Hugo Rotter and the Headmasters Revenge

I hope they will do you good and lead you on to a proper development of your natural bent.

P , a footnote indicates that when the letters were being typed, Jack and Warnie intentionally removed some words from a letter from Jack to Papy, November 17, To Arthur, December 2, , vol 1 p To Arthur, January 26, , vol 1 p , about the owner of the house he and Mrs. In spite of protests she brings Mrs Moore a cup of tea in the morning: At another house we tried we met a Miss Tennyson, niece of the poet. To Arthur, March 2, , vol 1 p Footnote on vol 1 p is very revealing: To Warnie, June 9, , vol 1 p , Jack describes their father's health problems and "that he is fast becoming unbearable.

Of course no one objects to a man getting blind occasionally. To Papy, June 29, , vol 1 p , Jack says he waited for a visit from Arthur to end before writing, and that Arthur "departed with much reluctance yesterday. P , the editor says in a footnote that a remark by Jack in a letter to Papy, April 4, , "I thought it a good opportunity of paying off an engagement with a man who has been asking me for some time to go and 'walk' with him," is "a fabrication as Lewis was here with Mrs.

To Arthur, April 11, , vol 1 p To Papy, April 11, , speaking of a cousin, "Daisy," vol 1 p Though doctrinally Anglicanism was probably closer to Catholicism, it must be remembered that when the Church of England was generally orthodox, it was socio-politically much closer to Orthodoxy, even studying possible union at this time. To Arthur, May 3? To Arthur, June 19, , vol 1 p , Jack uses the expression "white with may. To Papy, July 25, , vol 1 p , Jack makes a rare allusion to the "troubles" in Ireland during this general timeframe.

After decades of ferment, most of Ireland was nearing independence from Great Britain by , though the Protestant majority in what is now Northern Ireland rejected being ruled from Dublin in favor of continued rule from London as part of the United Kingdom. In the same letter, vol 1 p , Jack refers to an uncle: To Leo Baker an Oxford colleague whom he collaborated with on an anthology of poetry they were hoping to publish , September 25, , vol 1 p In the same letter, speaking of the "theory of poetry," vol 1 p Coleridge's definition 'the best words in the best order' has always seemed to me bad: To Papy, February 16, , vol 1 p I often wonder how the born letter writers whose 'works' fill volumes, overcame this difficulty.

In a letter to Leo Baker, February 25, , vol 1 p , he refers to himself as "a respectable middle-aged suburbanite. To Leo Baker, March 4, , vol 1 p , Jack refers to himself as "an arrant coward. In the same letter, vol 1 p , he mentions a project by their mutual friend, Owen Barfield: In Jack wrote some "serial letters," written in diary form, to his brother Warnie, who was then with the army in China.

Referring to his village of residence a few miles from Oxford, Headington Quarry, he suggests he might write up the scandals pertaining to Headington and become "known as 'Headington Hamilton' Later in the same serial letter, vol 1 p , he writes that when walking, "I usually take a little note book and write down whatever occures to me. His letter to Papy, March 28, , vol 1 p , discusses the death of his tutor and his father's teacher a generation earlier , William Kirkpatrick.

To Warnie, May 10, , he alludes to their father's membership in the Freemasons as dabbling in wizardry p In the same letter, vol 1 p , he says that an acquaintance now "incarcerated at a High Church Theological seminary" and who would have wanted to invite him to tea but could not, "because they were having a QUIET DAY. Ye gods, a lot of young men shut up together, all thinking about their souls! To Warnie, July 1, , vol 1 p However, old Kirk really summed up Milton when he said 'I would venture to assert that no human being ever called him Johnnie.

Jack describes winning an essay contest at Oxford.

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To Leo Baker, July , vol 1 p This minute I can pine for Nirvana, but when the sky clears, I shall prefer something with more positive joy. To me it seems that a great many different emotions are united in the perception of beauty: For one thing nearly all beautiful sights are to me chiefly important as reminders of other beautiful sights: The process presumably has a beginning but once going it grows like a snowball.

Could it be that joy remembered 'Which now is sad because it has been sweet' is a necessary element in Beauty? P , editor's note: Jack's father and an uncle and aunt and a cousin arrived in Oxford and took Jack with them on a motor trip through Wales. The editor calls it his father's "last and most enterprising" vacation trip ever. Same letter, vol 1 p , describing the trip through Wales: Same letter, in a footnote on vol 1 p referring to a description of a Welsh castle: My favorite Welsh town.

To Papy, November 30, , vol 1 p To Papy, May 18, , vol 1 p English Literature is a 'rising' subject. To Papy, October 28, , vol 1 p Same letter, later on the page, " I know my own limitations and am quite sure that an academic or literary career is the only one in which I can hope ever to go beyond the meanest mediocrity. To Arthur, April 22, , vol 1 p You and I are both qualified for it, because we both were afraid of our fathers as children.

The Doctor who came to see the poor Doc [Mrs. Moore's brother who had had a nervous breakdown] a psychoanalyst and neurological specialist said that every neurotic case went back to the childish fear of the father. But it can be avoided. Keep clear of introspection, of brooding, of spiritualism, of everything eccentric. Keep to work and sanity and open air To Papy, July 1, , vol 1 p An editor's note on vol 1 p describes a joy-filled reunion meeting between Jack and Arthur. But, the editor notes, a few days later Jack wrote a diary entry expressing disappointment with Arthur, saying his best friend "is changed Someone has put into his head the ideal of 'being himself' and 'following nature.

He has taken over from psychoanalysis the doctrine that repression in the technical sense is something quite different from self-control. To Papy, March 6, , vol 1 p And I had a great deal of fun out of him before I stopped. Jack wrote "a number of papers on ethics" in Later in the same letter p Jack tells his father "The D. To Papy, March 9, , vol 1 p , he recounts a meeting at which he had been invited to read a philosophical paper.

The "rather unpleasant" society that sponsored his presentation "had brought the Professor of Moral Philosophy there to reply to me without telling me beforehand. This worthy Professor said a lot of nice things which I discounted as 'manners': To Papy, May 11, , vol 1 p Quotable, to Papy, August 28, , vol 1 p To Papy, April , vol 1 p , Jack affirms belief in "momentary eruptions" of Something Else such as premonitions of life in the future.

What a comfort such a prescient glimpse of his life at this time would have been to him seven years earlier while fighting on the Front in France. Note on page , Jack's father had preserved in his papers the clipping from the London Times of May 25, , of Jack's election to his Fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford. On the same page is Albert's diary entry about his reaction to the telegram telling him about Jack's appointment: I knelt down and thanked God with a full heart.

My prayers had been heard and answered. To Papy, May 26, , page Jack thanks his father for believing in and supporting him: Thank you again and again. A footnote on vol 1 p reports that George Stuart Gordon, , had been Magdalen College's first Fellow of English, appointed in In the same letter, vol 1 p Jack describes the critical role his First in Philosophy had played in his appointment to the fellowship in English.

His letter to his father, August 14, , he describes the ceremony welcoming him to Magdalen's faculty. In it he also reflects on the appropriateness of the turn of events that brought him into a career mainly in English rather than philosophy p Footnote on page Herbert Spencer, philosophical and scientific thinker and writer "was the chief exponent of agnosticism in 19th century England. A footnote on page describes how Magdalen College's Addison's Walk got its name and reports, "Lewis would have been surprised to know that on 13 May a C.

Hamilton Jenkin, November 4, , vol 1 p , "It is odd that only old friends bring new talk. To Papy, January 25, , vol 1 p Better say simply that John [Arthur's brother] is a rotter and leave it at that. And perhaps I ought to put in a word for Arthur who, after all, is an old friend of mine. At least he knows what is wrong with him and, I think, makes some effort to overcome it. To Papy, June 5, , vol 1 p Same letter, vol 1 p , referring to "anti-religious passages" in the collected letters of Sir Walter Raleigh: This is the fhird of three collections of notes on The Collected Letters of C.

Lewis, Volume 1 , which began on November T o Papy, June 5, , vol 1 p I suppose if a girl is determined to marry and has a man alone once a week to whom she can play the rapt disciple most fatal of all poses to male vanity her task is done. Hamilton Jenkin, September 8, , vol 1 p Lily Suffern one of his aunts , November?

To Papy, March 30, , vol 1 p Another good remark I read long ago in one of E. Both in the thoughts above and the one below, Lewis seem to be tottering in his resolve as an atheist. To Warnie, July 9, , referring to poet Thomas Carlyle, vol 1 p However, the subject seems to be carrying me further than I foresaw. To Papy, July 29, , vol 1 p Like the obscure poet whom I saw mentioned in the local newspaper at Caerleon, I love to 'ride like a cork on the ocean of eloquence This is an excellent plan if you have to work right up to bedtime and your head is in a whirl, as it draws the blood away to the extremities and makes you stop thinking.

What sort of wig would you recommend? In a letter to his father on August 12, , vol 1 p , he says the common banter of English schoolboys is quite unintellectual. To Warnie, December 12, , vol 1 p I mean these men you meet who seem to have read everything, done everything, and yet they were pure barbarians until they left school, and had turned twenty perhaps before they began to be interested in the things that interest them now? To Papy, February 25, , some thoughts about letter writing and writers, vol 1 p Notably Charlotte Bronte and Mrs.

