tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47444686715047173342024-02-21T06:14:58.295+00:00Catholic English TeacherResources and reviews for Catholic English teachers and parentsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger229125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-36078475332267550952014-08-05T18:57:00.003+01:002014-08-05T18:57:41.702+01:00The Chinese in World War I<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few years back I wrote <a href="http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/26th-june-2009/8/the-chinese-pm-who-became-a-catholic-priest">an article about Lu Zhengxiang</a>, the Chinese Prime Minister who, after leading the Chinese delegation to the Versailles Peace Treaty, became a Catholic monk and priest.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've now come across </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://multimedia.scmp.com/ww1-china/">this excellent presentation</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> about the Chinese Labour Corps during World War I which puts some of his life in context.</span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-64594490198861281812014-08-04T18:44:00.000+01:002014-08-04T18:44:00.571+01:00Tolkien and the Great War<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBVNd3oAdMz8Z7upVBCmIrNSttBSYPSB-y9KD3UTyLsHBVs3PBCWfOCqKLocS6JuucWSVoMN3pemNcBOFqW9SwWTVmrbBGI4VuXEfQoEcm6oWSRKyEK33L7LfQpbs59y-YwUF-4QXEgs/s1600/tolkien_great_war_book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBVNd3oAdMz8Z7upVBCmIrNSttBSYPSB-y9KD3UTyLsHBVs3PBCWfOCqKLocS6JuucWSVoMN3pemNcBOFqW9SwWTVmrbBGI4VuXEfQoEcm6oWSRKyEK33L7LfQpbs59y-YwUF-4QXEgs/s1600/tolkien_great_war_book.jpg" height="320" width="209" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With events to commemorate the start of the Great War underway across the world, the BBC have produced <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zgr9kqt">this feature on Tolkien and the war</a>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the definitive guide to Tolkien and the Great War, one should turn to <a href="http://www.johngarth.co.uk/php/tolkien_and_the_great_war.php">John Garth's excellent book</a>.</span><br />
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P.S. Other projects have been keeping me busy of late and so this blog is likely to be updated only fitfully for the time being at least. Apologies to anyone who has been waiting for updates..http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-37664823820971964432014-05-20T19:40:00.000+01:002014-05-20T22:41:51.903+01:00Alice McDermott <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alice McDermott <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/05/18/alice-mcdermott-on-being-a-novelist-and-a-believer/">recently spoke about being a novelist and a Catholic</a>. It's pretty short and you might end up hitting your head against the desk when you hear one or two of her points but it does at least give us an insight into some of the ideas that feed into her books.</span>.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-19493430377037171042014-05-19T19:31:00.000+01:002014-05-19T19:31:13.892+01:00Tolkien and Beowulf<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLRD59zgTMt9FuZj9uHpCdY8MZ4ZHHkQTpPeyhbuYSQXqeQVhrmHsJ2r0PFEUSOFMVZhW_n3cYOl7Fwqsrd1iwIspR1a2l2D_FFInmkZdqwSvGT7GiVzpiaUPj3N8fmn0YRPkdUWBOzuc/s1600/Tolkien.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLRD59zgTMt9FuZj9uHpCdY8MZ4ZHHkQTpPeyhbuYSQXqeQVhrmHsJ2r0PFEUSOFMVZhW_n3cYOl7Fwqsrd1iwIspR1a2l2D_FFInmkZdqwSvGT7GiVzpiaUPj3N8fmn0YRPkdUWBOzuc/s1600/Tolkien.png" height="320" width="217" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the news that Tolkien's <a href="http://www.tolkienbeowulf.com/">translation of <i>Beowulf</i></a> is about to be published (see article <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/books/jrr-tolkiens-translation-of-beowulf-is-published.html?_r=0">here</a>), I thought it might be worth returning to the original. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's an interesting parallel text version <a href="http://www.heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html">here</a> and, if you want something a little more visual, a good cartoon version <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKjcoFZmKuA">here</a>. What I like about this cartoon is that it retains the alliterative verse so you can really <i>hear</i> the original. It also resists the temptation to throw in gratuitous sops to modern audiences.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've looked at the <a href="https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/exhibit/sutton-hoo-anglo-saxon-ship-burial/gQOPNM9M?hl=en-GB">Sutton Hoo discoveries</a> with my classes and then looked at the last few lines of the poem. We'll also have some fun with the language.</span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-37500005892481838302014-05-13T21:41:00.000+01:002014-05-13T21:41:09.213+01:00Great Book and Film Recommendations<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's difficult to find good book lists. Either they're too long or they go into a huge amount of detail. So I was delighted to find <a href="http://www.centerforculturalandpastoralresearch.org/files/20110414_Film_Lit.2011.01.24.pdf">this list of books and films</a> on the website of the wonderful <a href="https://www.johnpaulii.edu/">Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family</a>. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What's particularly interesting about this list is that it is related quite explicitly to research on <a href="http://www.centerforculturalandpastoralresearch.org/body-person-and-the-civilization/resources">St John Paul II's Theology of the Body</a> (or Catechesis on Human Love or the Anthropology of Love). I would have thought that the books and films recommended here would be particularly suitable for 15 years + </span><br />
