Minutiae

This is one of the reasons academia makes me smile. A little clay tablet inscribed with cuneiform (which really just looks like a sparrow has walked all over the wet clay with its pointy feet*) has been hailed as "the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years" [same article as above, but from the Telegraph rather than Times]. The tablet mentions the name of Nabu-sharrusu-ukin, a minor character in the Old Testament (spelled Nebo-Sarsekim, which looks like a different name to me, but what do I know?). Because he was an historical actuality, then, more weight is lent to the entire book of Jeremiah (Chapter 39, if you're interested - though in my King James the name is so differently spelled that it could be quite another person, but I'll take their words for it).

But what makes me smile is that this discovery - this variously-spelt little man on a little piece of clay - is probably going to be the highest point of someone's academic life. Whilst to most of us it just looks like a bit of dried mud with bird-prints. Little things, great minds. Occasional madnesses...

*NB: Image in this link is not of the tablet in the article.

Preparatory

Indulging the inner child is always fun - and today I've been doing it big time! Well, I've just been reading something that probably better suits my real intellectual level (that is, low). Harry Potter!

There's a bit of a Potter glut at the moment, with the 5th film very recently out and the 7th and final (oh please final!) book out on Saturday. Not that I'm counting the days or anything. Look, there's an excuse, I'm a Potter Child - when the first book, HP & the Philosopher's Stone came out, I was the same age as Harry. That matters. Anyway, it's the 5th book, HP & the Order of the Phoenix I've been galloping through this afternoon, in preparation for seeing the film sometime this week. The films are great but they don't do the books justice, as they tend to leave great gaping holes where Rowling lovingly wrote explanations...it's annoying, so I curb the annoyance by reminding myself of the details pre-film. It's damage limitation.

People often ask me what I think of the Potter books, and it's invariably a slightly awkward conversation. They seem to think that because I study Real Literature (old books 'n' stuff), I will (a) not read 'popular' books or (b) look down on them but read them anyway, frowning and moaning. So the question is almost always asked apologetically, which is a bit sad. And then it's my turn to be trapped - either I say that I don't like the books, in which case I'm an academic snob and not open to anything fun/popular (and dismissing or rubbishing their literary taste into the bargain); or I say I do like them, in which case my studying Literature somehow becomes void and a sham because I can't tell the difference between Shakespeare and Rowling (in their minds). Obviously all this awkwardness and over-thinking is avoided if whoever's asking doesn't know that I study (a) English, (b) at Cambridge - a fact I keep as quiet as possible, so easy conversations do sometimes happen (not often enough, sadly). With the final HP book very much on its way, it seems time to come clean:

I'M CRUMPETTY AND I LIKE *HARRY POTTER*!

Rowling has got a fantastic imagination, and she does great stuff with it. The plot of every one of the books is gripping, and I want to know what happens next. And that last is vital. I'm not reading HP for a Literary buzz; I'm reading it because it involves a great yarn. Good against evil for kids, but with the dark bits left in. It's not patronising, nor moralising, nor stodgy. The writing quality has markedly improved since the 1st book, which is an interesting development to trace in itself - for starters, Rowling finally seems to have got a handle on her discourse markers ("NO!", "roared Harry", " shuffled Ron", "squawked Hermione", "warned Hagrid"...it's calmed down now, thankfully, and an unobtrusive "said" is used more often). Some of the writing can be really powerful, and other bits not so. But the urge to turn the page to see what happens next is huge. She can tell a story. And that's what matters in this kind of book. It will be good to see if she turns her hand to another style post-Potter, and if she carries it off. I hope she does (both) - it would be a shame to be a seven-part one-trick pony.