Gaskell whose life I re-read again while I was laid up. I had forgotten one of the best unintentionally funny things in literature until I saw it again. It comes where a letter written by Charlotte immediately after her profligate brother's death has been quoted. The situation is genuine tragedy. After giving the letter, Mrs. Gaskell proceeds 'The dear friend to whom these affecting lines were written was unfailing in her sympathy for the poor worn mind and harassed frame and shortly afterwards sent her a present of a shower bath.

To Papy, March 31, , vol 1 p , he describes "a religious revival going on among our undergraduates. But what can one do? If you try to suppress it I am assuming that you agree with me that the thing is unhealthy you only make martyrs. To Papy, July 10, , vol 1 p There is a good deal more intrigue and mutual back-scratching and even direct lying than I ever supposed possible: To Warnie, August 2, , vol 1 p Or again 'The natural process of the mind is not from enjoyment to enjoyment but from hope to hope.

To Papy, November 3, , vol 1 p To Warnie, April 13, , vol 1 p "nothing militates so much against [Sir Walter] Scott as his popularity in Scotland. The Scotch have a curious way of rendering wearisome to the outside world whatever they admire. I had to mumble something about having no philosophy, which was met with "When ye say ye haaaaaave no pheelawsophy, Cap'n, ye only mean ye haaave a bad pheelawsophy.

Same letter, vol 1 p , "I often wonder, specially lately, whether you are right if you still hold the opinion in thinking Ireland the right country to live in, with all its drawbacks. To Arthur, April 22, , "I am Editor Walter Hooper describes Jack's letter to his father of May 19, , vol 1 p , as "perhaps the first indication of a huge change in Lewis's spiritual life.

The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation. To Papy, July 7, , vol 1 p To Warnie, August 30, , writing a serial letter of great length about their father's failing health and impending death, refers to Lord Macaulay, who developed his style of writing by the age of 14 when "He could not at that age have known anything" about his subjects, but nevertheless developed and maintained the same approach to writing as he matured.

He was from the first clever enough to produce a readable and convincing slab of claptrap on any subject whether he understood it or not, and hence he never to his dying day discovered that there was such a thing as understanding. Later in the same letter he refers to Macaulay's style as "Grandfather Hamilton over again, with Liberalism instead of Evangelicalism. In the same letter, vol 1 p , he tells Warnie that their father has been warned about the danger of continued drinking of whiskey, to which Albert replies "that there's no good trying to stop it as the good which could now be done by cessation would be less than the psychological irritation.

To Arthur, October 3, , vol 1 p Milton found that his genius was never in full tide except in autumn and winter. To Arthur, October 17, , vol 1 p , the first mention of Alan Richard Griffiths is found. The editor supplies a footnote on this page: In Griffiths was received into the Catholic Church and in he took his solemn vows as a Benedictine monk, at which time he took the name Dom Bede Griffiths. In he was sent to India, and he remained there for the rest of his life. In the same letter, vol 1 p To Warnie, December 21, , vol 1 p Badman , after describing Bunyan's fear of committing the "unpardonable sin": Later in the letter, a kind of diary in letter form, describing his Christmas eve: If only it wasn't for those damned keys!

If it is small enough to be cozy, it would not be big enough to be sublime. If it is large enough for us to stretch our spiritual limbs in, it must be large enough to baffle us. It is to be expected that His creation should be, in the main, unintelligible to us. To Warnie, January 12, , vol 1 p , he is trying to persuade Warnie to come live with him and Mrs.

Moore and Maureen when he retires from his military career. After describing the downside of his lifestyle: To Arthur, January 26, As a matter of fact, to write private letters with an eye on posterity is a lovable fault, springing from honest vanity Same letter, he refers to all private reading having ceased, "except for 20 minutes before bed if alone "!

To Arthur, January 30, , vol 1 p Later in the same long, long paragraph: Griffiths was a pupil of mine. He was all mucked up with naturalism, D. Lawrence, and so on, but has come right and is I do believe really one of 'us' now: Same letter, a post script, vol 1 p You at your worst are an instrument unstrung: I am an instrument strung but preferring to play itself because it thinks it knows the tune better than the Musician.

To Owen Barfield, February 3, , vol 1 p The 'Spirit' or 'Real I' is showing an alarming tendency to become much more personal and is taking the offensive, and behaving just like God. You'd better come on Monday at the latest or I may have entered a monastery. Hamilton Jenkin, March 21, , vol 1 p To Arthur, April 3, , vol 1 p Same letter, the closing: To Arthur, April 13?

He refers to a visit he plans with Arthur as being "at home. It is impossible to get accustomed to change. Editor's note on vol 1 p To Arthur, April 29, , vol 1 p At least I don't know that 'stronger' is the right word: The Ireland I shared with him seemed to be a strictly limited and rather thirsty land: This is not flattery, nor contempt of him. Same letter, on vol 1 p he refers to "the tiny hamlet of Stoke Pero where there is a little grey church A letter quoted from Warnie to Jack and Mrs.

Moore, vol 1 p , announced his decision to accept their invitation to live with them: To Arthur, June 1, , vol 1 p , Jack describes listening to music and "turning my mind to the One, the real object of all desire, which you know my view is what we are really wanting in all wants. To Arthur, June 7, , vol 1 p Even if it were true that marriage is what he says, what help does this give us regards the sexual problem for the innumerable people who can't marry? Surely for them asceticism remains the only path? Same letter, vol 1 p , he describes a visit he had with a law professor colleague, he took Jack with him to visit his elderly father I was, as I said, humiliated.

Yet I wouldn't have missed it for anything. It does one good to see the fine side of people we've always seen the worst of. To Owen Barfield, June 19, , vol 1 p What a world we live in! To Arthur, June 15, , vol 1 p I am appalled to see how much of the change which I thought I had undergone lately was only imaginary.

The real work seems still to be done. To Arthur, June 31, , vol 1 p , writing about one of his favorite writers, William Morris, speaks of the sense of "longing" found in Morris's work: And for that reason his poetry always seemed to me dangerous and apt to lead to sensuality To Arthur, July 8, , vol 1 p Same letter, vol 1 p , he quotes Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations: P , referring to the effect of his conversion [to theism, not yet to Christianity] in his enjoyment of life: To Arthur, July 29, vol 1 p Same letter, vol 1 p , he describes a meeting with "Hugo" Dyson that lasted until 3 a.

To Arthur, August 3, , vol 1 p In a letter to Arthur on August 18, , he describes his first published book, a poem in epic style, Dymer , as a "complete failure. Elaborating on this on the next page: And on the next page, "The side of me which longs, not to write, for no one can stop us doing that, but to be approved as a writer, is not the side of us that is really worth much.

To Arthur, August 28, , vol 1 p You remember what Ibsen said, that every play he wrote had been written for the purgation of his own heart. And in my own humbler way I feel quite certain that I could not have certain things now if I had not gone through the writing of Dymer. I am sure that some are born to write as trees are born to bear leaves: To Arthur, October 29, , vol 1 p More and more clearly one sees how much of one's philosophy and religion is mere talk: To Arthur, December 24, , vol 1 p In the next paragraph he speaks of having had his faith in George Macdonald restored. We seem to have missed the point at which it had been shaken.

Same letter and page: As if the fire should call the coal a hindrance! I have no rational ground for going back on the arguments that convinced me of God's existence: To Arthur, January 10, , vol 1 p To Arthur, January 17, , vol 1 p To Arthur, February 1, , vol 1 p To Arthur, February 23, , vol 1 p , speaking of a movie with a sadistic theme: Well now stew in it!

To Arthur, August 19, , the first reference of his calling him or anyone by telephone. To Arthur, September 22, , vol 1 p , referring to Hugo Dyson: And in the same paragraph: Same letter, vol 1 p , Jack asks Arthur to allow Warnie to have access to all of the letters from him Arthur has kept over the years in order to add them to the Lewis Papers Warnie is compiling, "and I promise faithfully that he will see nothing which gives you away in any respect, for I will go through them all first by myself.

To Arthur, October 1, , vol 1 p I will try to explain this another time. My long night talk with Dyson and Tolkien had a good deal to do with it. Same letter, vol 1 p , a surprising post script: I have just finished The Epistle to the Romans, the first Pauline epistle I have ever seriously read through. It contains many difficult and some horrible things, but the essential idea of Death the Macdonald idea is there alright.

To Arthur, October 18, , vol 1 p As he matured, as I expected, Lewis's letters became even more quotable and worth remarking and remembering, so on the assumption that this second volume will have considerably more material to note than the first, I am shortening the length of each "Part" of the notes to one-fifth of the volume rather than one-third, as I did with Volume 1. I am changing the approach this time by citing the year of the letters only at the beginning of the year, in bold, to make the citations more concise. This is the first collection of notes on The Collected Letters of C.