<br />.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-59311674090284240602014-05-10T19:10:00.000+01:002014-05-10T19:10:59.619+01:00Oasis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNTz5bwucCRLfVaPO49PLJ7f6xSjg49tbUj0zivPctANp7ANRhEmX0V4pVGpepXZDmf_mYwu_LTK4pFU53Aoxu90LBTXDCA2DoDonKFxwmGmkHxpbwBVWAziWEUz9P-yM0Goe7gZtVsI/s1600/cop-oasis-13-sito-ing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNTz5bwucCRLfVaPO49PLJ7f6xSjg49tbUj0zivPctANp7ANRhEmX0V4pVGpepXZDmf_mYwu_LTK4pFU53Aoxu90LBTXDCA2DoDonKFxwmGmkHxpbwBVWAziWEUz9P-yM0Goe7gZtVsI/s1600/cop-oasis-13-sito-ing.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.oasiscenter.eu/the-journal">Oasis Journal</a> (from <a href="http://www.oasiscenter.eu/">Cardinal Scola's Oasis Foundation</a>) is a real find. It's a great read and it's also a great-looking journal. This is one that looks good on the shelf (and off the shelf too).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.oasiscenter.eu/the-journal/religions-on-a-tightrope-between-secularism-and-ideology">The current issue</a> deals with some important issues which I'll return to in another post, but you can also read at least some of the Education issue <a href="http://www.oasiscenter.eu/the-journal/education-a-global-question">here</a>.</span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-78694177279462929832014-04-26T11:58:00.000+01:002014-04-26T11:58:00.445+01:00Hitting the Nail on the Head with G.K. Chesterton<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Most modern history, especially in England, suffers from the same imperfection as journalism. At best it only tells half of the history of Christendom; and that the second half without the first half. Men for whom reason begins with the Revival of Learning, men for whom religion begins with the Reformation, can never give a complete account of anything, for they have to start with institutions whose origin they cannot explain, or generally even imagine. Just as we hear of the admiral being shot but have never heard of his being born, so we all heard a great deal about the dissolution of the monasteries, but we heard next to nothing about the creation of the monasteries."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An extract from <a href="http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/St_Francis.html" style="font-style: italic;">St Francis</a> by G.K. Chesterton, published in 1923.</span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-36752382291997167852014-04-24T19:24:00.001+01:002014-04-24T19:24:58.170+01:00A Time to Keep Silence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgcHoIiY0yyQPbCLq_8v3jJtqkmgjUKdOH6qyvBX14wVO2Ec6eNJb22G9R7X1_K4NbONEbUqv0AfalvcFmpcLuqemoRBl4ohF0oXAlkutuASfjjRiWELocExymgYmbL2yZUw763Rtf0nU/s1600/Fermor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgcHoIiY0yyQPbCLq_8v3jJtqkmgjUKdOH6qyvBX14wVO2Ec6eNJb22G9R7X1_K4NbONEbUqv0AfalvcFmpcLuqemoRBl4ohF0oXAlkutuASfjjRiWELocExymgYmbL2yZUw763Rtf0nU/s1600/Fermor.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are times when the outsiders' perspective leaves the reader with a sense of being slightly short-changed, but there are also occasions when the outsider is able to communicate what he sees with as much (or more) clarity than those on the inside. Take Patrick Leigh Fermor's <i><a href="https://www.hodder.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9780719555275">A Time to Keep Silence</a></i>, for instance, a great book about monasticism from an acclaimed travel writer.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This passage gives a sense of what you are given in the book as a whole: "Listening to the singing of the Hours in the language of fifth- or sixth-century Western Christendom, one can forget the alterations of the twentieth and feel that the life-line of notes and syllables between the Early Church and today is still intact: that these, indeed, might have been the sung words to which King Aethelbert and Queen Bertha listened when St Augustine first set foot in the Isle of Thanet."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What we have here is a sympathetic author who a) writes beautiful prose b) understands and appreciates the Church's continuity c) to many students' delight, writes a book that weighs in at under 100 pages. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But those same students might find these 95 pages lexically challenging. Take this extract from page 36: "Tierce ended, the officiating monk entered in his vestments, and the deacon and sub-deacon, the acolytes and torch-bearers. They genuflected together, and the Mass began. Every moment the ceremony gained in splendour. If it was the feast of a great saint, the enthroned abbot was arrayed by his myrmidons in the pontificalia. A gold mitre was placed on his head, and the gloved hand that held the crosier was jewelled at the point of the stigma and on the third finger the great ring sparkled over the fabric. The thurifer approached the celebrant and a column of incense climbed into the air, growing and spreading like an elm-tree of smoke across the shafts of sunlight. The chanting became steadily more complex, led by a choir of monks who stood in the middle of the aisle, their voices limning chants that the black Gregorian block-notes, with their comet-like tails and Moorish-looking arabesques, wove and rewove across the threads of the antique four-line clef on the pages of their graduals. Then, with a quiet solemnity, the monks streamed into the cloister in the wake of a jewelled cross."