different classes, with a different style to their voice.  And translators of books (other than the Bible) try to respect this -- as you can see if you examine translations of Cervantes' Don Quixote, for example.

Only in Biblical translation has been thought worthwhile to ignore questions of style -- having the translations prepared by teams of Biblical scholars and Ecclesiastics without particular sensitivity to English style.

You know, some newspaper articles argue that Obama and McCain are indistinguishable in policy matters:

I humbly disagree.  Both McCain and Obama speak in distinct voices, and one can hear the difference in seconds.  But how fortunate we are that McCain and Obama are not characters in a Bible story -- lest their voices be reworked into a single voice.

I like my Bibles (which I normally read in the original) with plenty of voices.  If your translations doesn't preserve different voices, or if your translation makes hard passages easy, I think you have valid cause for complaint.

I'll return to this point shortly.

Oh See Can You Say

Ben Johnston is a contemporary composer specializing in just intonation and other microtonal music.

Recently the Sequenza 21 blog featured his miniature (microtonal) version of the National Anthem (Economy Size) as an mp3 file.  It is only 29 seconds long -- go ahead and listen to it.  The male vocalist is Ben Johnston himself.  The score is also available.

Stockhausen Helicopter String Quartet DVD out

I'm so excited by the news that the film version of Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet is out on DVD.  Although I dearly regret having missed this piece live (one cannot be everywhere at once), I am so excited by the prospect of being able to see the DVD version of it.  My copy is already on order at Amazon.

Here is the New York Times article that alerted me to this DVD release (be sure to see Stockhausen's own notes -- and click on the links too!):

It started with a dream he had, in which a string quartet performed with its members flying separately in four helicopters. "It was so strange, I thought that if I suggested it, people would think I was round the bend," Karlheinz Stockhausen, the visionary avant-garde German composer who died last year at 79, says in a film just released on DVD by Medici Arts.

Yet that dream actually came to fruition. And the film, intelligently directed by Frank Scheffer, documents the rehearsals and logistical preparations for the premiere of Stockhausen’s wacky, egomaniacal Helicopter String Quartet (also the name of the film) at the Holland Festival on the outskirts of Amsterdam in 1995. . . .

The work was conceived as part of Licht (Light), a cycle of seven operas. When the premiere performance of the quartet, scheduled for 1994, was canceled after protests by Austrian environmentalists, the work was programmed by the Holland Festival.

As an experienced champion of contemporary music, the Arditti String Quartet — then comprising the violinists Irvine Arditti and Graeme Jennings, the violist Garth Knox and the cellist Rohan de Saram — was ideally equipped to handle the challenges of the work. The documentary, shot from May 5 to June 26, 1995, shows the musicians good-naturedly humoring the composer’s demands during rehearsals, which included having them shout German numbers in screechy high timbres with elongated vowels while playing, to coordinate their droning crescendos. . . .

Stockhausen, who had explored spatial parameters in works like Gruppen (where three ensembles, each with its own conductor, play in different tempos), color-coded the helicopter score and connected the notes with lines, so it resembles a fantastical rainbow heart monitor. For the premiere each musician wore a shirt matching his designated color.

The film reveals the complex logistics involved in staging this piece of musical performance art, with the musicians and sound engineers crammed into red helicopters flown by members of the Grasshoppers, a Dutch Air Force stunt team. During one scene shot on the field, Stockhausen muses on the numerical importance of the number plates on the helicopters before instructing the bewildered pilots.

Microphones were attached to the musicians and to the outsides of the helicopters, to capture the whirring sound of the rotor blades. Audio cues helped the players coordinate the performance, which Stockhausen stipulated should last 18 minutes 36 seconds. At one point their frenzied, tremulous glissandos wail and drone like frantic sirens over the rumbling din of the helicopter blades.

The music and images were transmitted by video and speakers to the audience in an auditorium. Stockhausen is shown in a ruffled white shirt with red and green suspenders, sitting at the master console like the proud pilot of a compositional spaceship, narrating the proceedings to the audience and mixing the string sounds with the helicopter noise. The critic Alex Ross described the affair in The New York Times as "a grandiose absurdist entertainment." . . .

Update:  I should mention that the film is also available for download from the excellent Medici TV website for seven Euros.

King Lear, Ian McKellan sans pants, and PBS

From the Washington Post:

PBS keeps 'King Lear' nude decision under wraps

By LYNN ELBER
The Associated Press

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Ian McKellen's acclaimed performance in "King Lear" is coming to PBS, but a public TV executive was coy Saturday about whether his on-stage nude scene will be exposed on air. PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger, who saw the play during its brief run in New York, said she was impressed by the production and recalled thinking, "This is the kind of thing people should have a chance to see."