Have I ordered my copy of the 7th book, HP & the Deathly Hallows? Yep, of course! And I'll spend next weekend locked in my room, away from telephone, internet or annoying fast-reading children who might talk, within my earshot, about what happens at The End. Am I ashamed of this? No. Though, just in case I should be ashamed, I'll confess that I read HP & the Philosopher's Stone in Latin. Less impressively, I tried it in Russian but got about as far as a dolphin in the Sahara. So, onwards, Chapter 1 -

"Dominus et Domina Dursley, qui vivebant in aedibus Gestationis Ligustrorum numero quattuor signatis, non sine superbia dicebant se ratione ordinaria vevendi uti neque se paenitere illius rationis. in toto orbe terrarum vix credas quemquam esse minus deditum rebus novis et arcanis, quod ineptias tales omnino spernebant..."

(Who on earth thought it was a good idea to translate HP "et Philosophi Lapis" into Latin?! Fantastic, and mad!)

Divination

A divining wooden leg; it twitches and pulls when it finds underground water - funky, eh? It's one of the few constant possessions of Henry Smart, the linchpin of Roddy Doyle's novel, A Star Called Henry - first volume of The Last Roundup. I bought the book months ago from the Oxfam bookshop in Cambridge but didn't get round to reading it until the train journey this last weekend (though I've just finished it in the comfort of home). Doyle's style is very readable. It's not (usually) clunky, and he doesn't push effects too far. He's a master of dialogue and idiosyncratic turn of phrase. He is funny, with a darkly aware edge. He is not too explicit, nor obstructively obscure. Vitally, I think, the characters come through as a much stronger presence than their creator. It's the same in The Woman Who Walked into Doors, a very different but very strong little book.

A Star Called Henry traces the main-man's life from birth through to the end of his teenage years. Narrated by Henry himself (even at birth, which is a bit weird - though somehow it works as Henry possesses a self-knowledge and assurance that's convincing enough for anything to be possible), his story develops alongside the rise of Irish nationalism and the increasing activity of the I.R.A. It helps to know something about Irish history (and geography, to an extent) in order to follow the plot. Henry is one of those people who is involved in everything, but not quite important enough to get the credit for it. He's a vital shadow, invisible but essential. Doyle treads a thin line between historical inaccuracy and plausible happenings, though I think the balance works out because Henry does manage to stay on the right side of obscure. But in that way Doyle gives his very ordinary man extraordinary characteristics and roles. It's good. It's funny, sad, humanitarianly terrifying and literarily engaging. And I come back to the dialogue - Doyle is one of the best speech-writers I've read, because his characters don't say too much (a flaw of so many writers, who put their own words and plots into characters' mouths for too long a time. It becomes unsustainable).

It's tempting to write a bit about the plot because its historical basis is really interesting, but I won't - spoilers are annoying, and reading a good book for pleasure for the first time should, I think, involve surprise and discovery. So read it. I'll seek out the second volume at some point (Oh, Play That Thing), and hopefully will enjoy it as much - given the consistence of Doyle's writing, I see no reason why I won't. There was a stretch of about 30 pages towards the end of the book where the subject, writing style (yes, I mean syntax) and even the words came together in an unfortunate predictable clump; but that was it - and 30 duff pages out of over 300 really isn't a bad tally (and they're all together, so it's over fast!). I'm not sure why that happened (though it's easy to see how it did). I think one of the reasons I like his writing is because he deals with difficult topics and people whilst neither making them trite nor too heavy; he is a fantastic writer, good enough to get lost in the first time and to be gainfully revisited, but not so challenging as to be too-slow progress. S. Clayton Moore claims that this is "not a beach read", but I beg to differ - I think it's a perfect beach read, for those who like their books, and aren't so fond of beaches.

Illumination

A few people who have made the mistake of asking what I've been doing in the last few weeks will know I've been reading various religious texts in an attempt to plug an enormous knowledge gap. My earlier blog refers to part of an experiment concerning looking at condensations of the texts - it wasn't really concluded, because my reading certainly hasn't been; but essentially there are insurmountable disadvantages to trying to shortcut the Real Thing, so I'm just sticking to the translations of the main texts. Anyway, apart from provoking extreme annoyance because I can't even attempt to read anything that isn't in English, Anglo-Saxon or Latin (yeah, useful languages...), it's proving to be a really fun little (HUGE!) project. So, when I found out that the British Library's major exhibition at the moment is Sacred (not "scared" as my secret dyslexic self tried to pretend), I jumped at the chance to go and have a look (somewhat to the detriment of the planned socialising - apologies to EH & LVW!).