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not that the comparative complexity of the language should be a reason to ignore this book. Rather, in much the same way that the author had to adjust himself to the monasteries in which he stayed, so too do we, his readers, need to adjust our reading to his language. Just as he had to adjust </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to the pace and rhythm of the monasteries in which he stayed, so too do we need to adjust our reading to the pace and rhythm of his prose. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just as there is a time to keep silence, so too is there a time to read slowly.</span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-49052724659796305892014-04-02T19:06:00.000+01:002014-04-02T19:06:05.957+01:00Hero on a Bicycle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibrK9Cr3dT9F_HlHPQRbzDqTzmNirUqkrCzHmYtW0cXxBt83_MiPIE5H0GN-onfAzrlspf7xpeQVxtjfnhJudF1dbwu5BNog54TIZnGR-M3ybaBRkPexVmzIZ0TzF3pcuKbgzi4q4eYvY/s1600/hero-on-a-bicycle1-191x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibrK9Cr3dT9F_HlHPQRbzDqTzmNirUqkrCzHmYtW0cXxBt83_MiPIE5H0GN-onfAzrlspf7xpeQVxtjfnhJudF1dbwu5BNog54TIZnGR-M3ybaBRkPexVmzIZ0TzF3pcuKbgzi4q4eYvY/s1600/hero-on-a-bicycle1-191x300.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shirley Hughes is best known for her <i>Alfie</i> books for toddlers but she recently wrote a book for older children which is well worth reading.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.heroonabicycle.co.uk/">Hero on a Bicycle</a> </i>is set in Italy during World War II and features a Catholic Anglo-Italian family who are, rather unwillingly, drawn into helping the resistance. I won't give away too much of the plot but if you want to read another review from a Catholic perspective that tells you more, click <a href="http://goodtoread.org/whatsnew/title:hero-on-a-bicycle/">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unlike Hilda van Stockum's <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/van%20Stockum%20Hilda" style="font-style: italic;">The Winged Watchman</a>, this is not a book that is suffused with Catholicism - it seems to be Catholicism from an outsider's perspective - but it is a book which takes the Faith seriously and respects it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I shall be recommending this book in conjunction with <i><a href="http://roadtovalorbook.com/">Road to Valor</a></i>, about another Italian Catholic hero on a bicycle. </span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-65521864647655869552014-03-31T21:27:00.003+01:002014-03-31T21:27:49.838+01:00Chitty Chitty Bang Bang<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Forget the play. Forget the film. Forget, if you can, the songs. Read the book. <br /><br />It's great.<br /><br />And it's surprisingly innocent. <br /><br />There's no ratcatcher here, and no children being snatched from their parents. Quite the opposite. As Frank Cottrell Boyce <a href="http://uk.chittyfliesagain.com/the-author.html">points out</a>: <i>Chitty Chitty Bang Bang</i> is "one of the very few stories in which the whole family goes off on the adventure – usually children have to be sent away to school or evacuated or bereaved or fall through a time vortex before an adventure can start." <br /><br />So <i>Chitty Chitty Bang Bang</i> really is a book for all the family. And if you want more, <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Cottrell%20Boyce%20Frank">Frank Cottrell Boyce</a> has now written three sequels.<br /><br />If you want a sample, you can read the first chapter of <i>Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again</i> <a href="http://uk.chittyfliesagain.com/the-book.html">here</a>.</span>.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-70314047860080783292014-03-30T09:12:00.001+01:002014-03-30T09:12:57.130+01:00The Divine ComedyBBC Radio 4 begins <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xtwrk">a new dramatisation of Dante's Divine Comedy today</a> at 3pm UK time. It's asking a lot to dramatise it in 3 one-hour episodes but I suppose it's asking a lot to fit a journey from Hell to Paradise into one poem..http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-41869361959861301052014-02-27T18:00:00.000+00:002014-02-27T18:00:05.519+00:00Beauty in Education<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I realise this might sound like special pleading because one of them mentions my talk in Oxford on Saturday but Stratford Caldecott has a particularly interesting set of posts on his <a href="http://beauty-in-education.blogspot.co.uk/">Beauty in Education blog</a> at the moment. The article on <a href="http://beauty-in-education.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/education-and-evangelization.html">Education and Evangelization</a> (with the full version <a href="http://www.kofc.org/un/en/columbia/detail/education-evangelization.html">here</a>) is especially good. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hadn't come across this G K Chesterton line before, for a start: </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">“Is ditchwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun.” </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Brilliant.