When Kerger told a Television Critics Association meeting that the play had been filmed for PBS and would air next season, she was asked about McKellen's full-frontal nudity and whether it would be acceptable for public television. "Let's talk about this in January," Kerger said, attempting to boot the issue to the next scheduled meeting of the critics' group. Pressed to address the question, she replied: "It's what I think about it and what the FCC will allow," a reference to the Federal Communications Commission that regulates broadcast channels. . . .

The 69-year-old McKellen's performance as Lear was lauded by The Associated Press for "expertly capturing the man's physical and mental decline." The review noted that McKellen shed not only his sanity but also, at one point, his trousers.

Total depravity

Why aren't our Calvinist friends covering this breaking news:

A sociopath has stabbed 16 perfectly innocent melons at an Ogino supermarket in Yamanashi prefecture in Japan.

Fortunately, Japanese national news is fully covering this vicious attack -- with detailed coverage across the island nation -- giving the precise damage (7968 ¥) to four significant figures.  (That is about  $4.50/melon for these special "Andes Melons.")

(HT:  Japan Probe)

Update: The crime wave continues unabated today. It appears that a miscreant burned several banners advertising a local museum in Japan. Once again, the national news broadcasts are giving this felony urgent attention and the police are treating this as a case of arson. (HT: Japan Probe)

How to cook

Internet friend Rick Mansfield has been going gangbusters with his new cooking web site.  His secret involves using cast iron.  But I have my own style of cooking.  If you'd like to learn my secret -- well, why don't you just take a look:

Here is a link to a high-quality version.

(Of course, this is not actually done by me, but rather by the amazing animator Adam Pesapane.)

The anti-Republican bias that was not

Did you read about the Duke University psychology chair who said he would never hire a Republican?  It got big play in American Thinker, and then in the Jerusalem Post, then in The National Review's Higher Education blog, and then it just kept on rolling.

Except it turns out it was badly misquoted by an emeritus Temple University professor named Glick (apparently not even listed any longer on Temple's web site) while he washed the dishes months ago. 

The quote was from The Duke Chronicle, and it is by Robert Brandon, the former philosophy chair who said, "We try to hire the best, smartest people available. If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire. Mill’s analysis may go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia. Players in the NBA tend to be taller than average. There is a good reason for this. Members of academia tend to be a bit smarter than average. There is a good reason for this too."  Well, that sounds pretty damning -- but let's take his full quote in context.  Before he said that, he said:   "I don’t know the political affiliation of all of my colleagues in philosophy, nor do I care.  Our last hire was in the history of modern philosophy. We hired an expert in Kant and Newton. Politics never came up in the interview."

And what is Glick's view?  Does he regret the misquote?

As for Glick, he said that he wrote "what I thought I heard." He said that it might have been better had he "not named Duke" as the place where the quote originated. Asked if he knew of any department chair anywhere who had uttered the words he used, Glick said "No." But he added that it was still correct. "Do I believe that is true? Yes," he said, adding that he believes that regardless of what department chairs at top universities say or don’t say, those in many disciplines will not hire Republicans. "I am convinced that is the climate today."

Why bother with facts, when it is so easy to smear?

A design for an effective alarm clock

From Alice Wang

Excellence in sartorial enforcement

New South Wales passed a law forbidding causing an "annoyance or inconvenience" during a visit by the Pope.  The language was vague is being interpreted to include wearing "anti-Catholic" T-shirts and such.  This lead to a sartorial protest outside the NSW parliament building. 

Now, lest you think that sartorial standards are only being enforced in Sydney, here is news from Flint, Michigan.  The Flint police are going to start arresting men who wear "saggy pants."  Here is the article from the Detroit Free Press:

Of course, I am delighted that the Sydney and Flint police are now arresting people for violating tznius, and I look forward to police enforcement of shatnez as well.  While we are at it, can we please outlaw polyester as well (particularly in characters in science fiction movies)?

Update:   Federal Court in Australia struck down the Sydney law on July 15.

Eleven ways to celebrate Milton's 400th birthday

December 9th will be John Milton's 400th birthday.  If you've never read Paradise Lost, you owe it to yourself to read this magnificent, cinematic work.  However, the work is perhaps too difficult to read unaided. Here are six annotated editions of Paradise Lost (some contained in longer anthologies of Milton) that may be of interest to you (listed in terms of increasing cost), followed by some versions of Paradise Lost in alternative media.