From the preface by editor Walter Hooper, page viii: Hooper says that Lewis's very close friend Owen Barfield not himself an orthodox Christian considered Lewis to have been two separate friends, "the one before and the other after his conversion.

Lewis Letters all in one

Same source, vol 2 p ix, quoting Barfield: Page 1 notes that at this time he was lecturing on Textual Criticism. This is of interest because Textual Criticism had been the backbone of the liberal approach of 19th Century European theology. Lewis was an expert in the field and discounted most of its "findings" as spurious, decades before the evangelical educational establishments were able to refute them by archaeological research. To Warnie, October 24, , vol 2 p 4: Same letter, vol 2 p 8: To Warnie, November 22, , vol 2 p 15, refers to himself as "a gramaphone" to some of his classes at Oxford.

Same letter, vol 2 p To Arthur, December 6, , vol 2 p 23, refers to the kind of Puritanism that lacks peace, love, wisdom and humility as "simply the form which the memory of Christianity takes just before it finally dies away altogether. To Warnie, Christmas day, , vol 2 p Same page, a footnote defines the initials D. Jack refers to reading The Brothers Karamazov in "detachable pieces of which there are many " and saying that "thus read, it is certainly a great religious and poetical work.

To Arthur, January 10, , vol 2 p Same, vol 2 p To Warnie, January 17, , vol 2 p Same, describing the Chinese language and its simplicity using many single-syllable words as a fossil, not a seed, an indication of "second childhood," culturally. George Macdonald observes that the good man should aim at reaching the state of mind in which all meals are sacraments. Now that is the sort of thing I can understand: To Warnie February 15, , vol 2 p To Warnie, February 21, , vol 2 p.

To Arthur, February no date , , vol 2 p I begin by making a map on one of the end leafs: Then I put a running headline at the top of each page: I don't know if you are serious, but, the answer is, I do. It may not do you any good, but it does me a lot, for I cannot ask for any change to be made in you without finding that the very same needs to be made in me; which pulls me up and also by putting us all in the same boat checks any tendency to priggishness.

To Barfield, March 19, , vol 2 p To Arthur, March 27 Easter , , vol 2 p I suppose it is this pleasure which fathers always are hoping to get, and very seldom do get, from their sons. To Warnie, April 8, , vol 2 p He could quote St. This letter strikes me as being the first in which Jack writes "apologetically" for the faith. My friend's story about the [Indian Civil Service] regulation 'No pornographic books or pictures shall be imported except for bona fide religious purposes' is relevant here.

In fact if you mix together all the harshest aspects of every form of religion and irreligion which you know and imagine them delivered with the dryness of a scientist and the intolerance of a verminous monk of the fourth century, you have the recipe. In fact we have all forgiven him, and shall ask him again. His exhibition of the previous day was really, I believe, only the reaction of a solitary on finding himself suddenly at bay among people all older than himself and all disagreeing with him.

We refused to let conversation become serious. We laughed away his monstrous positions. Before lunchtime we had him laughing himself and making jokes, even bawdy jokes. He may tell no lies: Possibly now it's just the opposite: To Warnie, June 14, , vol 2 p Same, vol 2 p 84, describing to Warnie a visit to Whipsnade Zoo: To Arthur, December 4, , vol 2 p 89, on his writing: To Arthur, December 17, , vol 2 p To Guy Pocock, publisher of his book Pilgrim's Regress, January 17, , vol 2 p 94, describing his targets in the book: To Guy Pocock, February 27, , vol 2 p Dent Publishers, March 24, , vol 2 p , he suggests that a map of the world described as to be included in Pilgrim's Regress be titled Middle Earth or its Latin equivalent.

The same name was used for J. Tolkien's fictional world in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Whether both had used it in their discussions of their works together is likely but not verified. To Arthur, March 25, , vol 2 p , about the days of their correspondence in their teen years: Same, vol 2 p , referring to a mutual acquaintance he recently saw: P , still referring to Pilgrim's Regress , he says it celebrates "an experience which I have more in common with you than anyone else.

To Barfield, March 28, , vol 2 p To Guy Pocock, March 31, , vol 2 p , Lewis gives out a telephone number at which to reach him for the first time in these letters. To Arthur, June 13, , vol 2 p Discussing a recently read novel, Tom's A-Cold: Same letter, discussing Pilgrim's Regress: To Arthur, August 17, , vol 2 p , he refers in a description of a tour he took in Ireland to "Ireland as the 'isle of saints. To Arthur, September 1, , vol 2 p , refers to a book he was reading, in French, about political science, as "surprisingly interesting.

Almost everything is, I find, as one goes on. To Arthur, September 12, , vol 2 p , reference to "the idea which someone had in the Middle Ages who defined God as 'That which has no opposite. Same, vol 2 p , "there is no hope in the end of getting where you want to go except by going God's way. Same, "evil is not a real thing at all, like God. It is simply good spoiled. Same, vol 2 p , "a hardened bigot shouting every one down till he had no friends left is what I am in danger of becoming.

To Arthur, November 5, , vol 2 p Did you see that he said 'The Jews have made no contribution to human culture and in crushing them I am doing the will of the Lord. To Warnie, April 3, , vol 2 p Moore and her daughter, Maureen: To Dom Bede Griffiths, April 4, , vol 2 p , discusses the salvation or loss of salvation for persons estranged from the Roman Catholic Church, "heretic positionis causa. When all is said and truly said about the divisions of Christendom, there remains, by God's mercy, an enormous common ground.

The statement may have been one of Lewis's first articulations of what later became the heart of his Mere Christianity thesis. Same, referring to his work as a fellow of the university: Footnote on the same page, quoting Lewis from his literary book The Discarded Image: An affectedly elegant literary style of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, characterized by elaborate alliteration, antitheses, and similes.

Affected elegance of language. Lewis points out that it is not be be confused with "euphemism. The center of the town, where the cathedral stands, is on the only hill for miles, and the cathedral consequently dominates the whole countryside. What would specially have appealed to you was that after dinner as we strolled round it, we had the accompaniment of a little summer lightning and very distant gentle thunder. Do you know the kind of thunder which has almost a tinkle in it, like a musical sound? To Paul Elmer More American critic and philosopher.

April 5, , vol 2 p I mention this, partly no doubt from vanity, but partly because it proves that there is a demand for some literary theory not based, like the prevailing ones, on materialism. To Arthur, April 23, , vol 2 p , in a footnote the editor says that a book by Llewelyn Powys, Damnable Opinions , "did not mention Lewis by name, but he attacked orthodox Christianity, especially as practized and written about at Oxford. On vol 2 p. To Leo Baker a friend and fellow poet introduced earlier in the notes on Volume 1 , April 28, , vol 2 p To Paul Elmer More, May 23, , vol 2 p Surely it is natural that I should regard Eliot's work as a very great evil.

He is the very spear head of that attack on [Lewis here uses the Greek word, in the Greek alphabet, for 'limit'] which you deplore. His constant profession of humanism and his claim to be a 'classicist' may not be conscioudly insincere, but they are erroneous. So Juvenal, Wycherley, Byron excuse their pornography: To Arthur Greeves, December 7 , vol 2 p. I didn't much like having a book of mine, and specially a religious book, brought out by a Papist publisher: I have been well punished: To Barfield, December 9?

To Arthur, December 27, , vol 2 p Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. To Dom Bede Griffiths, January 8, , vol 2 p To Dom Bede Griffiths, February 20, , vol 2 p To Arthur, February 26, , vol 2 p It is based on the Platonic theory of the other world in which the archtypes of all earthly qualities exist A few lines later Lewis refers to Williams' book as a "good preparation for Lent" not usually given attention by Protestants. Same letter, a footnote on vol 2 p says that Lewis gave his physician and friend Robert Havard the nickname "Humphrey after the doctor in Perelandra.

To Charles Williams first contact[? Chesterton, or William Morris. A few lines farther down he mentions recommending the book to "Tolkien the Professor of Anglo Saxon and a papist and my brother. To Dom Bede Griffiths, April 24, , vol 2 p In any age, foolish men want that philosophy whose truths they least need and whose errors are most dangerous to them. Same, "you and I came to it [Christianity] chiefly by Reason I don't mean, of course, that any one comes at all but by God's grace Same, "the very things we thought proofs of our humility while we were philosophers now turn out to be forms of pride.

P , first mention in Lewis letters of George Sayer, his former student like Griffith and friend who later became his biographer. On the same page he refers to his book, The Allegory of Love , as "an odd book to find in a monastery" because of its treatment of sexual and romantic love in medieval literature. To Dom Bede Griffiths, May 23, , vol 2 p To Dom Bede Griffiths, July 28, , vol 2 p Whenever one is talking, if one begins to utilize rhythm, metaphor, association, etc. Same, vol 2 p , "if any one tried to impose mysticism as the norm of Christian life I suspect he would be making the same mistake as one who said we ought all to be fishermen because some of the apostles were.

