Category: Education

Enjoying Homer in a Maturer Way

~ Erik ~ Leave a comment

C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy:

“Kirk did not, of course, make me read nothing but Homer. The Two Great Bores (Demosthenes and Cicero) could not be avoided. There were (oh glory!) Lucretius, Catullus, Tacitus, Herodotus. There was Virgil, for whom I still had no true taste. There were Greek and Latin compositions. (It is a strange thing that I have contrived to reach my late fifties without ever reading one word of Caesar.) There were Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus. In the evenings there was French with Mrs. Kirkpatrick, treated much as her husband treated Homer. We got through a great many good novels in this way and I was soon buying French books on my own. I had hoped there would be English essays, but whether because he felt he could not endure mine or because he soon guessed that I was already only too proficient in that art (which he almost certainly despised) Kirk never set me one. For the first week or so he gave me directions about my English reading, but when he discovered that, left to myself, I was not likely to waste my time, he gave me absolute freedom. Later in my career we branched out into German and Italian. Here his methods were the same. After the very briefest contact with Grammars and Exercises I was plunged into Faust and the Inferno. In Italian we succeeded. In German I have little doubt that we should equally have succeeded if I had stayed with him a little longer. But I left too soon and my German has remained all my life that of a schoolboy. Whenever I have set about rectifying this, some other and more urgent task has always interrupted me.

But Homer came first. Day after day and month after month we drove gloriously onward, tearing the whole Achilleid out of the Iliad and tossing the rest on one side, and then reading the Odyssey entire, till the music of the thing and the clear, bitter brightness that lives in almost every formula had become part of me. Of course my appreciation was very romanticised–the appreciation of a boy soaked in William Morris. But this slight error saved me from that far deeper error of ‘classicism’ with which the Humanists have hoodwinked half the world. I cannot therefore deeply regret the days when I called Circe a ‘wise-wife’ and every marriage a ‘high-tide’. That has all burned itself out and left no snuff, and I can now enjoy the Odyssey in a maturer way. The wanderings mean as much as ever they did; the great moment of “eucatastrophe” (as Professor Tolkien would call it) when Odysseus strips off his rags and bends the bow, means more; and perhaps what now pleases me best of all is those exquisite, Charlotte M. Yonge families at Pylos and elsewhere. How rightly Sir Maurice Powicke says, ‘There have been civilised people in all ages.’ And let us add, ‘In all ages they have been surrounded by barbarism.'”

Learning to Think in Greek

~ Erik ~ 2 Comments

C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy:

“I arrived at Gastons (so the Knock’s home was called) on a Saturday, and he announced that we would begin Homer on Monday. I explained that I had never read a word in any dialect but the Attic, assuming that when he knew this he would approach Homer through some preliminary lessons on the Epic language. He replied merely with a sound very frequent in his conversation which I can only spell ‘Huh’. I found this rather disquieting; and I woke on Monday saying to myself, ‘Now for Homer. Golly!’ The name struck awe into my soul. At nine o’clock we sat down to work in the little upstairs study which soon became so familiar to me. It contained a sofa (on which we sat side by side when he was working with me), a table and chair (which I used when I was alone), a bookcase, a gas stove, and a framed photograph of Mr. Gladstone. We opened our books at Iliad, Book I. Without a word of introduction Knock read aloud the first twenty lines or so in the “new” pronunciation, which I had never heard before. Like Smewgy, he was a chanter; less mellow in voice, yet his frill gutturals and rolling R’s and more varied vowels seemed to suit the bronze-age epic as well as Smewgy’s honey tongue had suited Horace. For Kirk, even after years of residence in England, spoke the purest Ulster. He then translated, with a few, a very few explanations, about a hundred lines. I had never seen a classical author taken in such large gulps before. When he had finished he handed me over Crusius’ Lexicon and, having told me to go through again as much as I could of what he had done, left the room. It seems an odd method of teaching, but it worked. At first I could travel only a very short way along the trail he had blazed, but every day I could travel further. Presently I could travel the whole way. Then I could go a line or two beyond his furthest North. Then it became a kind of game to see how far beyond. He appeared at this stage to value speed more than absolute accuracy. The great gain was that I very soon became able to understand a great deal without (even mentally) translating it; I was beginning to think in Greek. That is the great Rubicon to cross in learning any language. Those in whom the Greek word lives only while they are hunting for it in the lexicon, and who then substitute the English word for it, are not reading the Greek at all; they are only solving a puzzle. The very formula, ‘Naus means a ship,’ is wrong. Naus and ship both mean a thing, they do not mean one another. Behind Naus, as behind navis or naca, we want to have a picture of a dark, slender mass with sail or oars, climbing the ridges, with no officious English word intruding.”

The Return to School: A Preparation for Death

~ Erik ~ 1 Comment

This Monday marks my return to school. I love teaching, but I distinctly remember when, in the summer before entering 4th grade, I was lying in a hammock at my aunt’s house on the coast. The warm sea breeze and the *sense* of total freedom made it all the more painful to reflect that in three short weeks, I would be 600 miles north in one of those tortuous school desks. Can a child get a taste of nihilistic despair? I abandoned all hope of future happiness, and could no longer enjoy even the three weeks still left to me. All the sorrows of a Sunday were drawn out for twenty one days. That was twenty years ago, but the dread of returning never disappears. So, although this has nothing to do with antiquity, I am posting my favorite passage from C.S. Lewis. Here’s to next summer!

