Les Misérables, Part One, Book One, Chapter IV

On 1 January, I started re-reading Les Misérables but in a different edition from what I've read before; this is a different translation (by Julie Rose) and unabridged.  I recently read Chapter IV of Book One, Part One (getting through the introduction took some time), and I realized that some of Monsieur Myriel's behavior has Biblical precedent.

The narrator explains:

A tragic event occurred in Digne.  A man had been condemned to death for murder.  It was some poor unfortunate who was not quite literate, but not completely illiterate; he had been a tumbler working the fairs as well as a public letter-writer.  The trial was the talk of the town.  The day before the date set for the condemned man's execution, the prison chaplain got sick.  A priest was needed to attend the prisoner in his last moments, so they went for the local curé.  Apparently this curé refused, saying, "That's not my problem.  Not my job.  Besides, I don't want anything to do with that circus monkey.  I'm sick, too.  And anyway, it's not my place." 

When the bishop [Monsieur Myriel] was told of this response he said, "The reverend father is right.  It's not his place, it's mine." 

And with that, he sped off to the jail, rushed to the cell of the "circus monkey," called him by his name, took his hand and talked to him.

Monsieur Myriel's "call[ing] him by his name" is a significant detail.  The primary purpose may be simply to illustrate the contrast between Monsieur Myriel and the curé (one is compassionate where the other is rudely dismissive), but there's also an echo of the Good Shepherd discourse from John 10, specifically part of verse 3:  the shepherd "calls his own sheep by name."  Myriel cares for the man in the same way that the Good Shepherd cares for his sheep.

That Myriel goes to visit the man in prison at all is also an example of the behavior that Jesus commends in Matthew 25, where He describes the final judgement and says, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world... [for] I was in prison and you came to me."

Later in the chapter, the narrator explains that "Widowed or orphaned families didn't have to ask, he [Myriel] came of his own accord."  Here again, Myriel follows examples from the Bible.  In the Old Testament, the widowed and orphaned are often mentioned as those who need to be cared for.  Psalm 146:9 says that the LORD "upholds the widow and the fatherless."  In the New Testament, James writes that "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this:  to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (James 1:27).  This is exactly what Monsieur Myriel does.

The Canterbury Tales: The Pardoner's Tale

I've been re-reading The Canterbury Tales lately, but this is the first time I've read this specific edition.  Last year, I found The Norton Critical Edition of The Canterbury Tales at a Half Price Books in Kansas.  I recently re-read The Pardoner's Tale, and I was puzzled by these lines:

I yow assoile [absolve], by myn heigh power -

Yow that wol offre - as clene and eek as cleer

As ye were born.

What the Pardoner is describing is not actually a sufficient absolution.  Because of original sin, everyone has an inherited guilt even when he's born.  (Psalm 51:5:  "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.")  No one is born "clene and... cleer."

Earlier in the tale, the Pardoner explains that his main motivation is money:  "For myn entente is nat but for to winne, / And nothing for correccioun of sinne."  He's not genuine in his position, and therefore it seems doubtful that his absolutions would carry any benefit, so he may mean exactly what he says:  he will "absolve" you, but you will still be as filthy and sin-stained as before.  He uses "clene and... cleer" ironically.

There's also the simple possibility that he doesn't understand these religious matters properly and he fully believes both that his all-consuming avarice can sit well alongside his occupation and that the absolution he offers will indeed cleanse the penitent.

---&---

In his prologue, the Pardoner says that his theme is "Radix malorum est Cupiditas."  In The Norton Critical Edition, there's a footnote for this that reads, "Avarice (the love of money) is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10)."  This is not entirely accurate.

The Pardoner's Tale and 1 Timothy 6:10 both have genitive plurals ("malorum"); it's "of evils."  The Norton also pulls in "all" from 1 Timothy 6:10 ("radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas" in the Vulgate, ῥίζα γὰρ πάντων τῶν κακῶν ἐστιν ἡ φιλαργυρία in the Greek) without making it clear that this is not present in what the Pardoner says.  "Radix malorum est Cupiditas" is simply "Avarice is a root of evils," not "Avarice is a root of all evils."

The Lord of the Rings

I've been re-reading The Lord of the Rings.  Near the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, the elves in Lothlórien give lembas to the members of the fellowship, and this lembas is mentioned again near the beginning of The Two Towers (which I'm reading now).  In one of his letters (#213 in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien edited by Humphrey Carpenter), Tolkien writes (apparently approvingly) that a reader "saw in waybread (lembas) = viaticum and the reference to its feeding the will (vol. III, p. 213) and being more potent when fasting, a derivation from the Eucharist."  I don't disagree with this, but I think 1 Kings 19 provides a closer analogue, at least in a more prosaic sense.