</span></span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-91505471575860120802014-02-26T21:42:00.002+00:002014-02-26T21:42:52.702+00:00Forgiveness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While I'm on the topic of Radio 3, I thought I'd mention <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03wp192">this week's series of programmes about Forgiveness</a>. On Friday it will be the turn of Catholic poet <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Roberts%20Michael%20Symmons">Michael Symmons Roberts</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And if you need more reasons to listen to Radio 3 (or equivalent Classical Music stations in other countries), just listen out for the number of references to the Mass, the Stabat Mater, the Salve Regina ... in short, to core elements of the Faith that are simply absent from most people's lives. It's not the only reason to listen to Radio 3, of course, but </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/catholicism-and-music.html">Catholicism does still have a formidable presence in Classical Music</a>. </span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-7589112794230880822014-02-23T20:57:00.001+00:002014-02-23T21:38:54.321+00:00El Sistema<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXOVOJMnEOHahLZ-nnVkORmNw7qXDZzMu0qtof8Dsifc7aJLK4i7O8Iaic_TeM0hvALQJRjBozsKYQYVFkFH0j-SyLZB1QFFw8O805oYfjp7NqmZlSsODLh00WpBc2M6ipjIVI8GRwZqc/s1600/bbc-radio-3-logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXOVOJMnEOHahLZ-nnVkORmNw7qXDZzMu0qtof8Dsifc7aJLK4i7O8Iaic_TeM0hvALQJRjBozsKYQYVFkFH0j-SyLZB1QFFw8O805oYfjp7NqmZlSsODLh00WpBc2M6ipjIVI8GRwZqc/s1600/bbc-radio-3-logo.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was an interesting discussion about Venezuela during <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vzzhs">BBC Radio 3's Music Matters</a> programme yesterday. Since this blog deals neither with politics nor with music (for the most part), I'll steer clear of most of the details but the discussion of <a href="http://elsistemausa.org/el-sistema/venezuela/">El Sistema</a> (which has brought us <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA7vEIj6Lzk">Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra</a>) reminded me of <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/jmacmillan/100066610/does-richard-holloway-and-other-leftist-class-warriors-realise-that-el-sistema-has-links-with-opus-dei/">this article</a> by James MacMillan about El Sistema's Catholic roots. You can hear Jose Antonio Abreu, the founder of El Sistema, speaking about some of his beliefs <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/jose_abreu_on_kids_transformed_by_music.html">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The programme also addressed the issue of Richard Strauss's links with the Nazi regime by talking to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: none; color: #262626; line-height: 16px;">Christoph von Dohnanyi, one of Strauss's great interpreters, who came from a solidly anti-Nazi family. It raised some hugely important questions which von Dohnanyi dealt with movingly, though there is undoubtedly more to be said. What are we to make, for instance, of Strauss's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQhpWsRhQGs&feature=kp">Alpine Symphony</a>, which he considered naming Der Antichrist? Ideology matters in music as well as in literature but maybe a composer's (or an author's) ideology can be trumped by the audience's (or reader's). </span> </span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-16157414969571992892014-02-22T22:25:00.001+00:002014-02-22T22:25:23.529+00:00Claude McKay<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF3T2HPlSWeCJ227fS3OufYAv4SSxegjld-JTSDlD7g5vVGqioCCgw-4SyO4DSJtNaR5hlyF6yohvQQm2EsvTV9mbJk2QGMcXYOEKdCPUZK5jo2gLEUMY-rr2xPYxZzBHeOu5B99ywemY/s1600/Mackey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF3T2HPlSWeCJ227fS3OufYAv4SSxegjld-JTSDlD7g5vVGqioCCgw-4SyO4DSJtNaR5hlyF6yohvQQm2EsvTV9mbJk2QGMcXYOEKdCPUZK5jo2gLEUMY-rr2xPYxZzBHeOu5B99ywemY/s1600/Mackey.jpg" height="320" width="229" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to the Poetry Foundation's useful <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/claude-mckay">website</a>, the poet and novelist Claude McKay "continues to be associated with the phenomenon known as the Harlem Renaissance, though he lived outside of the country for much of the period, and has found new audiences among readers of commonwealth literature and gay and lesbian literature."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He should also find new audiences among readers of Catholic literature because, as <a href="http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/sites/default/files/wordpress/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/McKay.pdf">this article</a> shows, McKay ultimately left behind communism, Islam and other interests and became a committed Catholic. You can read some of his poems, including some of his late Catholic poems, <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=61i9PMMDX0oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=claude+mckay+complete+poems&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pSMJU96qLsaU7QbF8IGQDw&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=claude%20mckay%20complete%20poems&f=false">here</a>.</span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-35178042373874472412014-01-27T20:58:00.001+00:002014-01-27T20:58:42.647+00:00Oxford Talks<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.secondspring.co.uk/">Second Spring</a> is holding its second Interfaith Colloquium at St Benet's Hall, Oxford on Saturday 1st March from 2-5pm. There are going to be some interesting speakers, and I'm giving a talk as well.