C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy:

“So much for Oldie’s; but the year was not all term. Life at a vile boarding-school is in this way a good preparation for the Christian life, that it teaches one to five by hope. Even, in a sense, by faith; for at the beginning of each term, home and the holidays are so far off that it is as hard to realise them as to realise heaven. They have the same pitiful unreality when confronted with immediate horrors. To-morrow’s geometry blots out the distant end of term as to-morrow’s operation may blot out the hope of Paradise. And yet, term after term, the unbelievable happened. Fantastical and astronomical figures like “This time six weeks” shrank into practicable figures like “This time next week”, and then “This time to-morrow”, and the almost supernatural bliss of the Last Day punctually appeared. It was a delight that almost demanded to be stayed with flagons and comforted with apples; a delight that tingled down the spine and troubled the belly and at moments went near to stopping the breath. Of course this had a terrible and equally relevant reverse side. In the first week of the holidays we might acknowledge that term would come again–as a young man, in peace time, in full health, acknowledges that he will one day die. But like him we could not even by the grimmest memento mori be brought to realise it. And there too, each time, the unbelievable happened. The grinning skull finally peered through all disguises; the last hour, held at bay by every device our will and imaginations knew, came in the end, and once more it was the bowler-hat, the Eton collar, the knickerbockers, and (clop-clop-clop-clop) the evening drive to the quay. In all seriousness I think that the life of faith is easier to me because of these memories. To think, in sunny and confident times, that I shall die and rot, or to think that one day all this universe will slip away and become memory (as Oldie slipped away into memory three times a year, and with him the canes and the disgusting food, the stinking sanitation and the cold beds)–this is easier to us if we have seen just that sort of thing happening before. We have learned not to take present things at their face value.”

Still Life - Infinite Vanitas by Kevin Best, 2011. Digital art.As you might imagine, I look at a lot of art. On a normal day, I usually reject about three pieces for every one I post. One of the problems I often have when posting to this blog...
Infinite Vanitas by Kevin Best

Zenodotus, the Uncritical Critic

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R.C. Jebb, Homer

“In the dawn of the new scholarship, he [Zenodotus] appears as a gifted man with a critical aim, but without an adequate critical method. He insisted on the study of Homer’s style ; but he failed to place that study on a sound basis. One cause of this was that he often omitted to distinguish between the ordinary usages of words and those peculiar to Homer. In regard to dialect, again, he did not sufficiently discriminate the older from the later Ionic. And, relying too much on his own feeling for Homer’s spirit, he indulged in some arbitrary emendations. Still, he broke new ground; his work had a great repute ; and, to some extent, its influence was lasting.”

Eratosthenes, A ‘Second Rate’ Man

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J.E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship Vol. 1

“Eratosthenes (c. 276 — c. 196-4 b.c.) spent some years in Athens, whence he was recalled to Alexandria by Ptolemy Euergetes (c. 235 B.C.), and placed at the head of the Library). He remained in that important position during the reigns of Ptolemy Euergetes (d. 222 B.C.), and Philopator (222-205). ‘The tastes of the former were scientific, those of the latter literary and aesthetic. Philopator was not only the author of a tragedy, but also honoured the memory of Homer by building a temple which was adorned with a seated statue of the poet, surrounded by statues of the cities which claimed his birth. The building of this temple has been regarded as an indication of a change of attitude towards Homer. While Zenodotus had allowed his personal caprice to introduce fanciful alterations into the poet’s text, the influence of Callimachus and Eratosthenes inspired a feeling of greater reverence for Homer as the Father of Greek poetry, and also led to a more sober treatment of his text by Aristophanes and Aristarchus, as well as to a careful imitation of his manner in the epic poems of Rhianus.

Eratosthenes bore among the members of the Museum the singular designation of βῆτα, which is supposed to be due either to some physical peculiarity (such as the bowed back of old age) or (far more probably) to his attaining the second place in many lines of study. The more complimentary designation of πένταθλος implied his high attainments in more than one kind of mental gymnastics, while (like the second sense of βῆτα) it suggested that he was inferior to those who confined themselves to a single line of study. We can easily imagine each of the specialists of the Museum proudly conscious of his supremacy in his own department, and enviously depreciating his widely accomplished and versatile colleague, who was really ‘good all round’, as a ‘second-rate’ man. But it is only in his minor epics and elegiacs and in his philosophical dialogues that he seems actually to have deserved a place lower than the very highest. In other respects he attained the foremost rank among the most versatile scholars of all time. It was this wide and varied learning that prompted him to be the first to claim the honourable title of φιλόλογος.”

