I just love the March 6, 1950 cover of Time magazine, which depicts T.S. Eliot poised between a cross over his left shoulde, and a martini (or is it a grail?) on his right. The caption below reads, “No middle way out of the waste land?” Should we go to church or to a bar?
John Singer Sargent’s Gassed (1919)– I’ve seen it twice, last fall at the Frist’s WWI & American Art exhibit and, more memorably, in 2012 at the Imperial War Museum in London. The Olympics were on, and service men and women were being allowed into many of the events for free, so you saw lots of them in the city that summer. One guy in uniform at the IWM I particularly recall, because he stood in front of this painting for quite a while. I thought of that moment today, on the anniversary of the end of the Great War.
Just after the war, Sargent had been commissioned to inaugurate the Hall of Remembrance at the IWM with a work on the theme of the Anglo-American alliance. He chose instead, however, to depict the survivors of a mustard gas attack which he had himself seen in France. Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais (1889) was certainly in Sargent’s mind as he made this , as well as Pieter Bruegel’s The Blind Leading the Blind (1658). Naturally, I thought of Wilfrid Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est from 1917,
Sargent’s painting captures the horror of Owens’ poem, as well as the allegory in Bruegel. There’s much to look at, and one of the most interesting details is the off-duty soldiers in the background playing football– a grim reference, perhaps, to the quote attributed to Wellington that “the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.” Gassed is an enormous work of art, 7.5 x 20 ft, and the soldier whom I saw that day at the IWM studied every inch of it. I was tempted to start up a conversation with him, but it seemed to me that he deserved to be alone with his thoughts and this masterpiece. Still, I would have liked to know what was going through his mind.
Many thanks to all of you for being here today, a day I have long been awaiting, because it is the day when I finally get to express my deep gratitude to the University and its benefactors, and particularly to Mrs. Diane Alderson, for the chair that has been so generously bestowed upon me, the Alderson-Tillinghast Chair in the Humanities. The late Edwin Boyd Alderson, Jr., was a distinguished judge, and Richard Tillinghast, here with us today, is a celebrated man of letters, and my talk today—about the cinematic representation of Pontius Pilate—is to some degree about the areas Alderson and Tillinghast represent, the complexity of the Law and the intricacy of the Arts.
But I would be sorely remiss, in these grateful remarks of mine, if I did not make some mention of that other element in the title of the chair, the smallest part but the one that I hold most dear, and that is the hyphen, for that little half-dash suspended midair between the names seems to me to contain within it, with supreme understatement, all that existed between Edwin and Richard, by which I mean their tremendous friendship. The picture of them you see here is one I lifted from Richard’s Facebook account. I keep it on the cluttered desktop screen of my computer, and now and again I have opened it up to consider it since the surprising announcement of my receiving ths chair was made at the University Convocation in January. I take heart from this picture, and not just because of the boldness with which Richard has mixed checks and stripes. But what I’m really struck by is the fun they are so obviously having there in Shenanigan’s.
It is just such fun, a capacity for joy, that the Humanities ought to cultivate in us, it seems to me, especially at times like the present when there is so much joylessness in our national scene. There is actually nothing new in the difficult and trying political circumstances we find ourselves in currently—in fact, it is the oldest and most predictable story there is, that the powerful will be filled with corruptions and outrages that we will be called upon to combat. To seek justice as a judge does, and to speak truth to power as does a poet—these can be wearisome tasks, but if we do so in the company of our friends, this picture seems to say, it will all come out all right. And so, in that spirit, let me bring these remarks to a close with a few lines of Yeats, from the final stanza of Lapis Lazuli:
… and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
A final shot from Mine 21, a beautiful image of miners’ headlamps which flicker like stars about to go out.
Nos ubi decidimus
quo pater Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus,
pulvis et umbra sumus.–Horace, Odes 4.7.14-16
When we descend to that place where Father Aeneas and wealthy Tullus and Ancus have gone, we are but dust and shadow.
A fine piece by Adam Gopnik in this week’s New Yorker on Frederick Douglass indicates that there was tension between the movements to enfranchise women and blacks, with a remark on how anti-Irish sentiment was used by either side:
[Elizabeth Cady] Stanton, like her fellow-campaigner Susan B. Anthony, thought that Douglass failed to grasp that they were not a minority seeking protection by the ballot but a majority forever excluded from any exercise of political power, and declared that a government with the participation of black men as well as white men would merely “multiply the tyrants.” They were incensed by the condescension they detected in him. And both Douglass and Stanton felt free to use the Drunken Pat argument, asking why the feckless, inebriated Irish immigrant had the vote when—depending on who was arguing—black men or white women didn’t. None of it is to our taste: Douglass insulted women, Stanton insulted blacks, and both felt free to insult the Irish.