</span></div>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The theme of the afternoon is Humanising Work and here's the blurb:</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Secularization poses a challenge to religious believers in the practice of their professions, more so as the dominant view creates an environment hostile to traditional conceptions of morality and even social order. Are these conflicts inevitable? What kind of public engagement with these issues would be most fruitful? </i></span></div>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>In this series of colloquia, Christian and Islamic thinkers engage in a conversation about notions of society, the secular, and the human vocation. If “the greatest single antidote to violence is conversation” (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks), such initiatives may make a contribution to the development of a culture of peace. </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2:00 – Crafts: Karim Lahham (Tabah Foundation) </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2:30 – Architecture: Warwick Pethers (Gothic Design Practice) </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3:00 – Teaching: Roy Peachey (Woldingham School and Cedars School, Croydon) </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and Dr Talal al-Azem (Oriental Institute and Pembroke College) </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4:00 – Discussion: chaired by Stratford Caldecott and Karim Lahham</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you're interested in coming along, it's free admission. For further information contact secondspringltd@gmail.com</span></div>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span>.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-35489607116573911972014-01-16T19:02:00.001+00:002014-01-16T19:02:38.073+00:00The Four Quartets<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jeremy Irons is going to be reading possibly the greatest poems of the 20th Century, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03q4pss">T.S. Eliot's <i>Four Quartets</i></a>, for BBC Radio 4 on Saturday afternoon. An added bonus is that they are being introduced by Catholic poet, <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/epiphany.html">Michael Symmons Roberts</a>, Catholic politician <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/lord-alton-on-tolkien.html">Lord Alton</a>, and <a href="http://www.gold.ac.uk/ecl/staff/g-mcdonald/">Gail McDonald</a>, an expert on Eliot's poetry.</span>.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-55741321297700105342013-12-24T11:03:00.000+00:002013-12-24T14:35:10.715+00:00Merry Christmas from Millom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHAqcGxEK-Hdgd5yFgt90008_KfwVwS5E4Sy9qS0skVa9skjVaG9W9K3qsHHb8ivXxUNAL3eIPU2v0Xei22ZEhPccClslM97iElxOsUBvBDLJYFBjvcsjayIbVNG71wP24SCky2Q2qtk/s1600/millom2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHAqcGxEK-Hdgd5yFgt90008_KfwVwS5E4Sy9qS0skVa9skjVaG9W9K3qsHHb8ivXxUNAL3eIPU2v0Xei22ZEhPccClslM97iElxOsUBvBDLJYFBjvcsjayIbVNG71wP24SCky2Q2qtk/s320/millom2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I bought my first car, a Citroen 2CV, from Millom, a post-industrial town on the Cumbrian coast. A car like no other bought in a place like no other: I was very fond of them both. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Millom has two claims to literary fame: the second was Montagu Slater, who wrote the libretto for Benjamin Britten's <i>Peter Grimes</i>, but the first was <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Nicholson%20Norman">Norman Nicholson</a>, a great Anglican poet who wrote this lovely <a href="http://www.naxos.com/sharedfiles/PDF/8.573053_sungtext.pdf">carol</a> (which has been set to music <a href="http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.573053">here</a> and <a href="http://johnfletchermusic.me.uk/XX_Carol_Mary_laid_her_Child_CC5.php">here</a>).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Norman-Nicholson-The-Whispering-Poet/dp/0957433247/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1387882548&sr=8-1">His biography</a> has just been published in anticipation of his centenary next year, so the carol seems a fitting way to offer Christmas greetings to you all.</span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-9594348426161060962013-12-23T14:12:00.000+00:002013-12-23T14:12:08.798+00:00Toni Morrison - Catholic novelist?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Discussions of Catholic literature don't usually start (or end) with Toni Morrison but, according to John N. Duvall in <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/theidentifyingfictionsoftonimorrison/JohnDuvall" style="font-style: italic;">The Identifying Fictions of Toni Morrison</a>,<i> </i>there is at the very least a question to be considered. (John McClure, in quite a different way, also considers the question in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Partial-Faiths-Postsecular-Fiction-Morrison/dp/0820330337">Partial Faiths: Postsecular Fiction in the Age of Pynchon and Morrison</a>.</i>) Let's have a look at the evidence.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Duvall points out that Morrison opened a can of Catholic worms in 2003 by <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/10/27/031027fa_fact_als">revealing that Toni was in fact derived from St Anthony, the baptismal name she took when converting to Catholicism aged 12.</a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2005, Morrison was more explicit, <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eV9_8v4pTzsC&pg=PA254&dq=toni++morrison+catholic&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rRKuUuHPLsSI7Aao1YCwDw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=toni%20%20morrison%20catholic&f=false">telling an interviewer</a> that, "I am a Catholic ... And [referring to <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paradise-Toni-Morrison/dp/0099768216">Paradise</a></i>] what saved me was, I think - what helped me at any rate - was knowing that I was going to take religion seriously, I mean belief."