The end of the blog

I'll be leaving things in place as a repository of links, not just for myself but particularly for people searching for the phrases "By God Sir, I've lost my leg", "opening scene of Gladiator" and "Baby Jesus at the breast". But I have no intention of adding new posts (and will be systematically paring back a lot of what is here). Wishing any readers a fruitful advent, a merry Christmas, and a prosperous New Year!
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Rising like a phoenix

Might not be the fate of this blog (although one can hope), but is certainly the fate of the rest of us, as the first patristic document, Clement of Rome's Letter to the Christians of Corinth, explains.
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not a blog post

Just to keep this link handy for a while.
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Silver, gold and stonework

Through different friends on Facebook I've been made aware of recent discoveries of Viking silver and Anglo-Saxon gold. Beautiful stuff.

Less in the news, but of interest here, is that Outlandish Knight has provided a link to his photographs of early Norman churches, fonts, and corbels.
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conversio ut orator

The past few weeks the impetus of the blog seems to have failed for one reason or another. One such reason (not a large one, it must be said) is the fun and distraction of teaching a course on the historical and cultural context of English literature, 600-1660. Last week's class was about Bede (and "The Ruin", Caedmon's Hymn, and "The Dream of the Rood"); a lot for just two hours of class time.

Tomorrow's class is on just one work: Beowulf. I'm very excited to be able (at last!) to teach about Beowulf. Perhaps more excited than will be good for the class. If anybody's interested, I'll be sure to let you know how it went.

But tonight is the Vespers of the Feast of St Jerome, translator of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. He defended his translation method as "translating not like an interpreter but like an orator": making an attempt to convey the beauty of the original, rather than (woodenly) its meaning. As this is the blog of a historian and translator, the occasion can hardly be allowed to pass uncelebrated. So today's collect:

O God, Who for the expounding of the Holy Scriptures didst raise up in Thy Church the great and holy Doctor Jerome; we beseech Thee, grant that by his intercession and merits we may, by Thy help, be enabled to practice what he taught us both by word and by work.

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Our Lady of Sorrows

Or should that be "Sorrows of Our Lady"?

In any case, to continue the last post's theme of ravishing Vespers:


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Exaltation of the Cross

Yesterday evening I spent making Latin flashcards, including "REX / regis (m.) king". And to help the morphology sink in, a dose of Vespers for today:


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Journalism

A conversation in the comments of another blog brought up some remarks that the Archbishop of Westminster made about social networking sites (Facebook and so forth), as reported in the Telegraph. Reading it is hilarious.

I should perhaps say that I wrote my doctorate about newspapers, so when I'm reading a newspaper report my foremost thought is not "What happened?" (or "What was said?"), but "What does the journalist think happened?" (or "Did he even understand what was said?").

It's unavoidable that some simplification should be found in a newspaper report (that is pretty much what journalists exist to do: pot things), but even so it's remarkable here how the Archbishop's own words are an awful lot more nuanced than those that the journalist "fills in" without using quotation marks. It begins with the headline.

Headline: "Facebook and MySpace can lead children to commit suicide"
Actual quotation near bottom of article: "Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships."

Journalist: "The archbishop blamed social network sites for leaving children with impoverished friendships."
Actual words of Archbishop: "Facebook and MySpace might contribute towards communities, but I'm wary about it. It's not rounded communication so it won't build a rounded community," he said. "If we mean by community a genuine growing together and a mutual sharing in an interest that is of some significance then it needs more than Facebook."

It is worth reminding young people (and not-so-young people, and - need I add? - ourselves) that a Facebook "friend" and an online "community" are not at all the same thing as a friend or a community. That handy tools for keeping in touch with people at a distance shouldn't distract us from getting in touch with people in the same street as us, or the same house. Strange that it's a point that a Telegraph journalist can't grasp without sensationalising.
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