… As for the ethnic joking that pains Blight [David W. Blight author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, the book Gopnik is reviewing] it was an assertion of Americanness: no longer an outsider, Douglass could make after-dinner jokes about the Irish, right along with the rest of his countrymen.
I suppose if I were to mention the Post Office and the Irish fight for independence, the first thing to come to mind would be the GPO on O’Connell Street in Dublin. But quite another thing occurred to me as I waited for a bus in Ballsbridge this evening. Right there in front of me was this:
Do you see it? The “VR”? While it may seem like virtual reality, in fact it stands for Victoria Regina, Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India. Not only is this a very old mailbox –or pillar box, as it’s called– at something like 110 years old, but it’s a very intriguing remnant of British rule.
According to the website of An Post (the Irish postal service),
Introduced well over 150 years ago by the novelist, Anthony Trollope, who worked for the Post Office in Ireland for several years, the letter box is an instantly recognized symbol of the Post Office.
That’s an interesting literary connection, but there’s more:
Before Irish independence post boxes were red but one of the first acts of the new Irish Government was to order that green would be the new colour for Post Office letter boxes.
It’s hard to day how much I admire this. The mailbox is obviously an implement of the government. It’s a fairly apolitical thing (postcards, bill payments, Christmas cards, etc., all need to get through) but once you put the monarch’s name and crown on the mailbox, it has been politicized. What’s a brand new nation-state to do?
Taking them all down would interfere with the new government’s ability to carry out the most basic of necessary functions: how long would it take to remove and replace thousands of boxes, and how much disruption would it cause? Leaving the mailboxes up as is, on the other hand, gives a sort of symbolic legitimation to the old regime.
So it is on the symbolic level that the matter is resolved. By altering the British mailbox from its iconic bright red (there’s a wonderful piece in the Daily Mail on this topic) to an equally iconic bright green, the transfer of power is communicated with splendid visual power. If the British monarch’s initials and emblems are still visible, all the better. It was not mailboxes he was thinking of when he wrote these lines, but Yeats’ words from “Easter 1916” seem to work just as well, Wherever green is worn, / Are changed, changed utterly.
Interestingly enough, according to thejournal.ie, many of the boxes in town were painted red in 2016 in order to catch the attention of those walking by. “The freshly-painted boxes display a word and a text number. Passers-by can send the word to access special video clips of what would have been happening in the area during the Rising,” they write.
Below are two other pillar boxes I came across in my Dublin wanderings today. The one of the left is more modern, with the inscription now found on them–P&T for Posts and Telegraphs. The other is a former British box, from the time of Edward VII, which features the crown. Most of these older ones do, but the VR one I saw at the bus stop was missing it. Further evidence, I suppose, of Fenian enthusiasm, or perhaps someone with a grievance “going postal,” as they say.
Postscript. I hope this title won’t be confused with The Red and the Green by novelist Iris Murdock, or my own “The Red and the Green: James Loeb and his Classical Library,” Sewanee Review 120.4 (Fall 2012) 553-558
Today and tomorrow, I’m at the Celtic Classics Conference, being held at Saint Andrews. It’s a lovely town by the sea ( pics below), with famous golf courses and some grand old university buildings, none of which the conference is being held in. Too bad I have a cold and am feeling under the weather. Talking of which, by the way, it’s the coldest I’ve been since I arrived to London a few weeks ago, a welcome break. President Trump is in London now, and due in Scotland this week, though alas, the Trump Baby Balloon will not be allowed to fly over the golf course he’s coming to. The week has seen some heartbreak in Britain–the loss of England to Croatia in the World Cup semifinal–and upheaval–the resignation of various ministers, including Boris Johnson, from Theresa May’s cabinet. Sitting in a room at his alma mater, I’m thinking of some lines by the Scottish classicist with the North Carolina connection, Douglas C. C. Young (about whom I’ve written before):
The Minister said it wad dee,
the cypress buss I plantit.
But the buss grew til a tree,
naething dauntit.
Hit’s growan stark and heich,
derk and straucht and sinister,
kirkyairdie-like and dreich.