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So where do we look for the Catholic Toni Morrison? Her 2003 novel <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Toni-Morrison/dp/0099455498/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387141418&sr=8-1&keywords=toni+morrison+love">Love</a></i> sounds as though it might be as good a place as any, though, on first glance, the love in this novel is about as far from John Paul II's Theology of the Body as you could possibly get. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a novel about incestuous desires, murder, gang rape and pretty much every other form of hatred you could imagine. In fact, <i>Hate </i>could just as easily have been the title. As one of the narrators tell us early in the book, "Hate does that. Burns off everything but itself, so whatever your grievance is, your face looks just like your enemy's." Which seems to me true, even if it doesn't much help us figure out what love is or get us any closer to the nature of Morrison's Catholicism.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We assume at first that the love of the novel's title is the love of a number of different women for the same man but, as the novel progresses, the absence of the word as well as the thing itself starts to suggest that maybe something else is going on. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is only towards the very end of the novel that "love" the word and "love" the action begin to appear, and only at the very end of the novel that we discover what L's name means and what its Biblical inspiration is. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In true Morrison style, all our expectations are subverted with the act of love which eventually speaks its name revealed as an act of murder. Toni Morrison: Catholic novelist? Not perhaps on the basis of this novel.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what about Morrison's 2008 novel, <i>A Mercy</i>? Again the significance of the title only becomes clear in the final chapter, where we discover that what appeared to be the most callous of acts - a mother giving up her daughter - was actually a mercy.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is an act of mercy that Morrison has prepared us for. Earlier in the novel the character who takes the girl mulls over what John Boswell called <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/K/bo3633447.html">the kindness of strangers</a>: "From his own childhood he knew there was no good place in the world for waifs and whelps other than the generosity of strangers. Even if bartered, given away, apprenticed, sold, swapped, seduced, tricked for food, labored for shelter or stolen, they were less doomed under adult control. Even if they mattered less than a milch cow to a parent or master, without an adult they were more likely to freeze to death on stone steps, float facedown in canals, or wash up on banks and shoals. He refused to be sentimental about his own orphan status, the years spent with children of all shades, stealing food and cadging gratuities for errands." (30) This might not be what we were expecting but it's powerful stuff.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Morrison's novels are often explorations of community (see Duvall, 158-9) with one of the tragedies of <i>A Mercy </i>being that "Sir and Mistress believed they could have honest free-thinking lives, yet without heirs, all their work meant less than a swallow's nest. Their drift away from others produced a selfish privacy and they had lost the refuge and the consolation of a clan." (56) So what alternatives are there to this familial selfishness? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As John Duvall points out: "What makes <i>A Mercy </i>different from Morrison's earlier work is that it does not explore the possibilities of black community. Rather, Morrison looks to a pre-US past when the laws that would come to constitute the material privileges of whiteness were only beginning to be written. The setting, in other words, is a multicultural America, prior to the invention of whiteness." (160)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, we could take Duvall's argument a step further since another community that is fatally compromised in the novel (in this case by sin, slavery and sexual exploitation) is the community of the Church. When salvation, of a sort, comes it is salvation <i>from</i> a Catholic family by means of <i>human</i> intervention: "It was not a miracle. Bestowed by God. It was a mercy. Offered by a human." (164-5)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So where does this leave us as we consider the question we raised at the start? It may be that </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Morrison is stretching out towards a distinctively Catholic position in her most recent novels, but it would surely be pushing it too far to see her as a distinctively Catholic novelist. In fact, I suspect that we need to probe that 2003 interview a little further before we can reach any definitive conclusions. It's something I'll try to do in the new year.</span></div>
