Getting a Jump on 'Paradise Lost'

If you're following along with the bloggers in the sidebar, you may be familiar with 'The Western Tradition' blog.  Over there Dr J is making his way through the Great Books but he's doing it in a slightly different fashion than I am.  He is covering more ground (much more) and at a faster pace. 
Each week he announces what he'll be working on for the next week and offers comments on the previous pieces.  Yesterday he mentioned that he's starting 'Paradise Lost', which he calls the greatest poem in the English language.  As I've mentioned before, poetry is something of a blind spot for me.  Long, epic poems intimidate me and 'Paradise Lost' is something I've been dreading a bit. 
With that in mind, I'm going to follow along with Dr J.  It looks like he's covering one 'book' per week.  If so, this will be done over the next twelve weeks.  If you're also intimidated by long poems, this might be a good way to help yourself out. 
'Paradise Lost' comes up on our list in August of year three.  I plan on simply taking notes and leaving them in a journal so that I can brush up and be ready again two years from now.  You can easily do the same. 

Biography of Shakespeare

The whole idea behind doing regular biographic sketches was to try and get a larger feel for each writer.  That doesn't seem as necessary with Shakespeare as it does with many others.  He's one of the best known individuals of his time period and even a casual fan is probably very familiar with his story.  So I'll hit the high spots and see if I can find anything that I didn't know before.
Shakespeare was born in 1564, probably on April 23rd.  He almost certainly attended  grammar school.  There was one near his house.  At school he would have been well educated in Latin grammar and classical Latin authors.  (Between Montaigne and Shakespeare, I'm wondering if I should be pushing classical stories on my kids!)  When he was 18 he married the much older Anne Hathaway.  Only six months later, the couple had a daughter.  A few years later they had twins and a few years after that he split for London.  No one is certain why he left.
By 1592 his plays were being performed in London.  Apparently, and I didn't know this, he probably acted in some of them.  He was successful enough that by 1598 his name was a selling point.  He became at least somewhat wealthy.  He died in 1616.  Tradition suggests that he died on his birthday but that's disputed.
There is a lot that we don't know about Shakespeare.  I lot that we probably never will.  For centuries, various scholars have pored over his works to try and find clues to his personal life.  But clues are all that they really have.  There is even controversy over whether the man 'William Shakespeare' wrote the works that are attributed to him.  (For the record, I haven't ever seen any convincing evidence that he didn't.)  There is speculation over his marriage, his sexuality, his education, and even over his death.  He left his 'second-best bed' to his wife, prompting some to think that he still needed to use his first-best. 
Shakespeare was a first rate poet and playwright, probably the finest that the English language has ever had.  No wonder we keep trying to get to know what happened to produce such a wonder.

Author Timeline

BC
Aristophanes 446 - 386
Plato 424? - 348?
Aristotle 384 - 322

AD
Plutarch 46 - 120
Gospel of Matthew, Acts of the Apostles (around the end of the first century)
St. Augistine 354 - 430
Machiavelli 1469 - 1527
Rabelais 1494 - 1553
Montaigne 1533 - 1592
Shakespeare 1564 - 1616
Locke 1632 - 1704
Rousseau 1712 - 1778
Gibbon 1737 - 1794
Declaration of Independence - 1776
The Constitution of the US - 1787
Federalist Papers 1787 -1788
Smith 1723 - 1790
Marx/Engles 1818 - 1883/1820 - 1895

August Reading

August
Shakespeare: 'Hamlet' Kindle/Nook/Google

I'm a big Shakespeare fan but I've never read through Hamlet before.  I've seen about four versions of it and read some of the famous parts before but I've never studied it before so this will be new for me.  When it comes to Shakespeare, I suggest watching the play before reading.  It helps to get past the language barrier and increases understanding.  You can find a recent performance with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart online here.  
I haven't mentioned this here but I was very much a theater rat when I was young.  From age 11 until about 22 I was in about 50 different shows (community theater, children's theater, high school and so on).  This included my two favorite all time roles, Puck in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and Romeo in 'Romeo and Juliet'.  I loved the challenge of translating the Elizabethan patter into something that a modern audience could easily understand.  I loved the high drama and absolute absurdity that each role permitted.  There is a reason that Shakespearean actors are so highly valued, even in other genres.

And while I'm talking about Shakespeare, I want to recommend this post from Stan.  I laughed while reading it!

Of Cannibals - Montaigne

'Cannibals' is a very interesting essay as it is Montaigne's views on the New World and its inhabitants.  He has gotten his information from a man who lived in 'Anarctic France', a term I had never heard before.  According to Wikipedia, it is an area near Rio de Janeiro where the French tried to resettle some Protestants.  So the cannibals that Montaigne is writing about are various tribes of modern day Brazil. 
I don't know how accurate the stories are.  The misinformation that went to Europe in those days was famous.  But Montaigne is clearly impressed by the innate morality of the tribes.  He is especially taken with their bravery and tells stories of men who would rather suffer death than show fear.
The cannibalism that he speaks of is done after a battle.  The dead are eaten as a way of showing extreme revenge.  He says that this treatment is favorable to the various methods of torture then employed by the supposedly more civilized Europeans. 
Near the end of the essay Montaigne talks about a handful of the natives who were brought back to France.  He makes a prediction:

Three of these people, not foreseeing how dear their knowledge of the corruptions of this part of the world will one day cost their happiness and repose, and that the effect of this commerce will be their ruin...

This is more or less what has happened.  Many native tribes have struggled to find their footing in western ways, even now, hundreds of years later. 

Lycurgus and the Olympics

With the Olympics kicking off tonight, I thought it would be nice to note that one of our subjects had an important hand in the ancient games.  Well, maybe.  According to Plutarch, Lycurgus of Sparta 'contrived the ordinance for the cessation of arms during the solemnity of the Olympic games'.  In other words, he convinced the various city states that the time of the Olympic celebration should be one of peace.  There are also legends that the tradition of holding the Olympic games had stopped and Lycurgus was instrumental in restarting them.
I say maybe because Plutarch goes on to say:

Erastothenes and Apollodorus and other chronologers computing the time by the successions of the Spartan kings, pretend to demonstrate that he was much more ancient than the institution of the Olympic games.

So who really know?  By the way, one of the best things about Plutarch is that he gives voices to dissenting historians.  In any case, as you watch the games, maybe give a little thanks to the ancients that thought up the whole delightful idea in the first place.

Western Philosophy

Interesting chart here dividing western thought into various phases.  Click on the plus sign (+) to open up the trees.  A couple of things:

• My impression has been that the Romans didn't add much to Greek thought.  That their main contribution was to spread Greek thought to a wider audience.  This chart seems to agree with that.
• I'm still not sure where the dividing line between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment is.  In September we read from Locke and Rousseau, so I'll probably try to figure it out then.
• There are three (fairly complicated) branches listed under Modernity.  The Great Books doesn't go deeply into 20th century thought so most of that will be uncovered here.  I've sometimes wondered how modern thought would be summed up to future societies.  From this chart, I'd say it would be kind of messy.