Historic Churches in Scotland

Well, standing at John Knox's house in Edinburgh is an interesting experience. Knox--Scottish reformer, friend of John Calvin, revolutionary, political activist, founder of the Presbyterian Church--is one of the pivotal figures in the history of the Protestant Reformation. He steered the Scottish church (the Kirk) away from Anglicanism, though he got some strategic support from reformers in England under Elizabeth I. But he had written a misogynist attack against Mary of Guise and her daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women," that offended Elizabeth I. He took intransigent and sometimes contradictory political positions, depending on the situation in which he found himself.

That may explain the difference I saw between historic churches in Scotland and those in Britain, though I really don't have enough evidence to pronounce anything definitively. In Britain, as my video blog shows, churches still have standing as places of worship, and the interpretive material connected with them really makes their devotional purpose explicit. In the Scottish historic churches I visited, there is really no attempt to describe or explain the reformation in Scotland. One gets little sense of the history or development of Protestant Christianity.

I am at a loss to explain this. Reform in Scotland was a messier, yet more theological, process than in Britain. Yet, from all I see, Scotland is a more secular place even than Britain, one of the most secular societies in Europe. But then again, I didn't go to Saint Andrews, and didn't visit any Highland churches.

Video Blog for August 2, 2010

Here is the video blog on my GCU Facebook site, for last week. Over the next few days, I'll have more to say about historic churches and religion in Britain and Scotland. I'll also be talking about the Highland moors and the Scottish outdoors.

English Serendipity

In my video blog, I mentioned two things, that I'd gone to Oxford, and that I'd seen the Codex Mendoza (above). I pointed to both this, and a picture of Shakespeare that I'd seen exhibited last year, as examples of serendipity--useful blind luck of the find.

Anyhow, I'm interested in the Codex Mendoza because sometime around 1587, Richard Hakluyt, my research subject, who was working in France at the time (spying for Sir Francis Walsingham?) received this manuscript from Andre Thevet, the Geographer Royal of France at the time. Interestingly, around this time, Thevet and Hakluyt may or may not have had a falling out, because Thevet accused Hakluyt and Martin Basanier of essentially stealing a narrative about a French colony in Florida from him. But they must have worked it out. The Codex Mendoza is an important Aztec manuscript: in fact, if you could see the writing on the illustration on the left page, it's Aztec spoken language in Roman characters at the top, the Aztec ideogram in the middle, and Spanish on the bottom. But Hakluyt couldn't get anyone to engrave the illustrations, so he didn't print it before his death in 1616. It came to his self-appointed literary heir, Samuel Purchas, with the rest of Hakluyt's manuscripts upon his death, and Purchas printed it in his collection Purchas his Pilgrimes. From there, the manuscript came into the possession of Robert Selden.

So imagine my surprise, when on just an informal visit to the Bodleian Library exhibit room with no idea that it was there, I see the codex on display in an exhibit of the donation of Robert Selden, an exhibit which was to close on the next day. One doesn't always get that kind of luck.

That was just like my luck with the Shakespeare portrait last year, when in walking around Stratford, I came to the mini-exhibit of this portrait and its provenance (narrative of transmission). The portrait had just been in the news at that time, and I got to see it in detail. I wasn't supposed to take pictures in either case, as it turns out, but I did. It's better to apologize than to ask for permission beforehand.

RSC As You Like It 2010

The RSC Trailer

Before you read the rest of this, take a look at the RSC's trailer for this production (click on the link above). Keep in mind that this is one of Shakespeare's comedies, in fact from what's sometimes called his "golden period," the sunniest ones he ever wrote.

I hate to break it to them, but it still turns out a comedy, even when you skin a dead rabbit on stage. Even when you put Touchstone into a straitjacket and crazyman pants. Even when songs that generally would be sung by Amiens and Touchstone are put into the mouth of noir-Jethro Tull costumed Jaques. Even when you make "The Lusty Horn" song into a nightmare sequence for Celia.

I mean, there are anxieties in this play, chief among them the Freudian (note anachronism) male anxiety about cuckolding, which the intelligence and female friendship of Celia and Rosalind do nothing to allay in the comic version. But nihilistic anxieties of the type that the changed stage business attempts aren't really convincing.

The structure and language are too strong to push against, even though the play with its "humorous" (in the Early Modern Renaissance sense of character determination) elements suggests a kind of dispositional determinism that gets subverted by the "conversion" plot. In fact, this interplay produces a kind of happy chaos in which anything can happen, and in which characters end up overcoming their dispositions.

This is also my favorite script of a play, in pretty much a tie with Midsummer Night's Dream. I'd forgotten just how witty it is when played by stage experts. So, the language is too exuberant to be tamed to nihilism as well. It's free play instead.

But different takes are always enjoyable, and the attempt to heighten the negative emotional tension between Celia and Rosalind actually worked to underline some elements that generally go unnoticed in the play when worked as a comedy (like the adjudication scene at the beginning of MSND; that verdict could be pretty serious for Hermia).

So, two thumbs up (as opposed to index and middle finger up, palm facing the gesturer. It's a British thing.).

Video Blog for July 27, 2010

Video Blog for July 27, 2010

I'll write more later on several topics that I bring up in this video blog. For now, I need to teach!