There is too much to say to get it all down here without using up more than my fair share of the web-waves. Just a few notes, then, of things I found interesting or surprising or delightful. Where possible, links are provided so you can get a bit of a look at what I'm talking about; but I really recommend you go and visit if you can. Entrance is free, and it's on until 23rd September. If you can't go, the website (linked above) is an extremely good taster, with high-resolution images of lots of the texts - though there's nothing like seeing them for real. (If you're very keen but still can't get there, the book is well worth getting).

In no particular order:

1) Anyone who has chatted to me about my academic interests, if I thought they really wanted to hear what I like doing (which if I'm honest isn't often), will know that the period between 1450 and 1700 is where I'm happiest. Conveniently this essentially covers English Bible history (we'll ignore the Anglo-Saxons for now) - from Tyndale's first English New Testament in the early 16th century, through the Great and Geneva Bibles, to the King James Authorized. More than averagely enthusiastic about these things...
It was great to see, therefore, a copy of the Tyndale text. Hadn't realised it, but there are apparently only three known copies surviving. It's a straightforwardly lovely object. So vital historically, this one has an almost academically sentimental value for me. Similarly,

2) The Great Bible (or [Thomas] Cromwell's Bible). Again, the historical milieu (and its literary consequences) is 'my thing'. But something made me laugh: of importance because of its use of the vernacular, the title page depicts the monarch (Henry VIII - top centre) giving English Bibles to his subjects. The texts he's handing them, though, are inscribed with the words: "VERBUM DEI". Whoops!

3) Though I've seen it in modern texts (indeed, employed it myself in doodles), I hadn't realised that micography was something very specifically Jewish. Plundering the Sacred exhibition, here, for a definition: "the weaving of minute lettering into abstract, geometric and figurative designs." It looks amazing - bet the scribe got hand cramp (or maybe he was only a few inches high and used a correspondingly tiny nib).

4) Whenever looking at incredible collections like this, I often wonder what this era is going to leave future historians in terms of the written language. So much correspondence and publishing is done online that it's likely that this so-called Age of Communication is going to leave little material in its wake. Unlike letters of important figures past, emails aren't going to be found in dusty attics centuries later. It was good to see a contemporary parchment manuscript in the exhibition, then! The Saint John's Bible is big, very big; and the two very plain pages on display at the British Library made me wonder for a moment what the point was - why are we trying to copy a style belonging to centuries ago? But looking at the website linked above it became much clearer - all the illustrations and illuminations are, though adhering to old principles, strikingly modern in design. It looks good, and it looks relevant. It's also very pretty! Take a look.

5) There were a fair few Biblical picture books on display, which made me smile. The book really does have the most fantastic set of stories, and it's easy to forget that when people start preaching Hell and Damnation. As I said in the earlier blog, one of the best ways to experience the Bible is, I think, to get hold of a good illustrated children's version - clearly they figured that out in the 14th century and earlier!

6) The marginal creatures in manuscripts have always made me chuckle. There's a good bit in The Name of the Rose about the subject too (was going to give you a page reference or two, but just read the book - after the first 80 pages or so it's one of my favourites). There are so many bizarre and wonderful figures in the borders of medieval pages, and hours have been spent getting lost in them. There were lots to see in the exhibition, and they're as fun as ever.

7) Just the age of some of this stuff is enough to make you gasp. So much of it is incredibly well preserved (I've no idea how - anything like that mammoth they've found in the Siberian permafrost?!). To think that some of these texts have been around for nearly 2000 years. What have they seen? Less anthropomorphically, who's touched them?

8) I liked seeing the various Arabic scripts employed in the different Qur'ans - they're so distinct, and all so beautiful; and each fulfils a different function. Actually, the calligraphy generally - in all different languages (and there are a lot of languages in this exhibition) - is beautiful.