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.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-82248792948394183942013-12-20T08:57:00.001+00:002013-12-20T08:57:22.319+00:00Othello as Protestant Propaganda<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can tell things are going well when your students start teaching you. One of my students recently introduced me to this essay on <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W92EP-2WnzMC&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=othello+as+protestant+propaganda&source=bl&ots=Z6A9mZPz88&sig=7IyxcvdtfkYhpn_bG2dcKXneg1w&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qQO0UoDzA4m7hAep9IDYBw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=othello%20as%20protestant%20propaganda&f=false">'<i>Othello </i>as Protestant Propaganda'</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If Iago is a reminder of Sant Iago, a duplicitous, Jesuitical character who also just happens to be a "Moor-slayer", then we have a rather different view of the play from the one we may be used to. <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-a60qzzSe80C&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=othello+sword+of+spain&source=bl&ots=kt5TwEGdfU&sig=3mttVwafx4Wi5rIvUT5jI5cSqBo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZAS0UsjUNZOBhAfK2oCoDA&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=othello%20sword%20of%20spain&f=false">Othello's "sword of Spain" from Act 5, Scene 2 gains a wider signification</a> for a start.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If nothing else, such a reading provides a useful counterbalance to the glut of <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Shakespeare">"Catholic" readings of Shakespeare</a> that we have seen in recent years. Clearly Shakespeare was emerging from a Catholic world (and a Catholic family) but he emerged into one that was strongly Protestant.</span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-85392662873654096872013-11-19T20:53:00.000+00:002013-11-19T20:53:10.625+00:00C.S. Lewis<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the 50th anniversary of C.S. Lewis's death approaching later this week, it is extremely heartening to see that his work is beginning to be taken seriously in academia. There has also been an unexpected glut of programmes about him on the BBC. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03h2rdj">This radio documentary</a> about Lewis and Aldous Huxley (who died on the same day) was fascinating, and I was surprised to hear <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03jphqj">Screwtape's voice</a> booming from my radio the other day.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's tempting to see him in Catholic terms, as Michael Coren does <a href="http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/2700/jack_convert_mere_christian_and_near_catholic.aspx#.Uou-4yikS5Q">here</a>, but we shouldn't underestimate Lewis's emotional and intellectual attachment to what he called in <i>That Hideous Strength </i>(one of his greatest books) the "sweet, Protestant world". It is certainly true that the Church of England has changed since Lewis's day, but it doesn't necessarily follow, as Joseph Pearce argues <a href="http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/2715/the_thought_and_work_of_cs_lewis.aspx#.Uou_VyikS5R">here</a>, that: "The sobering truth is that even if Lewis had not chosen to leave the Church of England, the Church of England would have chosen to leave him." </span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-73744763256875030702013-10-28T16:40:00.001+00:002013-10-28T16:40:57.832+00:00Contemporary French Literature<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the <a href="http://www.academie-goncourt.fr/?rubrique=1229171232">Prix Goncourt</a>, France's most prestigious literary prize, due to be awarded in the next few days, I thought it might be worth having a quick look at contemporary French literature. (For previous posts on French lit, click <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lourdes-and-literature.html">here</a>, <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/la-porte-des-anges.html">here</a> and <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/what-happened-to-catholic-novel.html">here</a>.)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last year's winner was <i><a href="http://www.actes-sud.fr/catalogue/litterature/le-sermon-sur-la-chute-de-rome">Le sermon sur la chute de Rome</a> </i>by <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">Jérôme Ferrari. I know that I am inclined to grass-is-greenerism but I can't quite imagine a prize-winning novel in the UK drawing its title and its chapter headings from St Augustine.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The year before the prize was won by Alexis Jenni with <a href="http://www.gallimard.fr/Catalogue/GALLIMARD/Folio/Folio/L-art-francais-de-la-guerre">L'art français de la guerre</a>. What drew most comment was the fact that Jenni was a schoolteacher who wrote this, his first novel, on Sundays when he had a bit of free time, but I couldn't also help but notice <a href="http://www.lavie.fr/culture/livres/alexis-jenni-je-suis-profondement-catholique-08-11-2011-21719_30.php">his deep-rooted Catholicism</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another winner of the Prix Goncourt (though in a different category) is Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt with <a href="http://www.eric-emmanuel-schmitt.com/literature.cfm?nomenclatureId=1773&catalogid=858&lang=EN" style="font-style: italic;">Concerto in Memory of an Angel</a>, which features a story about redemption based around a reworking of the Cain and Abel story.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it's not just the Prix Goncourt winners who stand out. Another really interesting author is Claire Daudin, who writes clearly in the French Catholic literary tradition. She is not just a novelist in her own right - <i>Le Sourire</i> was the winner of <a href="http://www.ecrivainscroyants.fr/2009/11/28/claire-daudin-recompensee/">le prix 2009 des Journées du Livre Chrétien</a> - but she is also something of an expert on Peguy, Bernanos and Mauriac.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What else you get in France more than in the UK are translations. So the novels of Catholic novelists like <a href="http://www.furet.