1. Dartmouth library online edition  (Cost:  free):  This is surprisingly good for an online edition.  There is a brief but useful introduction to Milton, and the poem is thoroughly annotated with hyperlinks that point to a different frame.  Go ahead, read the first part (e.g., the first "book") -- I think you'll be hooked.  Then you'll want a paper copy:  so keep on reading for details of those.
   
   
   
   
   

2. Norton critical edition [Teskey] of Paradise Lost.  (Amazon price:  $14.63).  I tend to like Norton Critical Editions -- they are the literary equivalent of Criterion DVD sets with lots of extras.  In this case, more than half of the pages of the volume are useful add-ons -- notably classic and contemporary criticism -- ranging from T. S. Eliot to Tennyson to William Blake to Coleridge to C.S. Lewis to Helen Vendler to Stanley Fish.  One of my favorite features of this edition is a 38 page dictionary of the proper nouns in the poem.  The annotations in this edition tend to be short and to the point.  I think this is the best beginner's edition of Paradise Lost.
   
   
   
   

3. Modern Library [Kerrigan, Rumrich, and Fallon] edition of Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton.  (Amazon price: $34.65)  This is a handsome edition -- with the nicest layout of any of the printed volumes I consider, but there are no introductions, additions, glossary, and the annotations are remarkably lackluster -- not concise and useful, as in the Norton, but low-energy and a bit random.  This will look great on your shelf, but I doubt it will be the edition you refer to regularly.  If you want a collected volume, get the Hughes.
   
   
   
   

4. Hughes' Complete Poems and Major Prose.  (Amazon price:  $48.00) This is the edition I turn to again and again when reading Milton.  Copious introductions and annotations, and solid early "pre-post-modern" scholarship, to coin a phrase.  This work was edited 50 years ago, and is still in print, so you know it is both popular and solid and doesn't suffer from the wildly interpretative standards of contemporary scholarship.
   
   
   
   
   

5. Longman Annotated edition [Fowler] of Paradise Lost (2nd edition).  (Amazon price:  $56.30).  This behemoth weighs in at well over 700 pages.  It has far more technical detail in the annotations than you want to know, unless you are a true Milton nerd.  It is also surprisingly expensive for a paperback.  My advice -- unless you are a hardened English major, go for the Norton.
   
   
   
   
   
   

6. The Riverside Milton [Flannagan].  (Amazon price:  $96.36) If you want to suffer as Milton suffered, buy this edition.  Full of typos, irrelevant notes, terrible layout, remarkably poor production quality, and almost twice the price of its competitors, this edition is for students who trudge to school in the snow, uphill both ways, like their predecessors did.  Actually, that's rather unfair.  There was no earlier edition of Milton that I know of as poor as this edition.  Amazon says that this edition is a paperback (mine isn't, so I suspect Amazon is wrong) -- but if your edition is a paperback, that only lessens it value because this book is far too bulky for the paperback format.  Now the Riverside Chaucer is outstanding, and the Riverside Shakespeare is acceptable, but this seems like a blatant attempt to cash in on the "Riverside" name. 

And for non-print media:

1. Illustrations -- Fortunately, Gustave Doré illustrated Paradise Lost, and there are numerous editions with his illustrations.  A cheap, excellent edition is published by Dover.  Doré is perfectly suited to Paradise Lost -- he made epic -- almost operatic -- engravings; perfectly suited towards Milton's larger-than-life, larger-than-supernatural project.  Alternatively, load up with illustrations off this page.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Audiobooks -- Sometimes, hearing a sensitive narration of a poem allows one to understand points that may elude a casual reader.  In any case, listening to an oral version allows one to finish a work in a fixed amount of time.  Naxos Audiobooks has a decent version narrated by Andrew Lesser.  You can buy it on CD for $37.79; download it from Naxos for £23.10  (less the VAT tax if you are outside the EU)  or $42.00; or download from eMusic for free if you sign up for their free trial.  (There is also an audio version by Ralph Coshan, but it isn't as good as the Anton Lesser version, as well as a best left ignored Librivox recording.)
   