Do go and see Sacred if you have the opportunity and are interested in religion, religious history, calligraphy, pretty things, books, display cases......

With thanks to the British Library for its excellent website!

Balls

Another rant. And one based on a Telegraph article, no less (apologies).

"We want schools to be world class in 10 years, says Balls", claims the headline (well, the paper has that headline. The internet version is pointlessly different). Why am I annoyed about this? On the surface it seems a perfectly reasonable thing to say. But really, it's a load of balls. And yes, the word "balls" is going to appear a lot - it's a useful name for a politician to have. Sorry, Ed.

Once again there's the promise of "sweeping reforms" and a "review" (another review. If they stopped reviewing and started actually doing something - or, actually, stopped doing things - it might be better). Remarkably, "parents, teachers, universities and pupils will be consulted". That's novel, that is, talking to the people who policies affect; I'm sure that's not been thought of before. There's going to be an "inquiry", too, "into the way children are taught maths amid concern that too many youngsters leave school unable to add up properly" - fine, but ten years ago New Labour initiated a "numeracy strategy" to combat exactly the same problem. A numeracy strategy that Ed Balls has already called "successful". Of course, mistakes aren't admissible in Politix, so all that'll happen is that a very slightly revised version of the "strategy" will appear under a different label (probably "Shopping Skills" or "Life Accountancy").

I get a bit anxious whenever "sweeping reforms" are mentioned. They are invariably not sweeping, and often just make a mess of both the old system and the intended new. It's a load of gobshite. What's worse is that sweeping movements are rarely made by people who are (a) knowledgeable about or (b) genuinely interested in the systems they claim to sweep. They might have a little of both knowledge and interest, but only as much as their job's worth. Shoot me for saying it if you like, but at least Estelle Morris was a teacher - none of her successors have been (Clarke, Kelly, Johnson, Balls), and it shows that they've never been involved in the education of anyone other than themselves. I'm not saying that people necessarily have to have been on the front line to make a good job of being Education Secretary (now Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families), but being actually or at least intellectually involved helps. Curiously, it's John Denham who is S-o-S for Innovation, Universities and Skills - I seriously hope he and Balls occasionally communicate. Please. Even if it's only in passing in the corridor.

Clearly people leaving skool without a decent grasp of the Three Rs is something that still needs to be addressed, though until we develop Matrix-style knowledge implanting it's unlikely we're ever going to get 100% success with this, and why they hell should we? I'm almost cheering on the kids who manage to ignore 12 years of eddicayshun - it's quite impressive, in its own way. Though I'm biased - I did my fair share of ignoring and truanting, but just got away with it because I wasn't too much of a pain in the arse (most of the time). Obviously people are missing out on something by not being able to read, but there are more important things. "Sweeping reforms" aren't what's needed to sort out these fundamental problems, though - gentle changes and thoughtful tinkerings will do enough for that. Sweeping reforms will only be needed or enacted when (not if) the running of the education system is put back in the hands of educators and people who have a real understanding of and long-term interest in what's going on. Fact is, as we stand at the moment, teachers - the people who do stuff - are the people who have the smallest influence on education policy. On what planet does that make sense? The more levels of almost laughably irrelevant bureaucracy above them, the less of a difference in their own classrooms these (mostly) fantastic people can make. Admittedly in a few scary cases that's a good thing (naming no names), but they're the minority.

This has got long, no less ranty and largely disjointed, so it'll be ending soon. But coming back to the original point: why do I find the headline annoying? Because it's meaningless. Andrew Gimson says it well enough - "This is a world in which the declaration of good intentions has become an end in itself". And it's true: so long as inquiries are promised, sweeping reforms threatened and reviews continually undertaken, that's policy sorted. Or not. We don't need "world class" schools - we just need schools that are allowed to do their thing according to their demographies, strengths, and values. I'm not saying that these shouldn't be monitored at all (of course they should), but they shouldn't be overpowered by the clueless, gesturing and empty words of Politix. "World class" sounds impressive, but isn't a helpful aim. What's needed (and realistic) are "community class" or "education class". No matter how well-intentioned, people who get dragged into Politix seem to end up spouting a load of balls. I'll be staying out of it, thanks, and just working on my square metre of influence.