Same, referring to his experience of spiritual exercise: Is this self deception? I don't find that thinking about prayer I mean in that introspective way helps me to pray. Of course philosophical thought about it with a view to answering the common objections is another matter. On the whole, you know, I feel that self-examination should be confined to examining one's conduct. One's state in general I don't think one knows much about. But this is all very tentative. To Dom Bede Griffiths, September 14, , vol 2 p The more one sees the confusion in which young men's minds grow up now-a-days, the more cause we have to be thankful on our own part.

To Arthur, March 28, , vol 2 p , footnote mentions the handy man at the Kilns, Paxford: To Daniel Neylan, May 5, , vol 2 p , "the hot-gospeller in me To Arthur, June 10, , vol 2 p , "Your suspicion that I was fuming with wrath during the lunch is a sad commentary on my previous character, and coming from one who knows me so well, it must I fear be correct.

This time, however, tho' of course I would have preferred to see you alone, I quite liked it. To Owen Barfield, September 2, , vol 2 p , mentions that his first science fiction novel, Out of the Silent Planet, is complete. Lewis was responsible for the volume entitled English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama, which, despite his finding it difficult to deliver, was one of the most successful in the set.

To Janet Spens, April 18, , vol 2 p Perhaps it is a laudable trait! I feel that whenever two members of different communions succeed in sharing the spiritual life so far as they can now share it, and are thus forced to regard each other as Christians, they are really helping on re-union by producing the conditions without which official reunion would be quite barren.

I feel sure that this is the layman's chief contribution to the task, and some of us here are being enabled to perform it. To Charles Williams, June 7, , vol 2 p I begin to suspect that we are living in the 'age of Williams' and our friendship with you will be our only passport to fame. I've a good mind to punch your head when we next meet. To Owen Barfield, June 10, , vol 2 p To Owen Barfield, September 12, , vol 2 p To Dom Bede Griffiths, October 5, , vol 2 p I do not remember to have seen a proof that appeared to me absolutely compelling, but that may be only my reason or the writer's reason: At any rate it is obvious that pure reason, in human beings, is very often in fact not convinced.

Same, footnote quotes St. For what is victory but a suppression of resistants, which being done, peace follows? And so peace is war's purpose, the scope of all military discipline, and the limit at which all just contentions aim. All men seek peace by war, but none seek war by peace. But I do not think punishment inflicted by lawful authorities for the right motives is revenge: I cannot believe the knight errant idea to be sinful.

Even in the very act of fighting I think charity to the enemy is not more endangered than in many necessary acts which we all admit to be lawful. To Roger Lancelyn Green, December 28, , vol 2 p Hamilton Jenkin friend from undergraduate days , January 11, , vol 2 p , describing a planned hike with others: Same, vol 2 p , he mentions Snow White Jenkin, January 22, , vol 2 p , describes a poem of his beloved friend Charles Williams as "about a perfect bitch of a female researcher called Damaris who is writing a doctorate thesis on the relation between 'ideas' in Plato and Angels in Abelard Same, on why "good" characters in fiction are harder to create than flawed ones, vol 2 p Letter for publication to the editor of Theology , February 27, , vol 2 p But will anyone interpret this to mean that the hangman has the same duty of investigating the prisoner's guilt which the judge has?

If so, no executive can work and no Christian state is possible. But I doubt whether chivalry has such an unbroken record of failure as pacifism. To Alec Vidler editor of Theology , March 11, , vol 2 p To Dom Bede Griffiths, May 8, , vol 2 p I'm not a pacifist. If it's got to be, it's got to be.

But the flesh is weak and selfish and I think death wd. Chesterton in The Everlasting Man on pagan mythology. A footnote on vol 2 p quotes Sister Penelope's book God Persists: A footnote on vol 2 p says that Chapter 1 of Sister Penelope's Leaves from the Trees "almost certainly served as the inspiration for Lewis's similar treatment of the subject in The Problem of Pain ," about the relationship between human beings and animals and between human beings and God.

In a letter to Barfield, August? A footnote on vol 2 p reports: Lewis said, give it its true title, 'How the Renaissance didn't happen and why Shakespeare was not affected by it. Renascentia had originally meant the revival of classical studies; it had then been extended to cover contemporary developments in music, painting, and vernacular literature, with a tacit assumption that these were due to the Renascentia ; and finally, to cover Copernican astronomy, the discovery of America, and even the Reformation. The Renaissance could be defined as 'an imaginary entity responsible for everything we happen to like in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Jack sent Warnie many long letters during the war, to help keep his morale up. To Warnie, September 18, , vol 2 p Everyone seems much better here since it began: Footnote on vol 2 p quotes a prayer by Thomas Cranmer that "encapsulated Lewis's beliefs about war between nations. To Warnie, November 5, , vol 2 p A footnote on the same page quotes an explanation by Henry Latham about why in Lewis's words "Our Lord's replies are never straight answers and never gratify curiosity, and Paton, a labor organizer and author of a book Lewis had been reading.

But who, however libidinous or however rich, would choose a cross-channel boat for that? To Sister Penelope, November 8, , vol 2 p To me the real distinction is not between high and low but between religion with a real supernaturalism and salvationism on the one hand and all watered-down and modernist versions on the other. Paul has really told us what to do about the divisions with the Ch. I don't myself care twopence what I eat on Friday but when I am at table with High Anglicans I abstrain in order not 'to offend my weak brother.

To Warnie, November 11, , vol 2 p , Westward Ho! Same, vol 2 p , refers to a meeting of the Inklings in which Warnie was missed: A footnote on the same page is the first reference in his correspondence to The Problem of Pain , referring to it as Lewis's first theological book. Another footnote mentions Ford Lewis Battles, a pupil of Lewis who later became a well-known professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

To Warnie, November 19, , vol 2 p , describing Charles Williams: Same, vol 2 p describes a game he and several Inklings did with writings of Amanda McKittrick Ros, "known as the world's worst writer" who had been an acquaintance of Lewis's father in Belfast. To Warnie, December 3, , vol 2 p A footnote on vol 2 p quotes St. Same, vol 2 p , "N. If you are writing a book about pain and then get some actual pain as I did from my rib, it does not either, as the cynic wd.

I think I shall not. To Warnie, December 18, , vol 2 p , about the realization that many of the books they loved in their youth were actually about Christian ideas: Sir, he who embraces the Christian revelation rejoins the main tide of human existence! Same, vol 2 p , says that Kipling's "stories, of course, are To Warnie, December 24, , vol 2 p , discussing the commercialization of secular Christmas, "You can't find anything more preposterous in Gulliver. I can't remember if you know it: It seems to me not only the best non-fiction book of his, but one of the best books by anyone, I've ever read.

Same, vol 2 p , in closing: See here for the introductory number of these notes, describing the perennial "cast of characters," etc. To Warnie, January 9, , vol 2 p His interests are as wide as mine! Same, referring to Harwood: Unless, unbeknownst to me, there's a better search engine than Google.

To Warnie, January 14, , vol 2 p To Dom Bede Griffiths, January 17, , vol 2 p Same, footnote, explains Lewis's Latin phrase, Diabolus simius Dei, as a quotation from Tertullian, "the devil is the ape of God. To Warnie, January 21, , pp Describing a competition to sound like "Johnsonians. Now the wireless is all take and no give. Same, vol 2 p , a reference to "guinness" suggests that Lewis was not a fan of Ireland's leading brand of brew.

Same, refers to "my Sunday roast" as though the Sunday meal was mainly roast beef or pot roast. These values are in themselves of the soul, not the spirit. But God created the soul. Its values may be expected, therefore, to contain some reflection or antepast of the spiritual values. They will save no man. They resemble the regenerate life only as affection resembles charity, or honour resembles virtue, or the moon the sun. But though 'like is not the same,' it is better than unlike. Imitation may pass into initiation.

For some it is a good beginning, for others it is not; culture is not everyone's road into Jerusalem, and for some it is a road out. To Warnie, January 28, vol 2 p To Warnie, February 3, , vol 2 p To Warnie, February 11, , vol 2 p After all, the Nazis largely got into power by simply talking the old straight stuff about heroism in a country full of cynics and buggers. I don't mean he 'improves on acquaintance,' but that he really gets better. Christianity does have an effect.

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To Warnie, Febuary 18, , vol 2 p I don't understand its economics, or its politics, or any dam' thing about it. Same, Lewis says he is now persuaded "that a real red-hot Christian revival, with iron dogma, stern discipline, and ruthless asceticism, is very much more possible than I had supposed. P has a footnote quoting G.

Chesterton from All Things Considered: Do not look for them unless you want them. It annoys them very much. Mary's sermon of mine in a collection of save the mark Famous Sermons? I am divided between gratification and a fear that I shall be merely made a fool of by appearing in the same book as Bede, Latimer, Donne, Taylor etc. However, let's hope that I shall be divided from them by some good 19th century duds!

To Warnie, February 25, , vol 2 p , reviews a sermon he heard on the patriarch Joseph and speculates on why Potiphar didn't execute Joseph if he had attempted to rape Potiphar's wife as she accused. Same, vol 2 p , discussing Edith Sitwell's poetic line, "the mirage of an eternal beauty that is not" should be understood by the Christian more correctly as "that is not here.