Latin Exercises, No Literature

~ Erik ~ 2 Comments

C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy:

“The school, as I first knew it, consisted of some eight or nine boarders and about as many day-boys. Organised games, except for endless rounders in the flinty playground, had long been moribund and were finally abandoned not very long after my arrival. There was no bathing except one’s weekly bath in the bathroom. I was already doing Latin exercises (as taught by my mother) when I went there in 1908, and I was still doing Latin exercises when I left there in 1910; I had never got in sight of a Roman author. The only stimulating element in the teaching consisted of a few well-used canes which hung on the green iron chimney-piece of the single schoolroom. The teaching staff consisted of the headmaster and proprietor (we called him Oldie), his grown-up son (Wee Wee), and an usher. The ushers succeeded one another with great rapidity; one lasted for less than a week. Another was dismissed in the presence of the boys, with a rider from Oldie to the effect that if he were not in Holy Orders he would kick him downstairs. This curious scene took place in the dormitory, though I cannot remember why. All these ushers (except the one who stayed less than a week) were obviously as much in awe of Oldie as we. But there came a time when there were no more ushers, and Oldie’s youngest daughter taught the junior pupils. By that time there were only five boarders, and Oldie finally gave up his school and sought a cure of souls. I was one of the last survivors, and left the ship only when she went down under us.”

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Dum Loquimur, Fugerit Invida Aetas: Herbert Coleridge and Sanskrit

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K.M. Elisabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words: James A.H. Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary. (New Haven, Yale University Press: 1977) p.136:

“Coleridge died in 1861 at the early age of 31, from consumption brought on by a chill caused by sitting in damp clothes during a Philological Society lecture. When he was told that he would not recover he is reported to have exclaimed, ‘I must begin Sanskrit tomorrow’, and he died working on the Dictionary to the last, with quotation slips and word-lists spread on the quilt of his bed.”

[NOTE: This Coleridge was grandson of the Romantic poet, and one of the Oxford English Dictionary’s early editors.]

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Baby Steps Toward Greek

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John Stuart Mill, Autobiography:

“A man who, in his own practice, so vigorously acted up to the principle of losing no time, was likely to adhere to the same rule in the instruction of his pupil. I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn Greek; I have been told that it was when I was three years old. My earliest recollection on the subject, is that of committing to memory what my father termed vocables, being lists of common Greek words, with their signification in English, which he wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, until some years later, I learnt no more than the inflections of the nouns and verbs, but, after a course of vocables, proceeded at once to translation; and I faintly remember going through Aesop’s Fables, the first Greek book which I read. The Anabasis, which I remember better, was the second. I learnt no Latin until my eighth year. At that time I had read, under my father’s tuition, a number of Greek prose authors, among whom I remember the whole of Herodotus, and of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Memorials of Socrates; some of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius; part of Lucian, and Isocrates ad Demonicum and Ad Nicoclem. I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theoctetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand it. But my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done. What he was himself willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing my Greek lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was writing: and as in those days Greek and English lexicons were not, and I could make no more use of a Greek and Latin lexicon than could be made without having yet begun to learn Latin, I was forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of every word which I did not know. This incessant interruption, he, one of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and wrote under that interruption several volumes of his History and all else that he had to write during those years.”

The ‘My Father is a Latin Professor’ Diet

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Margaret Cole, Growing Up Into Revolution:

“His [J.P. Postgate’s] chief collaborator in the ‘direct method’ campaign was W.H.D. Rouse, long headmaster of the Perse School at Cambridge, where all the boys were taught on the direct method. Not being a boy, I never had experience of the direct method in class; but I had plenty of it at home. I began Latin on my fifth birthday, by being sent into my mother’s room to announce the event in the words, ‘hodie quinque annos nata sum’; thereafter I had to learn to talk on common subjects in Latin, and on Sundays, when such of the children as could sit upright and feed tidily dined downstairs, I had to ask for my dinner in Latin under the threat of not getting any. I still remember the awful occasion on which, at the age of six or thereabouts, I asked for ‘the beef’ instead of ‘some of the beef,’ and my father pushed the huge sirloin on its dish over in my direction and I dissolved into tears; and I have been told of another time when, having forgotten the Latin for sausage, I was told that if I could say ‘half’ I might have half a sausage – and squealed out ‘dimidium!’ through sobs. There was also a blackboard on which my father drew objects and persons and required me and my two younger brothers to discourse in Latin upon them – the youngest of us, much to his elders’ annoyance, turned out to have much the best memory for the tiresome words we were supposed to know.”

Sorry for My Father’s Latin Grammar

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Margaret Cole, Growing Up Into Revolution (p.5):

“My father, John Percival Postgate, for over a generation Lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge, and then Professor of Latin at Liverpool, editor of the Corpus Poetarum Latinorum and of Tibullus and others of the (to my mind) least interesting of the Roman poets, was a crusader like his father before him, but a crusader in the linguistic field. He was the great protagonist of the modern pronunciation of Latin and of the teaching of Latin by ‘the direct method,’ i.e., by making the children talk Latin as though it were any modern language. (He also wrote a grammar, Postgate’s Latin Grammar, which was intended to supersede Kennedy’s grammar in the public schools. It never did that, but it had sufficient success to earn me some vicarious unpopularity among those who had suffered from it at school.)”