Melomania

A quick one. Just back from Cambridge and Ely Folk Festival, which was a lovely few days of indulgence, activity and fun - lots of fun. So, in the mood for music.

Came across Suntrap at the Festival (that link is their MySpace page), and loved them. Will be keeping an eye out for their appearance elsewhere. Have a listen. Be warned, Heavy Metal fans - it's folk...

Rifling through the CDs at home last week I also found Andy Summers' album, Green Chimneys: The Music of Thelonious Monk and bunged it on the ol' ipod - have been listening to it on repeat almost continuously. Funky jazzy technically brilliant wizardry. It's good for train journeys, I've found - particularly ones progressing at a not-very-impressive 25mph behind the Slowest Train in Britain. The "Train Manager" (daft title, poor bloke) kept apologising for the delay in a way that made him sound as if drunk, weeping or possibly both. He was almost incomprehensibly incoherent. Not so sure I'm happy about his managing my train, but am safely (if slowly) home with the tunes of Summers & Monk humming in my ears. So thanks, perhaps, to the drunken weeping Manager.

Finally, nothing to do with music (possibly), but check out this poem by Ian Patterson. It gives me goosebumps and leaves me without words more.

Tripartite

Finished Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days last night, which will elate CEH because she's been nagging me to read it for months. It's certainly like nothing else I've read. It does some new stuff, and does it in a new way. Not so sure about the insistent Walt Whitman theme going on, though; and I have to admit that when a line of Emily Dickinson appeared from apparently nowhere I groaned a bit and begged it to stop. The description is very detailed, possibly too much so - Cunningham would make a brilliant film director, probably, with his eye for accuracy. He'd be perfectionist and dictatorial, but a damned good film would come out of it. But his description tells too much and just doesn't leave anything much to be imagined, except for the psychology of the characters, who are - without exception - weird.

Saying that, any book that brings together the industrial age, terrorism and an android in love with an alien lizard is probably worth a look - particularly because it doesn't feel as strange as it should. The android/lizard part actually made the most sense. It definitely took me longer than usual to get into the book and what it was doing (and I'm still not entirely sure of that), which isn't necessarily a bad thing; and I enjoyed it more as it progressed (which probably says more about my being unsettled at the beginning than about the book itself).

It was a thought-provoking read, though. Maybe it doesn't quite work, but it's cleverly different, and a mainly enjoyable way of spending a few hours.

Terminal

If I delete a comment on one of my posts it firstly tells me that: This comment has been deleted by the author. I then get the option to delete it "FOREVER". Bit melodramatic, isn't it? Death to the comment, death. End. Doooom.

Miseducation (i)

There will be more on this, no doubt. But briefly,

I've been reading Aristotle's Poetics and the experience has been most frustrating; not the text so much (I've not finished it yet), but the process of reading it. What's bugging me is the fact that Aristotle's 'views' about Tragedy are talked about all over the place (well, not normally in the canned veg isle of the supermarket*, but you know what I mean), incorrectly. I don't mean incorrectly in the sense of 'there are lots of interpretations and this is the one I choose'; incorrectly like 'I don't know there are any interpretations. This is what it means.'

Probably annoyed about this because I thought I vaguely understood the basic concepts behind Aristotelian tragedy, but quite evidently that's not true. What seems to have happened is that I was taught about "Aristotle" at skool by people who almost certainly hadn't read Poetics, and they were probably taught by people who hadn't read it either, and so on. So there was me thinking I had a clue, but I don't: what I 'know' is at best an offensively over-simplified and at worst totally WRONG version of a Chinese Whisper that may once have been about Aristotle. Which is very annoying. So far, every 'standard' piece of tragic terminology (mimesis, hamartia, katharsis, pathos, praxis, etc.) I've come across in this text (and its comprehensive introduction by Malcom Heath) has meant either something different to that I was taught, or something so ambiguous or fluid or contextually-dependent that my 'definition' of it is absurdly out of whack. Bummer. My own fault - should have read the text itself long ago.