Wicken Fen Odyssey (Redux)

Quick Note: Apparently I didn't write about our little odyssey last year, up the Southeast bank of the River Cam. But we did it. I promise.

For at least two years now, Chris has had a fixation with one of the last remaining wild fens (marshes) in the vicinity of Cambridge, Wicken Fen. Maybe it's because the visitor's center is called the Thorpe Visitor's Center (her maiden name). Cambridge lies at the edge of the Fens, which used to reach north to to King's Lynn from around Cambridge (http://www.cfsa.co.uk/denver_complexintroduction.htm). Wicken Fen is toward Ely, one of the major historic towns in the fens, and the year before last, Chris and I had bicycled to and from Ely. Of course, it's a 15 minute trip by train.

So now, we've been intrigued by the trails and towpaths that parallel the River Cam up to Wicken Fen. Allegedly, they are part of two major routes of the National Cycle Network, and a route from Cambridge to Newmarket (which Chris also wants to visit because of the horses) is also supposed to exist (http://www.cycle-route.com/routes/Cambridge_to_Newmarket-Cycle-Route-68.html).

Last year, we attempted Wicken Fen by the bike path leading out of Cambridge on the Northwest side of the river. Somewhere around Waterbeach last year, we switched sides of the river from northwest to southeast bank. They really should put out a mountain biking recommendation for that side of the river. With wide knobbys, it would be decent (outside of lifting the bikes over stiles), but with street tourers, not so much (see my post last year about it).

Well, this year, we decided to stay on the Northwest side, using Long Drove to get up to where the path supposedly begins in earnest again just on the other side of the river from Upware. Of course, there's no bridge there, so one would theoretically have to make about a 3-mile loop anyway, to get back down to Wicken Fen (then, again theoretically, on to Burwell, a scenic, interesting town, and on to Newmarket).

Alas, it was not to be. Another mountain bike recommendation is needed here, starting at the end of Long Drove. Again, city bikes, and this time we stood opposite a pub in Upware where we had had a meal last year. But we couldn't get there, nor could we face another mile and a half of jolting on what is in actuality a rough footpath. The panorama above commemorates the farthest point north that we got. That's Upware across there with those narrow boats. Sounded like a good party.

Instead, we turned back to Waterbeach, and to a nice pub there. The weather was partly cloudy and the wind flowed over the flat fenland. And so, the odyssey (and jinx) continues.

Love's Labours Lost and GCU Videos

I thought that I'd embed my GCU video blog posts in this site, for those of you who don't have, or want to have, Facebook accounts. I'll start with the July 5 one, go on to the July 11 one and finish with the one I did yesterday. After this, I'll just embed each video blog as I do it.

Now, to Love's Labours Lost: We saw the production at one of the Downing College interior courts, east of St. Catharine's. It was a bit hard to get to, as we had to go on a busy road next to Parker's Piece to find the college entrance. There happens to be bicycle parking well into the college itself, so we walked our bikes (which we'd just rented that morning) to the area, locked them, and went into the garden with our light supper of sushi. We'd spotted a bento box Japanese restaurant earlier in the week and though that a bento box apiece would be a great way to have dinner at garden Shakespeare. But bento boxes are only for lunch. . . . . So, in a compromise, we got sushi to take away: shrimp nigiri, cucumber roll, and cucumber and crab. Gotta love the wasabi and ginger (Jim only).

The production itself ended up being one of the better I've seen at Cambridge. As usual, the players interacted often with the audience, and as usual, made use of the natural features (in this case some intervening bushes and trees) to enhance the performance's visual values. I'm constantly amazed by how much can be done with very few props. The company numbered about 12 people, so several parts were doubled.

The players themselves do play to members of the audience; in this case, one of the male comic leads played to a pretty girl sitting in the front on the grass with her boyfriend. Another feature of these productions is the fact that the audience members bring beverages, which the actors sometimes share. In this production, several of the actors ventured into the audience for alcohol, and worked their responses to the drinks into the production.

LLL is an interesting early comedy of Shakespeare's; as its name implies, it doesn't end in marriage as most of his comedies do. This can lead to an interesting dilemma for actors and directors, in that the humor needs to be kept going, but the ending does not resolve the conflict. These players were especially adept at working that ironic register in the production, while keeping the mood light. The Don Armando character, I think, hit just the right note (the rest of the audience apparently thought so too, since the cast got a good ovation at the end), but the Berowne character ended up being a little too, let's call it "precious," since he's one of the main characters who is supposed to be hopelessly in love with the French ladies.

Outside playing is interesting in another way in Britain--one never knows when it will rain. The performance started out under partly cloudy skies, and remained so until the end. But we did get lightly rained on several times during the performance (lucky Chris and I had brought our rain jackets). The upside to this was about act three, when the players were playing under an evening rainbow, which remained in the sky for at least 15 minutes.

As I say, an excellent production, well-received, then home on bicycles with generator lights, through the club-hopping crowds, under a spectacular fireworks show from the Shakespeare performance at King's College at about 10:15. One takes one's life in one's hands to ride at that time of night, but the fireworks were worth it, almost 4th of July level.