To Warnie, March 3, , vol 2 p mentions that Tolkien, "on beling told of [Charles] Williams' Milton lectures on 'the sage and serious doctrine of virginity,' replied 'The fellow's becoming a common chastitute. Same, vol 2 p , raises a questions about the efficacy of petitionary prayer "a problem without an answer" that he later turned into a paper he gave at the Oxford Clerical Society and was later published in Christian Reflections. To Warnie, March 17, , vol 2 p , mentions an article "of mine has appeared in The Guardian , which I suppose is a milestone on ones ecclesiastical career.

I'm sure they take the Guardian at Glenmachan. Teasing his brother about either Warnie's or his own French, he concludes, "Got it, blockhead? Same, vol 2 p , mentioning Spanish dictator Franco, proposes his "Papist side [might be] what Ulster Orangeism is on the Protestant side. Same, vol 2 p , referring to Mother Julian of Norwich 14th century whom he'd been reading: He replied that all that is true, but the secret grand deed will make even that 'very well.

Same, vol 2 p , still referring to Mother Julian's writing: Describe actions and words from the episode that support your characterization. Cite specific passages that help explain the dramatic change in how she sees the world. We show subsequent scenes and ask students to analyze how elements of plot, motivation, tone, and values highlight specific themes within the episode, all of which can be identified in one or another of the short stories we analyze in subsequent classes.

For example, a major theme of South Park is parodying the reliance on expertise rather than trusting personal experience. Yet they cannot bear to speak with Stan about sex: I know a lot of you want a chance to speak, but we have to talk one at a time. Look, our kids are learning sexual things on the street and on television. The schools have to teach them sexual education at a younger age. School policy has been to teach sexual education later.

Why, just this afternoon our son was caught beating off our dog. Do you really want your children learning about sex? Let them be kids for a while. Parents, we have to face facts: Children in America are having sex at younger and younger ages. The only way we can combat that is by educating children before they have sex. With all the teen pregnancies that are out today, I think my boy does need to know about sexual education. Students point out that this dialogue represents support for the view that common sense and experience lead to better decision-making than its opposite: Students volunteer that this proves to be a false assumption.

Chef, who represents the voice of experience and a character who has a reputation for having sex with many women, serves as a foil to this groupthink, asserting, unsuccessfully at this point in the episode, that sex education should not be taught in schools, especially to year-old children. Can you relate to the experience the South Park children have when you look back at your reactions to sex education classes you took during your elementary and secondary education? Recall a specific conversation you had with a fellow student about one of your lessons. How did what you learned in the classroom compare with what you had learned from other sources?

What were the differences? Explore how the theme of experience vs. How does his medical expertise inhibit his ability to come up with a more effective treatment plan? Explore the theme of experience vs. Another theme students highlight is the ineffectiveness of fear as a way of changing behavior. This scene satirizes sex education classes. The lessons are inappropriate for this age group: This scene allows for a conversation on the effectiveness of fear appeals in reducing harmful behavior.

Many students report having experienced similar fear appeals in high school about sex education, and about smoking, driving and texting, and drug use as well Stewart, A related theme is the role of unintended consequences. In her second presentation on sex education, Miss Choksondik stresses the traumas of pregnancy. Mom sure is in a lot of pain. Finally, the miracle happens, and the baby is born.

This terrifies the girls who later run away from the boys when they meet in the cafeteria. Students observe the children have too little relevant experience to understand the materials being shared. You guys have to wear condoms. Now, please, just, just go away. The girls are terrified of having sex—and of boys in general. In response, the boys attempt to buy condoms at a drugstore. We just got in the new Gladiators for kids. The teachers find out about the condom purchases and almost gleefully agree to start teaching sex ed.

These scenes are used to generate conversation about experiences students have had when they believe their voices were not heard at home or in the classroom. Students point out that the children do not seek these remedies. Students laugh at the unintended consequences of the sex education program: This spoof of the promotion of sex education from kindergarten through high school results in the boys and girls coming into conflict, each believing the other to be responsible for spreading disease.

They skirmish, with the girls protecting themselves behind a steel fortress and the boys, riding in battery operated cars, on the attack, using water guns to break through this defense. In this battle, Kenny, hiding in his jacket, dies, a South Park plot convention, when struck by a boomerang. Similarly, some students report that like the South Park parents, their parents seemed only dimly aware their children were experiencing negative emotions.

Recall how fear appeals were used in school programs about sex, drugs, tobacco, and driving? As you remember student reactions to them, do you recall any unintended consequences, such as students mocking the presenter or the presentation? What did they say and what was the reaction to their comments? Explain your answer with reference to your own school experiences, including bullying and being excluded from favored groups.

Identify text from the story that supports your analysis. Hypocrisy is another prominent theme of Proper Condom Use. When Miss Choksondik and Mr. Mackey have unprotected sex, they are transgressing the lessons they promoted in the classroom. In fact, Miss Choksondick is so desperate for sexual contact, she offers Mr. Mackey a drink, strips naked, lowers her head off-screen, and is later portrayed with disheveled hair. Students point out that his illustrates the limitation of education as a predictor of behavior: Did you observe teachers or administrators practicing some of the actions the school discouraged in students, such as speeding or smoking?

Did this affect your perception of the credibility of what was being taught? We point out that this South Park episode, a monolog, which we teach is a convention of satire and burlesque, lampoons the idea that if evil influences are not headed off early, a social apocalypse will occur—and the naive hope that experts can fix all issues children face. The monolog is delivered by Chef, the voice of experience, in which he calls for rationality and truthfulness from parents. Schools are teaching condom use to younger students each day.

Sex is emotional and spiritual. It needs to be taught by family. I never knew how special and personal sex was until just recently. But Chef, when is the right age for us to start having sex? The right time to start having sex is…seventeen. Well, I guess we got a while to wait before we have to worry about sex and diseases, huh?

When the parents see the error of their ways, they show they can reflect on their actions and learn from experience. What purpose does the ending monologue, a convention of burlesque and of South Park , serve in this episode? After students have viewed the entire episode, we address the issue of audience analysis, asking students to identify what they find compelling in this episode and also how they see it appealing to other viewers Duff, Students identify plot elements that support differing value sets. The scriptwriters present a traditional perspective of morality—that parents, not schools, be the primary sex education teachers.

Yet they mock conventional moral values by showing characters in highly degrading situations that stretch the limits of what is acceptable on television. Chef presents a secular world view declaring the age seventeen is the right age to have sex—outside of love and marriage. Finally, they reflect a populist perspective that implies gaining carnal knowledge from older adolescents during puberty is preferable to teaching it to elementary school children before they have the experience or physical maturity to understand its role in human society.

Why do you believe South Park resonates so strongly with a young and primarily male audience? What plot elements and devices did you observe in Proper Condom Use that this demographic might find particularly amusing? What plot elements and devices did you observe that this demographic might find particularly compelling?

They serve as outsiders, spectators to the futility of parents and others who try to impose adult burdens on them. Our students report that they like this way of introducing them to basic literary concepts. They also enjoy it because it offers them the opportunity to reflect within a familiar learning space on something they have experienced in their own lives: In short, this exercise allows students to reflect thoughtfully as they share stories about their own school experiences with fear appeals while teachers can introduce literary concepts and how to document claims with specific evidence in an easily understood and relatable format.

Pop culture and ESL students. Youth culture and digital media: New literacies for new times. Research in the Teaching of English , vol. Against the American Grain: Adults watching children watch South Park. Comedy Partners; Comedy Central. South Park and society. Rethinking composing in a digital age: Authoring literate identities through multimodal storytelling. Written Communication , vol. Julie Stewart teaches communication courses at the University of Cincinnati—Blue Ash and has experience teaching traditional, non-traditional, and adult students in weekend and evening classes.

Her research focuses on media, popular culture, and communication. Thomas Clark teaches written, oral and interpersonal communication skills classes at Xavier University. He is author of numerous scholarly and pedagogical articles as well as author of Power Communication and co-author of The Writing Process. Marilyn Clark has taught in the English Department at Xavier University for 14 years—much of that time in the Weekend Degree Program, one that enables adults who work full time to obtain a college degree.

Clark is a playwright, whose play, Mrs. Deconstructing roper Condom Use as an introduction to literary analysis. Most humanities and social science teachers spend at least some class time helping students develop a critical eye for documentary evidence. Using the fictional informational sources J. Throughout the series, but particularly in the last book, characters must weigh evidence and gain important information from biased sources to help them determine their future actions. Only by sorting through these contradictory accounts can Harry, Ron, and Hermione defeat the evil Lord Voldemort.

When muggle students sort through these fictional accounts from the wizarding world, they nevertheless gain experience needed for navigating real-world sources to determine their own future paths. As a result, this exercise allows students to develop their critical thinking skills and their sense of historical consciousness.

Teaching students to evaluate sources for quality and usable content remains a constant challenge at almost every educational level. For historians, the ability to analyze sources of information about the past and to use them appropriately has always been a central requirement of the discipline. But any educated person must have these abilities. Most humanities and social science teachers spend at least some class time discussing how to regard documents and other evidence with a critical eye.