But it is very annoying that, at skool, kids are taught a weird mixture of lies and semi-truths, and almost always second-hand. Either give them the original texts (or scientific experiments, or whatever medium we're dealing with) and help them draw their own conclusions about stuff (if they're way-out, well, that's what Teacher's for); or only 'teach' them things they're actually capable of understanding (and it's not for some ludicrously out-of-touch government department run by an economist of all people to state what exactly it is kids of different ages might or might not be capable of understanding). It's irritating that 16-yr olds are told that electrons do one thing, and then when they start their AS Levels at 17 they are told almost the opposite; by the time they get to A Level, electrons probably don't exist, or something. Okay, so sometimes stuff has to be simplified - but at least tell them that what they're being taught is more an analogy than fact. And when it comes to literature/texts, doesn't it make more sense to avoid imposing complicated theoretical theories (i.e. Aristotle's, in this case) if it's deemed that the theories proper are way above the students' abilities? Why pay lip service to it at all?

Pah. Excuse the grousing, but I've got to go and figure out Aristotle. Again. Properly, this time.

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*ISLE?! What kind of word is isle?! It should be pronounced 'eyes-ull' or 'eyes-lee'. The more I look at it the weirder it is, and I'm not sure any more if it's the right word at all. Isle. The OED doesn't mention anything about supermarkets.**

**Yes, um...aisle. THAT would explain why it looked wrong! Duh.

Condensation

The raison d'etre of the Bible, as far as I can make out, is one- or two-fold:
(1) To tell a great set of stories,
(2) To make us think at least twice about Divinity, humanity and what might be between them.

Problem is, it's a very long text and hardly anyone ever bothers to read it (including, rather ridiculously and worryingly, Christians). Luckily, though, there are plenty of summaries, sections and condensations of the Bible on the market for everyone who wants to get a good idea of what's going on in the Book without having to take a sabbatical. One such condensation is The 100-Minute Bible, by Michael Hinton. Sadly, it's a bit rubbish. It advances neither of the two probably essential things above - the fantastic stories are flatly and sketchily conveyed, and religious or spiritual awe, thoughtfulness and/or interest are entirely absent. It manages to make the Creation, Abraham's almost-sacrifice and - even - the coming of Christ almost negligible. Nothing is explained (it isn't really in the Bible, either, but at least there's almost always a good back story to get to grips with so an explanation can always be deduced), and there's just a lot of thwarting of intentions and forgiving of actions without any reason why that might be appropriate.

This little pamphlet is very well intentioned, but neither tells a good story (despite having the best original material) nor makes God or Christ out to be particularly worth following. It is definitely a text intended (or at least it's only good) for people who are (a) already very familiar with the majority of the stories and (b) already convinced. Beyond that, though, it neither tells a good yarn nor goes into any kind of theological detail (which is a shame, as that's where the thoughts and questions lie).

If you want a good version of the stories, and they really are good, I reckon the best bet is to get a children's Bible. You know the kind - with corny and mutedly-coloured illustrations of shepherds with tea-towels on their heads. And if you want the theology, there are, I very much hope, some good condensations of the text out there - but until I stumble across it (or someone recommends one), I'll be sticking with the good old King James version.

Having said that, if you really do want an extraordinarily general overview, The 100-Minute Bible is better than nothing - it really does take about 100 minutes (and there's even a large-print version available if you feel your eyesight will hinder your speedy reading).