   
   
   
3. Lectures -- Want to hear a popular lecture about Milton?  Here is a free lecture that by John Carey of Oxford with some narration by Anton Lesser.  It is somewhat affected (and extremely opinionated), but still entertaining and educational.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Movies --  If you are willing to wait until 2009, you can watch the movie version of Paradise Lost, courtesy of New Line Cinema.  Yes, it is certain to be bad.  The New York Times had a detailed article about the production, and included this interview from the producer: 
   
   "Mr. Newman also knows that some might see this project as a fool's errand. 'It's a 400-some-odd-page poem written in Old English,' he said, laughing. 'How do you find the movie in that?' But he speaks of the project with unflagging enthusiasm, though it may seem his passion is more for the idea of the poem than for the poem itself. (It’s in blank verse, not Old English.)" 
   
   [But why wait until then?  If you want to watch a bad movie about angels , why not watch The Prophecy with Christopher Walken as very mean Gabriel.  It's terrible,  but it can't be as bad as the Paradise Lost movie will be.  True, The Prophecy is only loosely based on Milton, but then I'm sure the same will be true of New Line's Paradise Lost.]
   
   
   
5. Novelization -- I didn't actually read this.  But I have my doubts about this -- a prose version of Paradise Lost?  Sure, this might make sense if you can't read English, but that doesn't include you, now, does it?  Also, it is out of print, so you'll pray a premium for it.

Why Global South is important

(HT:  Craig Smith)

America rallies

High expectations

From the UK comes news that children as young as five years old are now going to study Shakespeare.  UK students already have the opportunity to study a Shakespeare play at age 11-14 and one at age 15-16.  That's great:  high expectations build high literacy. 

Recall that Winston Churchill never attended college.  Obviously, his lack of college education never prevented him from being an outstanding writer (winning the Nobel Prize for literature) and speech-maker -- despite his speech impediment.

I strongly believe that people should challenge themselves in their reading and learning at all times.  I deplore our society's slow shift towards "dumbed down" literature.

From the The Times Online

Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Collins of the Royal Irish Regiment became a national hero in 2003 after he delivered, without preparation or notes, a speech to his troops in Iraq that was so impassioned and yet so compassionate that it was afterwards compared to Shakespeare.

Now history has come full circle and students of the Bard are to be encouraged to study this and other contemporary wartime speeches in an attempt to draw out modern parallels to key themes of Shakespeare plays, such as Henry V and Julius Caesar.

The initiative is part of a government drive to ensure that Shakespeare is fully embedded in the hearts and minds of all pupils from the age of five to the time they leave school.

A government educational package, put together with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Globe Theatre in London will be sent to all schools in England as part of the scheme. It includes a new booklet of practical teaching ideas and approaches for use in the classroom called Shakespeare For All Ages and Stages.

Children in the reception year of primary school will be introduced to some of Shakespeare's best-known plays through watching abridged film versions contained in a DVD box-set of ‘Shakespeare: The Animated Tales'.

In addition, 40,000 students aged 11 to 14 who are taking part in the government's Making Good Progress testing trials, will have the chance to see a Shakespeare performance live, thanks to a £1.5 million government grant.

The project is very personal to the schools minister Jim Knight, a would-be actor who formed a theatre company with the Oscar-winning film and stage director Sam Mendes on leaving university. He is determined that no child in England should grow up without being given the opportunity to develop an appreciation of "one of the greatest Britons ever".

It is already a statutory requirement that pupils study at least one complete play by Shakespeare at Key Stage 3 (aged 11 to 14) and at GCSE level (aged 15 to 16). But Mr Knight believes that even very young children can become gripped by Shakespeare's stories and characters.

"Many primary teachers find that imaginative and practical approaches to Shakepeare can spark children's enthusiasm and interest, the desire to study his plays further and a lifelong learning of Shakespeare's work," he said.

Although many English teachers widely acknowledge the importance of enthusing pupils about Shakespearean at a young age by allowing texts to come to life in dramatic form in the classroom, they often lack the confidence and knowhow to do this.

Mr Knight hopes that the new booklet with help provide them with practical tips to overcome this.

It suggests that five-year-olds could start by using puppets and masks to retell their own versions of Shakespearean stories. Teachers are encouraged to create a 'character chest' for a chosen Shakespeare story, removing models or pictures of the characters one at a time and asking children to predict what their personalities and actions might be like.

By the time pupils reach secondary school at age 11, the booklet suggests that they should be helped to see the way in which Shakespeare's themes are relevant to contemporary life and media.

Students reading Henry V could investigate recent speeches where leaders have justified going to war and compare this with Henry V's speech before Harfleur in Act 3. Pupils studying Julius Caesar could hold a debate on whether it is ever justifiable to overthrow the leader of a country by force.

The booklet, which can be downloaded from the website of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, has suggestions for helping students to "do Shakespeare on their feet" through workshops and performances.

Here is the link for the brochure.