Although today we find ourselves inundated with information, most of our sources are not vetted by experts, are partisan with varying degrees of openness about their bias , or have entertainment instead of accuracy as the top priority. Given this crowded yet flawed information landscape, evaluation of the quality and content of source materials has become a more essential skill than ever before.

Students will find even more valuable the knowledge of how to use inherently biased sources effectively as evidence. Pop culture approaches to source materials can make this rather workmanlike topic more immediately interesting to students. It may seem counterintuitive to base an assignment about source accuracy on a fictional text—and fictional informational texts within it—but the key is the thinking process behind discerning source limitations and strengths.

By developing the analytic skills to examine and effectively use documentary evidence about past events, even imaginary ones, students can apply this critical thinking to real-world situations. Developing critical evaluation in a relatively politically neutral subject area helps students and faculty focus on the skill itself instead of politicized content. Rowling possesses a surprisingly strong critical sensibility about historical and other sources, which makes her books ideal for this kind of exercise.

In the Harry Potter universe, the past is never far removed from present-day problems. Rowling builds into the fabric of her stories an urgent need to know what really happened in history. Rubenstein examines the variety of sources wizarding-world characters use to discover information about the past, including official ones and counter-cultural or hidden ones. Her most significant take-away is the value Rowling places on historical knowledge and the ability of her characters to sort through many different kinds of accounts of the past in order to solve current problems.

In underscoring the usefulness of the past to the present, Rowling acknowledges what scholars of history and pedagogy have learned in recent years: In The Presence of the Past: Their study revealed that Americans have a strong sense of the usefulness of the past to the present, but that they distrust both commercial sources of historical information and official ones like textbooks and school teachers.

Instead, they tended to value most the personal testimony of people who have lived through historical events. This connection people feel to the past if not to historians or history books is vital to human endeavors. As such, it is an essential tool for all citizens to be able to use. As a result, Harry must become adept at uncovering valid sources of information about what occurred before he was born. His friends assist him in this regard. Ron Weasley, as a wizarding-world insider, inherits and absorbs common knowledge social memory about the past from his family.

Hermione Granger is an outsider like Harry who learns of the past through authoritative sources like their history teacher Professor Binns and books, specifically Hogwarts: Harry must also identify and exclude invalid sources of information. Some presumably authoritative sources, like the Daily Prophet , reveal how easily they may be manipulated by either government censorship or the desire to pander to a fearful paying customer.

Hermione also becomes wise to the to her, unforgiveable omissions in Hogwarts: But, importantly, so does the ultimate victory of good over evil. A crucial conflict emerges, however, when Albus Dumbledore dies in the sixth book. Harry has lost one of his chief and most credible sources of information about the past, present, and future. Indeed, the end of every prior book in the Harry Potter series involved a usually lengthy commentary on past events and how they relate to the present, either by Dumbledore himself or facilitated by him as with Barty Crouch, Jr.

Now that authority is silent. Harry will have to find his own perspective on the past in the last book in order to complete his quest. Unfortunately, in the seventh book Harry discovers that perhaps Dumbledore was not the man he thought. Harry will have to decide how to weigh these sources about the past in making his own decisions in the present. In the process of revealing these personal struggles that will determine whether good triumphs over evil in the end, Rowling provides readers with an opportunity to consider how to evaluate a variety of sources about the past.

Dumbledore is mostly silent about his own past. What Harry knows about the Hogwarts headmaster he knows from other sources. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling. Importantly, this understanding of the headmaster conforms to the image shared by the adults around Harry—Mr. Weasley and the other Hogwarts faculty, for example—and therefore preserves an uncomplicated, heroic image of his mentor.

But in Book 7, The Deathly Hallows , Harry encounters new sources of information that tell him unexpected, important details about his deceased mentor. One he is inclined to agree with: The other comes from shady journalist Rita Skeeter: Rowling presents these sources for her readers so that we are similarly drawn to question their accuracy as well as what we thought we knew about Albus Dumbledore. For this exercise in source evaluation, students should read the documentary source excerpts Rowling provides in the text of the seventh novel.

The two main sources are published documents: Students will evaluate these two main sources for their quality and should compare them to see where they corroborate each other and where they disagree. On the basis of these three excerpts—all printed material available to a mass wizarding audience—students should determine the relative value of these sources and what might be useful about them despite their biases. Based on these three readings, evaluate the quality and reliability of the two main sources by Elphias Doge and by Rita Skeeter. What does this tell us about historical biography in general?

A short assignment like this allows the students to wrestle with the material outside of class and bring their own impressions, supported by evidence, into the discussion. This exercise may, of course, be done entirely in class, with students given this charge individually or in groups. The benefit of coming in with prior preparation is that students will have considered the documents at more length and probably in a more deliberate fashion. The benefit of carrying out the whole assignment in class is that students who have not previously formed an opinion may be more open to persuasion by other points of view.

Whether they have prepared in advance or not, students in discussion should consider some of the following questions. Harry, Hermione, and Ron ask Aberforth about the events of that pivotal year and listen to his version of events. Students who have read the Harry Potter series will have an advantage in some respects in this last part of the conversation, but their knowledge of the larger story may also play into their judgment on these accounts.

Filmography

In the last book, even after his death, Albus Dumbledore has laid out a course of action for Harry, Ron, and Hermione: Aberforth tells his version of events in order to discourage Harry, Ron, and Hermione from entering Hogwarts to seek the remaining horcruxes. Ultimately accepting a less-heroic image of the Hogwarts headmaster, the Trio will nevertheless pursue his path in seeking horcruxes instead of hallows.

This does, indeed, lead to the victory of good over evil. Knowing this result in advance may cause students to look at the documents differently. It may be useful to ask students about whether they think their prior knowledge of the Harry Potter story influenced their decision-making in this exercise. Although this exercise uses fictional sources in a fantasy universe, it can—paradoxically perhaps—help students find the unexpected relevance of sources about the past.

How are interpretations of the past in the present, muggle world affecting both personal and political decisions? Where do they see this in their own lives? Have they ever had the experience of learning something new about the past that shook their understanding of themselves in the world or their sense of what they should do in the future? As students navigate research projects of various kinds, they will need to be able to evaluate the quality and usefulness of their sources. More than that, they must be able to find what is useful even in problematic sources.

Rare indeed are pure and unbiased sources of information. In their absence, we are all called upon to find what is true and important even in flawed materials. This exercise can help students to go even further than identifying bias; it can help them to determine how to use biased sources for valid research anyway.

What could be more useful in our often unfair and unbalanced world today? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Rosenzweig, Roy and David Thalen. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life. John Wiley and Sons. McDaniel is Andrew U. Although her specialty is early modern British history, she teaches a wide variety of courses in world history, modern European history, feminism, history of science, and historiography, and is the editor of Virtual Dark Tourism: A Harry Potter approach to evaluating sources.

Teachers often feature graphic novels in college courses, and recent research notes how these texts can help make the process of reading more engaging as well as more complex. First, graphic novels often present crucial scenes by relying heavily on the use of verbal silence or near silence while emphasizing visual images; second, the deeper ethical dimensions of such scenes are suggested rather than discussed through narration or dialogue.

This article will explain some of the challenges and options for writing about graphic novels and ethics. This commitment can be a heavy one—in my case, it sometimes weighs about 40 pounds. Certain texts get snatched quickly: T he Last Man. Graphic novels tend to create converts, and converts often get a bit carried away.

This sort of enthusiasm is often evident when students browse through graphic novels. While I surely appreciate their engagement, I have also been investigating whether and how graphic novels will remain an essential component of my teaching practices. Why bring bags of graphic novels to a college Introduction to Literature course? At least five criteria seem crucial. However, graphic novels are not only for readers who struggle. Of course, the previous sentence demands some immediate clarifications. I am teaching a Writing Intensive course about Literature in which very, very few students—even those in the Honors program—are potential English majors.

The challenge of teaching such courses has become a serious issue at many other colleges, and an intriguing study of such courses appears in a article from The CEA [College English Association] Forum. Study findings indicate that both students and teachers find students to be most engaged in literature when given some autonomy to direct their reading choices and when prompted to identify the relevance of texts to their lived experiences; that a literature course for non-majors offers opportunities for students to develop or reclaim reading habits; and that both students and teachers perceive such a course to offer students opportunities to learn transferable reading and writing skills.

This statement serves to identify a few crucial ways in which teachers and students alike can make active decisions about finding readings that are both serious and appealing. Graphic novels would thus appear to be a helpful resource in a course for non-majors. Thus, my argument will focus on four well-known graphic memoirs: All are memoirs in which an adult tries to reconstruct how the traumas of his or her youth are paired with very painful or contentious family matters. Reluctant and struggling readers have eagerly asked for my personal copies of Persepolis II and Maus II , even though these sequels are not assigned.

Noting how these associations are often visualized has lead in turn to discussions of how seemingly neutral and objective images, such as a newspaper photograph, draw from a deep well of assumptions.