Touchstones

Not sure why yesterday's post formatted itself weirdly. Silly computers. People always say (and it's very annoying), "Computers don't do anything wrong, it's the user who's at fault". Not true! Computers, apparently, "only do what you tell them to". Not true! They manifestly do not do what I tell them to, nor what I ask nicely, nor what I beg. The 'brainier' computers get the more frustrating they are - it's wonderful, them using some kind of freaky binary intuition to figure out how you want to do things; and not so wonderful when they stop being cleverly intuitive and start being stubbornly obnoxious. Yes, the computer last night was being obnoxious. Whatever next - Artificial Intelligence? Actually, if that happened I think I'd move to a cottage in the Highlands and hide from it all - I'd be like Will Smith in I, Robot with the motorbike and everything (though perhaps without the bionic arm or heroic tendencies).

The artificialization and/or mechanization of things that might perhaps be better left a bit unsure, fallible and personally-touched or interpreted has been bugging me today. A tenuous link with I, Robot and my computer battles, but never mind. Poetry: Matthew Arnold's writings on. In his essay, 'The Study of Poetry' (1880), Arnold introduces to literary criticism the concept of a 'touchstone' (I'm sure others suggested the idea beforehand, but Arnold's the one who gave us the convenient word for it, so he gets the credit - bit like Aristarchus being obscured behind the cheeky Copernicus; it's easier to say "Copernican" than "Aristarchusian", anyway). He says this:

"[T]here can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. [...] [A]n infallible touchstone for detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also the degree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place beside them."

He does concede that, "Of course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble [the touchstones]; it may be very dissimilar," which is generous of him. Arnold is trying, desperately, to justify his profession (both poet and critic), and things get a bit hyperbolic:

"More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry."

Though not all poetry will stand up to this obligation, and Arnold says as much that, "if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must also set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of fulfilling such high destinies, must be a poetry of a high order of excellence. We must accustom ourselves to a high standard and to a strict judgment." Herein lies the birth of the touchstone, the guide for objective observation of morally enhancing and 'suitable' literature destined to replace major human belief systems.

His argumentative style, however, is frustrating. Or, more probably, he is taking on a topic too big, a point too unprovable (cf: Milton wrestling with multiple ideas of God in Paradise Lost, a brilliant poem yet still [arguably] falling short of what it's trying to do) - whilst at the same time basically saying, "If you don't agree with me you are an insensitive reader incapable of higher understandings of the world. Get on with yer manual labour, scum," (That might be a paraphrase...). So it's kind of a win--win for him, at least as far as his perception of his readers goes; though his argument remains shifty. He quotes liberally from his touchstone texts (primarily Milton, Shakespeare, Homer & Dante), but doesn't do anything with them - they are nice examples of poetry, sure (well, Milton, Shakey & Dante are, but I'm stumped entirely by Homer's Greek so we'll ignore him for now), but there is no way to prove that they're substantially better than other good bits of writing - or even, in many cases, better than some less enjoyable pieces. He just dumps pretty quotations and then concludes that,

"These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate."

How, exactly? I don't see Milton's verse standing at every text I read saying, "Emergency exits are here, here and here". And because resemblance isn't necessary, nothing about a touchstone text can be compared to another text except a feeling which, though I'm happy for this to be a factor in everyday talkings about literature (or non-literature), is absolutely not a foundation for a reading theory - at least, not one that professes to be objective. Apparently the touchstones are sufficient that, "If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find that we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid before us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality is present or wanting there." I'm unconvinced.

Mainly I'm unconvinced because it doesn't take into account any purpose that poetry might have, other than to be Simply Wonderful Verse (or prose, I spose). Milton's lines,

"Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care
Sat on his faded cheek...",

which Arnold cites as a touchstone, might be poetry of the highest degree, but it doesn't compare to Edward Lear's nonsense poetry if you just want to make someone smile --

"There was an old person whose habits,
Induced him to feed upon rabbits;
When he'd eaten eighteen,
He turned perfectly green,
Upon which he relinquished those habits."

Similarly, Lear wouldn't be well-placed in a theological epic. Probably. So which is the "better" poetry? I may have gone to extremes here, but the point stands. There's a whole nother argument here on what constitutes 'good' or 'worthy' literature, and whether it's possible/worthwhile/right to try to dictate what is Good and what is Bad in the world of words; but that debate's been raging long enough for me to leave it at least another night.