But whaur’s the Minister?
A note to my Sewanee-in-England students in Hexham, where we are all exhausted after climbing around Housesteads fort.
Alas, Hexham Abbey opens at 9:30 AM but we must be on the road by 9. What I had wanted to show you were some stones repurposed from Hadrian’s Wall in the Abbey. Most notable among these is the 9-foot high tombstone of Flavinus, a Roman cavalry man who is riding roughshod over a defeated Briton. (I do so love these particular tombstones). You can see the stone below, and watch a 20-second video at this link. Why should this stone, and others from the Wall, be here? There are a few possible answers.
The first one that occurs is that the builders of the Abbey simply needed worked stone and took it from the Wall. Undoubtedly, many of the stones of the Wall (which was once 15 feet high) ended up in other buildings for that very reason after the Romans left in the fifth century. On the other hand, Flavinus’ tombstone is from Corbridge, about 3.5 miles away. That’s a long way to carry a 9-foot high stone, when lots of other stones are available closer by.
Could it be a symbolic statement of sorts? In ancient Christian churches of Italy, for instance, many elements pillaged from Roman temples are deliberately introduced in order to demonstrate the victory of Christianity over paganism. Perhaps this is what’s going on? The Abbey began to be constructed in the 660s, however, and no Romans would have been around to gloat over. Again, it seems like a long way to bring a large stone for a virtually meaningless gesture.
Now, the person behind the Abbey’s construction was a guy named St. Wilfrid of York, and he lived in interesting times. Celtic Christianity, given its far remove from the continent and the center of the church in Rome, had developed a number of idiosyncrasies. Most prominent among these was the dating of Easter. It is almost impossible to describe how heated the debate over this issue became (and still is–the Eastern Orthodox Church uses a different system than the Western churches) but Christians in the British Isles felt very strongly about their tradition. The Synod of Whitby was called in 664 to resolve the matter. Wilfrid spoke very forcefully against the native tradition in favor of adhering to the pope’s position.
Wilfrid was a very unpopular man in this area afterward–there were several attempts on his life–but he was richly rewarded by the pope for his loyalty. In building Hexham Abbey, it may be that he wanted to demonstrate the need to obey Roman tradition and reject the native one. Most people in the area were illiterate, but the image of Flavinus, removed from Hadrian’s Wall (as they would all know), would take on new meaning in the immediate context of the Synod and its aftermath. This was a symbolic reimagining of victorious Rome.
It’s hard to believe anybody could get that worked up about the dating of Easter. But at the end of the day, it’s not about getting the date right; it’s about who gets to tell who what to do. That is, it’s about power. The issues of papal supremacy will arise again in Britain a millennium later when Henry VIII wants to get a divorce. Eventually, he will overthrow the Catholic church in England and install himself as the head of the Church of England. At that time, he will break up all the abbeys, Hexham included. And I like to think that the Briton getting trampled by Flavinus smiled when all that happened.
UPDATE. Well, it turns out the Abbey opens earlier than what’s posted online. My student Lydia and I went over and found Flavinus– it is indeed a huge memorial. We also got the Sexton to let us into the crypt to see the Geta stone, also taken from the Wall, with an inscription featuring damnatio memoriae (a topic I do love) of Caracalla’s brother.
I’m co-teaching the Sewanee-in-England trip this summer, and in London we’re staying at the Ibis Hotel just by Wembley Stadium. It’s not the most glamorous view, but there’s something about all the construction (with its attendant clanging and banging) coupled with the overt modernity of the stadium itself that gives a distinct impression of the twenty-first century. In the next few days, I plan to add to this post with thoughts on what it’s like to be in the shadow of the modern Colosseum. For now, however, a picture taken from my window as I sipped my morning coffee will suffice:
On the left, you can see the enormous parabolic arch that can be seen from downtown London. As noted on the stadium’s online press-pack:
The most striking, highly visible feature of the stadium is 133 metre tall arch that sits above the north stand. The steel arch is 315 metres long and will become the longest single roof structure in the world and will be visible right across London.
The arch supports all of the weight of the north roof and 60 per cent of the weight of the southern side. By using an arch to bear some of the weight of the southern roof it is possible to retract the south roof to allow light an air onto the pitch.
The arch also ensures that there are no pillars in the new stadium which could obstruct the views of fans.
Of course, the combination of arch and amphitheatre is an old one, with a rich symbolic history:
uncomelyandbroken 