It would require a far longer text than this to try to register even a partial set of these cultural variables and to suggest some methods for addressing them in a class setting. These multiple viewpoints might in turn encourage readers to consider a more nuanced and multi-faceted discussion of ethical issues. However, there are certain features of graphic novels—such as presenting crucial scenes by relying heavily on visual images while offering little or no verbal contexts—which might engage students as readers while also presenting them with a potentially frustrating occasion for doing academic writing.

Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people including myself will approve of me? Is there a difference? This choice is more likely for students in fields that lead to some sort of licensing: It offers an M. I am not offering this statement as a one-sentence encapsulation of post-modernism, yet it may help to frame one basic issue facing teachers who try to introduce ethical terms into various assignments.

If one invokes Derrida and places such terms sous rature that is, liberty , or cordons them off inside quotations marks, or literally erases such terms from the board while teaching, then what replaces them? At the risk of generalizing about KCC students, many seem to prefer their metaphysics and universal values delivered without a chaser of irony or contingency. One particular statement from John Rothfork has helped frame the debate about the contentious status of post-modern ethics.

What might I consider to be a text which provides students with a challenging option for writing about ethics? He had semi-confessed to some of his crimes to his wife years ago when their daughter was born. Now his secrets are causing all sorts of trouble. Please analyze the varied responses of at least TWO characters. What key criteria or terms would seem most important to these characters? Students generally do not find it hard to start a response, since the characters have often studied the contours of their own entrapments and silences.

Anne is in church for midnight Mass on Christmas Eve with her husband and daughter. During a moment when the entire congregation is hushed, Ka urgently whispers to her mother that she has spotted—or thinks she has spotted—a notorious torturer also known to be living a shadowy life in Brooklyn. Faced with the ethical dilemma of speaking or remaining silent, the two women frame their choices using very different vocabularies. Anne is having other thoughts:. What if it were Constant? What would she do? How would she even know whether Constant felt any guilt or shame?

What if he considered himself innocent? Innocent enough to go wherever he pleased? While dealing with texts such as The Dew Breaker , students usually can write their way into a fairly nuanced discussion of how ethical decisions can be shaped and informed by culture and language, by images and symbols, by legal codes and social customs.

Traditional prose narratives often encourage this process. One reads of a character and notes how their ideas arise in a sequence, one that may not be quite rational and consistent, but one that has its own cadence, structure, phrasing, evasions, echoes. How might a similar process take place while reading and then writing about a graphic novel? How might the reading of graphic novels complement, and perhaps complicate, the ways in which students read more traditional prose narratives? And finally, how might the reading of a graphic novel present students with a strikingly different perspective?

How might they write their way into a discussion of the ethical contexts for that moment? The publication of Meta-Maus , with its archival pictures and video and interview transcripts, allows students to see how memory is both retrieved and re-created in a survival tale. Maus certainly features many such moments. In class, we generally focus on three distinct scenes.

In the first, the Spiegelman family must decide whether to turn over their elderly relatives to the Nazis for deportation or be taken away themselves ; in the second, a group of Jews hiding desperately in a secret bunker must decide whether to kill a fellow Jew who has found them, and who may also be a Nazi informant.

The third scene is given the most careful attention. Students often respond very strongly to these scenes when we discuss them in class, since they present such painful and irrevocable choices. Yet there are two recurring textual complications in many graphic novels that can pose difficulties for students who are writing about these texts.

First, graphic novels often present crucial scenes by relying heavily on the use of verbal silence or near silence while emphasizing visual images; second, the deeper ethical dimensions of such scenes are suggested rather than discussed. Dare we imagine the details of what follows? Maus II mentions how Vladek and his wife Anja spend months after the war looking for Richieu, unaware of the scene described above. Wiesel presents his ethical anguish in much bolder terms and closes this section with his famous invocation: As one of their writing options, students are asked to consider the differences between these two types of texts:.

The book feature a series of scenes in which people must make very difficult ethical decisions. To what extent and in what ways might a graphic novel be more or less convincing or insightful than a traditional literary text while trying to represent the ethical conflicts of such scenes? Yet students have grave difficulties getting past the obvious points that Tosha has two horrifying options infanticide and suicide vs. As teachers we may need to resist the urge to presume this knowledge of other texts and contexts that lead to a nuanced analysis.

As an obvious example, a reference to suicide or infanticide may remind experienced readers of various characters and authors and texts: My students and I and dare I say any other readers? Maus is surely not an isolated example, and it is almost chatty compared to Persepolis or Stitches. During this full-page sequence of panels, the two are alone in his cell—and Marjane says not a word Of course, this silence is an intentional effect, and an interview with David Small suggests a crucial distinction about visual and verbal communication.

To be direct, what can we ask students about what Marjane and David are thinking in the sequences mentioned above? Toward the end of the book, Bechdel becomes increasingly aware that these silences are not just awkward but damaging, and she resolves to speak out. A crucial exchange appears on pages see Image 2. In a panel near the top of the page , Alison is lying on the couch as her father approaches and asks her to help polish some silver. While in the kitchen they have yet another failed dialogue about the movie Cruising , and the scene could easily be read as a pair of missed chances—the chance for Alison to speak, and the chance for readers to know more of what Alison is really thinking.

Also, while memoirs rely heavily on voices, the voices of Vladek Spiegelman, Taji Satrapi, the Small family, and Bruce Bechdel are generally terse and understated. Neither of these terms is really adequate here. These brief allusions are often paired with lengthy and direct quotations from writers such Proust, Fitzgerald, Wilde, Joyce, and so many others, which in turn may be contrasted with both images and text from movies, letters, album covers, news headlines, dictionary entries, and her own somewhat neurotic diary. The effect of these methods is that they allow for a much more substantial discussion of an ethical issue.

To be honest, my description of the previous dialogue was intentionally incomplete. Before the conversation starts, Bechdel adds a key reference. Jill sits across from me saying there is not enough opportunity for heroism over here. I am late coming into this mean old bar full of Americans. Too early for a martini but I have one anyway.

Jill is eating a sandwich. Heroism is suspect, I say. She frankly wants to be heroic. Now it just seems deluded. Because she has said it out loud. This brief excerpt from Millett introduces the themes underlying the strained conversation that follows: The photograph is of a young man named Roy who had often done both child-care and landscaping for the family. Yet the underlying question is surely a resonant one: What was the father trying to reveal or conceal? The answers are neither immediate nor conclusive.

Instead, the text boxes are arranged almost chaotically, both forcing and allowing a reader to create some sort of logical sequence—or a variety of sequences. In academic terms, the students now have more than compelling visual imagery—they also have complex verbal contexts for the sort of investigation that one would hope they will engage in as they take Introduction to Literature. Whether the scenes from Bechdel rely on relatively straight-forward bits of narration or on more intertextual references, the students have a much fuller opportunity to write and to analyze, while also reading a very bold, timely and innovative text!

Perhaps I have wound up arguing that graphic novels are best at confronting ethical quandaries when they rely upon seemingly traditional fictional techniques such as dialogue and narration. If that does wind up to be the case, then that might prove to be unhelpful, since there are not many graphic novelists who use the densely allusive verbal references and echoes of Fun Home.

What can one say about moments? What then might teachers keep in mind as we ask students to write about situations that demand a consideration of ethical issues while also denying readers many of the narrative techniques such as dialogue, omniscient narration, interior monologue, allusion, etc… that they may expect to find? If readers, especially those who may be still learning the basics of college-level academic discourse, must rely instead on a great deal of inference based on non-verbal cues, then what are some possible compromises that arise, and how might teachers work through these compromises?

Yet in discussions among fans and scholars of graphic novels, there remain nagging doubts, and students surely are not shy about sharing their own suspicions. The students are also quick to note a section of the article in which a graduate student named David Namie expresses the reservations that he and some of his students had. I am not trying to shame Namie or my students here—I have been fumbling around with my own phrasing for awhile as well.

See Drucker, Graphesis for broader contexts. Aldama, Frederick Luis, ed. From Zap to Blue Beetle. U of Texas P, Student Reading in a General Literature Course. Program in Narrative Medicine. Columbia University Medical Center. Visual Forms of Knowledge Production. Accessed 12 Aug Modern Language Association, Accessed 25 Aug Essays on Heidegger and Others: Richard Rorty and Michael Polanyi.

Multi-Ethnic Engagements with Graphic Narrative. Smetana, Linda et al. Engaging Deaf Students with a New Genre. Comics, the Discourse of Developmental Normalcy, and Disability. Back Bay Books, His writings and teaching have often focused on various forms of non-fiction, and he has published articles on travelogues, natural history, memoirs, and graphic novels. He has also published a series of articles on contemporary narratives about the Human Genome Project.

Reading and Writing about Graphic Novels. Reading and writing about graphic novels. Moreover, the names are often connected thematically, and their factors reflect key elements in the first five books of the Bible. One critic holding such an opinion is Richard Connema who says the show is better suited for regional theatre. However, Connema also compliments certain aspects of the production he saw at the Willows in Yeston has fashioned an old fashion Broadway musical with toe tapping songs, romantic ballets sic , songs of hope, and vaudeville routines. The score does have some beautiful romantic songs.