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=mosebach&loupe.x=0&loupe.y=0&searchtype=facette">Martin Mosebach</a> (Germany), <a href="http://www.furet.com/le-septieme-voile-1335467.html">Juan Manuel de Prada</a> (Spain), <a href="http://www.furet.com/catalog/product/view/id/2262106/?___SID=U">Nguyen Viet Ha</a> (Vietnam) and <a href="http://www.lacauselitteraire.fr/une-terre-de-lait-et-de-miel-fan-wen">Fan Wen</a> (China) are all much more readily accessible than they are over here.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And if that isn't enough to get you excited, there's a new <a href="http://www.furet.com/asterix-t-35-asterix-chez-les-pictes-2321066.html">Asterix</a> book out too.</span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-69600207836509645332013-10-16T21:11:00.000+01:002013-10-16T21:11:19.456+01:00National Book Awards<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The US National Book Awards finalists have just been announced and among them is <a href="http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2013_ypl_luenyang.html#.Ul7xMCh4W5R">Gene Luen Yang</a> in the Young People's Literature section. I have written about Yang <a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Yang%20Gene%20Luen">a few times before</a> and so I'm delighted to see him on the list.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2013_f_mcdermott.html#.Ul7yaih4W5Q"><i>Someone </i>by Alice McDermott</a> was longlisted but progressed no further.</span></div>
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.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-36771902444428195912013-10-02T21:53:00.000+01:002013-10-02T21:53:25.115+01:00More Waugh<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fr Tim Finigan has posted a link to <a href="http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/evelyn-waugh-on-bbc.html">this interview</a> with Evelyn Waugh on his blog. It's full of wonderful one-liners, mainly because he seems to go out of his way to avoid two-line answers. The only time he really gets carried away is when talking about <i><a href="http://catholicenglishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/evelyn-waugh-postmodernism-and-helena.html">Helena</a> </i>and the True Cross.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I particularly enjoyed his answers about Oxford.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When asked why he chose to go to Hertford College,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> he replied: "They paid me."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When asked why he got a bad Third he gave an even briefer answer: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Sloth."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"What did you do at Oxford?" the interviewer asked. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Enjoyed myself," he replied.</span>.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744468671504717334.post-25649828604934809462013-10-01T21:57:00.000+01:002013-10-01T21:57:08.335+01:00Edmund Campion: Scholar, Priest, Hero, Martyr<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_LPNmcop8ZSXccOCqUzkrDy4lHZ-bJLR-hSsKBXHiqld79uA5Zm6TAL22c3PoooA-bcwyz3z-xsShWQcyiGTIHUEGjMcT-4BZSyt8jtX34hEf1w6pWAF_6NJnS-akyAGUnYjAZxQyvU/s1600/campion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_LPNmcop8ZSXccOCqUzkrDy4lHZ-bJLR-hSsKBXHiqld79uA5Zm6TAL22c3PoooA-bcwyz3z-xsShWQcyiGTIHUEGjMcT-4BZSyt8jtX34hEf1w6pWAF_6NJnS-akyAGUnYjAZxQyvU/s320/campion.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The novel is the genre of our age, so much so that other forms of writing are often quietly ignored. However, it was not all that long ago that literature meant so much more than fiction. So, for example, I wonder how often Waugh's wonderful biography of Edmund Campion appears on reading lists alongside <i>Brideshead Revisited </i>and <i>The Sword of Honour </i>trilogy (which, incidentally, is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03c8nnf">BBC Radio 4's current classic serial</a>).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his preface, Waugh writes: "There is great need for a complete, scholar's work on the subject. This is not it. All I have done is select the incidents which strike a novelist as important, and relate them in a single narrative." For Waugh himself, there seemed to be little difference between his work as a novelist and his work as a biographer.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But what of the book itself?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are some wonderful passages, as you might imagine. Take this one on Pope Pius V's excommunication of Queen Elizabeth: "It is possible that one of his more worldly predecessors might have acted differently, or at another season, but it was the pride and slight embarrassment of the Church that, as has happened from time to time in her history, the See of Peter was at this moment occupied by a saint."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or this one describing Campion's prayers in the moments before his execution: "They called to him to pray in English, but he replied with great mildness that 'he would pray God in a language which they both well understood.'" The glory of that put-down is Campion's rather than Waugh's but it could so easily have been a phrase used in a Waugh novel.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the edition of the book which I have, the subtitle is "Scholar, Priest, Hero, Martyr". I see that's been changed to "Jesuit and Martyr" in <a href="http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141391502,00.html">the Penguin Classics edition</a>. The former follows the pattern of Waugh's chapter headings. I wonder which subtitle is the one Waugh would have wanted.</span></div>
.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09482807445168605977noreply@blogger.com0