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Ah ha! It seems that the format goes stupid when I put italics in the main texts (and from that point the damage seems irreparable, so there's not point getting rid of them). How curious. I certainly didn't ask it to change the format, the bastard! Never mind. Mystery partially solved, that's good enough for now.

Crunkle

Crunkle is a nice word. It looks funky on the page - first 4 letters in a nice conventional set followed by a weirder 3, with a balanced mix of curves and lines - and it sounds nice, rolling around sounding like a gentler, fatter version of what it means (OED 1). Unlike the word "awkward", which while looking fittingly uncomfortable in itself, is neither good to look at (unless you like pointy, jabby things) nor say.
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Trying to figure out if crunkle is an example of "language really used by men", or whether it's more of the "poetic diction" register Wordsworth writes against in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads. At first it seemed to fit snugly with the first category, but:
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I only knew this 1st definition of crunkle before looking it up - "To wrinkle, rumple, crinkle" - and thought it was quite cute. And that's the one, obviously, I've stuck to. But it also means: 2, "To cry like a crane" (there's a word for that?!); and 3, "To make a harsh dry sound, as by grinding the jaws". Not so cute, then. More than that, the word has a slightly icky origin (though the OED isn't entirely sure about it, and it's a bit of a circuitous route) - from the OE "crincan", "to fall in battle, [...] ‘to draw oneself together in a bent form, to contract oneself stiffly, curl up’". So there was me thinking that crunkle was a typically functional, OE-derived word that said what it meant, and was used exactly when needed; "language really used by men". Despite sounding simple enough to be a Real (as opposed to Poetic) word, though, I've never heard it used; and whilst that's a shame in itself (nice words should be used), it also goes against my view that it's a Real word (rolling-off-the-tongue pronunciation, with a place in daily living). But then I wondered what Wordsworth actually means by "the real language of men" - does he mean words that sound common/simple/functional, probably from OE stock; or words that are in active and frequent use, regardless of their complexity or etymology (in which case, "crunkle" would likely be classified as Poetic and defunct)? Does it mean only those words used in every social class and geographical location? As soon as these kinds of restrictions start rolling in the language pool suddenly gets very small indeed, and Wordsworth himself couldn't make much of it. So I think he uses a blend of, well, his principles and a bit of cheating, really.
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He looks to "humble and rustic life" for inspiration, because apparently them there Zomerzet farmers "speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, [...] in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature." Bit idyllic, but okay. And then he cheats a bit (the swine!) - over the rustic goodness he throws "a certain colouring of imagination", and goes on to justify metre and rhyme. Neither of which, last I heard down yere in Zomerzet, the humble rustic much use. So it doesn't matter whether they use crunkle or not -what matters is that they might, could, or should; which means that whilst it sounds like a word that would be used in Rural Places, it's also rare enough to be zingy and so be a word towards a good poem. That's agreeable. (Ignore, please, that my observation of 21st century Zomerzet vocab isn't very helpful when talking about a 15th century word - Wordsworth probably wouldn't have cared). His justifications for metre (and rhyme, to a lesser extent - probably because it's much more difficult to tackle, as rhyme just sounds stupid regardless of who the poet is) are worth having a look at (whole Preface found here).
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Regardless of his attempts to capture what matters and what's felt in the world, though, I can't help feeling Wordy is upstaged a bit by his sister. Dorothy's journals are easily obtainable, and they make for some relief-ful reading amidst all the male Romantic troupe. Her writing was inspiration for some of William's poetry, and I think she sometimes does in her prosaic way what he never quite manages in most of his verse: she captures life and movement with few words (and even fewer Latinate). Here, from the Grasmere Journal (April, 1802):

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I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about & about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing.

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Compare that to Wordy's 'I wondered lonely as a cloud', and see what you think. It might just be that rhyme irritates me too much. The unadulterated seeing of Dorothy's seems, to me, to say far more than her brother's words do after they've been forced into a mathematical frame; though I do like the way he writes (prose).