Not so much ado, however, has been made over the book, which was originally drafted by Larry Gelbart and later revised by David Hahn. Citing Peter Stone, he says,. That would be true of a number things. Well, in that particular show I think we all wanted to get a very funny take on the Bible.

You never hum the book. In fact, there is evidence of something concealed in the text that evokes the themes of the show in a way that is entirely unlooked for. This becomes clear when we apply two methods. The second is used in biblical interpretation and involves calculating the numeric values of each Hebrew or Greek name using gematria or ispopsephy and then considering any correlations between the factors thereof. In the end, the application of these methods will reveal that the show, while not exactly Broadway-ready, has received somewhat short shrift critically and merits more consideration as a piece of theatre that has not been fully understood or appreciated.

Analyzing the meanings of names in fiction and how they might represent certain themes is a common practice in interpreting literature. However, as part of such an analysis, using gematria and isopsephy—that is, converting Hebrew and Greek names and words to numeric expressions, noting any common factors between them, and deriving meaning from such correspondences—is rare outside biblical exegesis.

While the use of these methods does not necessarily lead to a final judgment on which interpretations of the story are exclusively true, we can see with a high degree of certainty how particular interpretations have their foundations in the numeric values that sets and subsets of names share. To arrive at a firmer understanding of how these values are determined, we need to review the foundations of gematria and isopsephy. Why the Torah Begins with the Letter Beit. The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet: Those interested in the Greek alphabet and the corresponding values of each letter may refer to the appendix.

As reflected in the numeric value columns above, each of the 22 Hebrew letters has standard and ordinal values assigned to it. In the case of standard values, letters are assigned numbers based on succeeding decimal places increasing from ones to tens to hundreds. In the case of ordinal values, the numbers assigned reflect the placement of the letter within the alphabet. With this in mind, consider the following example of how Hebrew words and their numeric values combine to produce insights and interpretations that go well beyond the simple meaning of the words themselves.

Revised by John Kohlenberger and James Swanson, rev. We may also note that both are prime. If we consider this word and its numeric values in light of other Hebrew words that have the same values, we begin to see connections between them that would not otherwise be apparent. In the case of those listed, when we reflect on how they relate, we are struck by the synchronicities among them.

Gematria and isopsephy are esoteric means of interpreting the Bible and not widely employed. Such methods are even more rare for interpreting texts originated in English. In the case of In the Beginning , however, we have a unique set of circumstances in which most of the principal characters have been given Hebrew or Greek names. Therefore, we are able to calculate both their standard and ordinal values and determine whether any numeric relationships exist.

In some cases, we can even translate a name from one biblical language to another, calculate its value, and note numeric correspondences. After converting all the names into numbers, we find that each value can be derived using 11, 13, or 40 as a factor. As Yeston, Gelbart, and Hahn all contributed to the work, it is difficult to surmise exactly which character was named by whom, but the fact that all ten names correspond numerically indicates that this feature of the text is intentional.

As Mary Kalfatovic reveals in Contemporary Musicians , Yeston attended Hebrew school in his youth, and his grandfather was a cantor in a synagogue She also says he taught religion at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania Yeston attended an Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva for the first 10 years of his education—learning the Hebrew and English alphabets simultaneously at the age of 5. That education did indeed include Biblical studies, Commentary, Mishnah, Gemmorah, folklore, a smattering of Gemmatria and all other manner of Hebraic learnedness.

During the intervening years, only Yeston remained a constant on the project as its creative team changed from production to production and its characters developed in the revision process Dietz ; Williams; Martin H We will begin this analysis with the names of characters whose values either equal 13 or are multiples thereof as they provide the thematic foundation on which the rest of the story is based. There may be more than one interpretation of how these characters correlate, but the evidence is strong that they have been named according to certain themes.

The names, along with their values and factors, are summarized in the following table. It may be too much to hope that a direct relationship exists between all names that share the same factor. Perhaps the best examples are Ben and Avi. Taken together, the two correspondences are compelling features of the text that suggest a conscious decision in storytelling see fig. Even correlations within the biblical literature can be called on to support the conclusion that gematria was used to select character names.

In the case of Avi, who is hiding his true identity as Cain, we find a correlation with Genesis 4. Its Supernatural Design and Spiritual Significance. On the surface, one might wonder if the name is meant to express a Gnostic view of the Old Testament God—that is, the Demiurge that created matter, which, according to Gnostic thought, was inherently evil MacRae ; Powell Also, while Kabbalah does parallel Gnostic doctrines, it does not go so far as to accept the premise that matter was produced from an evil source Ginzberg In fact, this interpretation can be supported both numerically and thematically.

Below are instances in which this is employed most clearly:. On the other, we observe Avi perverting this responsibility into blame and unconsciously shifting it from Zymah to himself when he indicates that Romer may be right 1. The scenes cited above reinforce the various associations discussed in that Avi 13 x 1 represents Zymah 13 x 4. When Avi and Zymah appear alone together in the final act, their identification with each other is completed and theatrically most obvious.

When Zymah corrects his assumption on this, Avi explains his reason for thinking it in the first place:. It is during this conversation that Avi finally realizes Arielle is justified in her faith that all things have a purpose and it is his responsibility to finish strong in the life he has been blessed with, despite his past wrongdoing.

If the evidence informing these interpretations ended with the foregoing correspondences, the results could be coincident. However, what we have seen is only the beginning, so please consider the following as further evidence of authorial intent. The set in Table 5 can easily be subdivided according to character relationship e. In other cases, such relationships are not immediately apparent but, nonetheless, present. However, further investigation into the characters, as well as into the themes that emerge through them, reveals much.

Both, for instance, are staunch advocates of Avi. Arielle, for example, seems to see Avi as more than just himself, apparently perceiving the divine through him. On the other, we are keenly aware that she is yearning to understand herself and the world outside the context of the garden. She wants to know if someone transcending her physical experience is guiding events and if she can depend on that someone now that the garden and its low-hanging fruit are gone.

Therefore, even when learning that Avi is Cain, she continues to see the good in him, apparently looking past his recently revealed identity to what he represents on a divine level. Though his lines are few, he spends a good number of them defending Avi and his judgment. When Avi is first introduced to the tribe, for instance, Zeke immediately requests that he join them, setting off a heated debate over whether he should be included 1. In addition to trust, another thematic connection between Zeke and Arielle exists.

On the first, he asks the reason for the drought 1. These examples of inquiring through the medium of Arielle, who represents Jerusalem, very much parallel a prophet making inquiries at the house of God. Finally, a curious correlation with the biblical literature should be considered in the case of Arielle and Zeke. First, the list includes the names of both characters under observation. However, they bear special recognition. The Greek name Lydia corresponds to the Hebrew name Lud , which has an ordinal value of 22 or 11 x 2.

Lydia was a kingdom in the ancient world whose borders were within what is now the modern state of Turkey. In antiquity, it eventually became a province of the Persian and Greek Empires and was finally bequeathed to Rome by the last king of the Attalid dynasty Herodotus 51; Freeman xvi-xvii; Allen In other words, the Attalid Kingdom, which seems related to the character Lydia, was legally transferred to Rome, which is clearly represented by Romer.

These interpretations can be extended to include the Christian conversion of Rome, too. On the other, he supplants the Father and declares the code his own. This reading is further supported by the Romer-Lydia connection. Thematically, Romer has obvious ties to Rome, including its imperial and papal manifestations. During the imperial period, the region once named after the former kingdom of Lydia and ultimately given to Rome came to be known as Asia Minor and included the seven churches mentioned in Revelation 1.

The part the region played in church history provides a clear connection between Lydia and the churches most important during the apostolic period. Later in the 4 th century, Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Following his defeat of Licinius and becoming sole emperor, he united the western half of the empire with the eastern MacMullen The final value addressed in this paper is This Cabal guy could be right. I mean, the flood was forty days and forty nights. And Moses has been up on that mountain for how long?

Forty days and forty nights. In light of this, consider the following names, all of which either calculate to 40 or are multiples thereof. Greek Phrasebook and Dictionary. Edited by Brigitte Ellemor, 5 th ed. This particular spelling of Aaron may be found in Numbers Practically all the examples he lists of the number evoke cataclysm, judgment, and testing, a common understanding of how the number is applied biblically. This is ironic as Romer and Lydia themselves are so often the agents of trouble, whether they are oppressing the tribe in the town, which is ultimately washed away by the flood, or leading them to Egypt, where they are all enslaved.

In the second, a reformed Cain brings them the light of Torah see fig. For one, the theme of bringing forth children is expressed by 40 in that the number reflects the average length of pregnancy in terms of weeks. Therefore, the number 40 is understood as applying to the duration of time leading to something brought into being, whether an embryo on its 40th day, a newborn in its 40th week, or even a nation in its 40th year.

Even with these realizations, however, we do not appreciate the fuller scope of this vision until we recognize that the number 13 is connected to In other words, the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Mem and has a standard value of With this in mind, compare the following names and factors in the table below.

Chart depicting numeric and thematic relationships between Ben, Avi, Cain, and Mem 13th letter in Hebrew with a standard value of