But what about Virgil?
May. 15th, 2006 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ricardienneI went to the SOS office today to get boxes, and what did I find but a brand new copy of How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. Although I am suspicious for several reasons. One being that the author is a Catholic himself, although I suppose it makes sense, as you wouldn't tend to have a Jew, for example, or a Lutheran writing about how the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. The other is that David Brooks featured this book, I think, in a column a while ago. He liked it a lot. This is not a good sign. And really, I do refer back to my title line. The Catholic Church largely took over Roman bureaucracy, and Roman Law was as influential as Canon law for the medieval jurists. Rome, which was such an important place/idea/symbol for the Church wasn't built by the Catholics. And I do think that Virgil and Ovid had more to do with Western literature than the New Testament. I may be wrong. Perhaps two semesters of Latin have corrupted me.
But I was thinking about this while rereading Saga of the Volsungs for the comparative lit final tomorrow (Ahh!) for which I should be studying. The other day I was talking to S. and pulling stuff off the top of my head to argue for a real parallel between the beginning and the end of the Aeneid. We can talk about a conscious, authorial manipulation of language to express a connection not explicit in the story itself when we talk about the Aeneid; we can ask whether Virgil is subverting his own theme of glorious imperial Rome. You can't do that with the Saga of the Volsungs. You can kind of do with Roland, although it tends towards "the poet is unable to fully articulate or realize the problems that he gives voice to in his text." I'm not sure what this has to do with the Catholic Church, but it does give light, so to speak, on why they call it the dark ages.
I am terrified by the thought of my lit final tomorrow, but I really really really don't want to study. I need to reread Rabelais, at least -- I was sick and then depressed when we covered it, and so, though I read the text and attended class, I don't feel like I got any kind of handle on it. And that's sort of the culmination of the whole course with the Renaissance and humanism and language for the sake of language. Ah! I am going to fail! I am going to be utterly unable to contextualize passages and then write an essay in 1 hour 20 minutes. I want it to be tomorrow night.
But I was thinking about this while rereading Saga of the Volsungs for the comparative lit final tomorrow (Ahh!) for which I should be studying. The other day I was talking to S. and pulling stuff off the top of my head to argue for a real parallel between the beginning and the end of the Aeneid. We can talk about a conscious, authorial manipulation of language to express a connection not explicit in the story itself when we talk about the Aeneid; we can ask whether Virgil is subverting his own theme of glorious imperial Rome. You can't do that with the Saga of the Volsungs. You can kind of do with Roland, although it tends towards "the poet is unable to fully articulate or realize the problems that he gives voice to in his text." I'm not sure what this has to do with the Catholic Church, but it does give light, so to speak, on why they call it the dark ages.
I am terrified by the thought of my lit final tomorrow, but I really really really don't want to study. I need to reread Rabelais, at least -- I was sick and then depressed when we covered it, and so, though I read the text and attended class, I don't feel like I got any kind of handle on it. And that's sort of the culmination of the whole course with the Renaissance and humanism and language for the sake of language. Ah! I am going to fail! I am going to be utterly unable to contextualize passages and then write an essay in 1 hour 20 minutes. I want it to be tomorrow night.