4 But he [Elijah] himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree.  And he asked that he might die, saying, 'It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.'  5 And he lay down and slept under a broom tree.  And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, 'Arise and eat.'  6 And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.  And he ate and drank and lay down again.  7 And the angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, 'Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.'  8 And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

Like the cake God gives to Elijah, lembas sustains travellers.  When the elves give it to the fellowship, they say, "One [cake] will keep a traveller on his feet for a day of long labour, even if he be one of the tall Men of Minas Tirith" (Book II, Chapter VIII).  This is borne out at the beginning of The Two Towers where "Often in their hearts they [Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli] thanked the Lady of Lórien for the gift of lembas for they could eat of it and find new strength even as they ran" (Book III, Chapter II).  When they meet Éomer, he's surprised at the great distance they've covered in such short time.  Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are able to sustain this pace because of the lembas in the same way that Elijah "went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights."

Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice #6 The Uncertain Path

I recently started re-reading the Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice series.  I read this a handful of times as a kid, but I haven't read it since at least 2002 or 2003, and it's interesting to see what I remember.

Last month, I re-read the sixth book of the series, The Uncertain Path, written by Jude Watson, and I noticed a number of interesting elements.

This post contains spoilers.

The series follows Obi-Wan Kenobi when he first becomes a Jedi apprentice.  At the end of the previous book, however, he decided to leave the Jedi to join the cause of the Young, a group of children on the planet Melida/Daan.  For centuries, the planet has been in civil war between two tribes (the Melida and the Daan), but in recent years, some of the children have abandoned the older generations' causes and sought refuge underground.  At the end of the previous book and for the first few chapters of this book, the members of the Young are fighting their own campaign to take the planet back from both warring tribes.

At the end of the previous book, Obi-Wan became close friends with Cerasi and Nield, the leaders of the Young.  The first chapter of this book details a mission they go on in order to disable the starfighters that the Elders have acquired.  Before they head out, they exchange words that are part of "a ritual they'd developed through the many battles over the past weeks":

"All we need is timing and luck," Cerasi said.

Obi-Wan grinned.  "Who, us?  We don't need luck."

"Everybody needs luck," Nield shot back.

"Not us."

In chapter 5, Obi-Wan and Cerasi again exchange these words, but the formatting is such that it's ambiguous who speaks what words:

"Good luck."

"We don't need luck.

"Everybody needs luck."

"Not us."

This ambiguity illustrates the depth of the relationships that Obi-Wan has formed.  He has become so much like the other members of the Young that at this moment his dialogue is indistinguishable from theirs.

The Young end up winning the war against the Elders of the Melida and of the Daan, but soon rifts begin to appear in the new system of government.  Nield, who has been elected governor, is adamant about destroying the Halls of Evidence that both tribes have.  These buildings house the remains and hologram messages of the dead.  Nield's view is that the Young must destroy these buildings in order to stop the hate that each tribe encourages toward the other.  Others oppose him, albeit for varying reasons.  Wehutti, the leader of the Melida, doesn't want the memories of his ancestors to be destroyed, and some of the Young feel that rebuilding the war-torn city should take precedence over destroying the memorials.

In chapter 9, there's a showdown between the Elders, who are trying to protect the Halls, and Nield's squad, which has started to destroy them.  Obi-Wan and Cerasi arrive and try to persuade Nield that other problems in the city also require his attention and that the destruction of the Halls can wait.  After Cerasi urges Nield to compromise, "he shook his head violently."  I think the adverb here is significant.  It illustrates a nascent change in Nield.  Before this, he was striving for peace, but from this point on, he is bent on destroying the Halls of Evidence and anyone who would stand in his way.  After Cerasi is killed during a protest concerning the Halls, Nield's view is even more extreme.  In chapter 14, he says, "I won't rest until every filthy Elder is dead.  I will avenge her or die!" and Obi-Wan notes that "Nield sounded like a hologram in the Halls that he detested."  That one adverb - "violently" - foreshadows this change.

For most of the book, the chapters alternate between storylines:  the odd-numbered chapters are about Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the even-numbered chapters are about Qui-Gon Jinn, who is investigating thefts and an intruder at the Jedi Temple.  This alternating pattern is broken at chapter 14, however, and I think there are two reasons for this.  At the end of chapter 13, Cerasi is killed in a protest over the destruction of the Halls of Evidence, and this break in the consistency of the alternating storylines mirrors the disrupting effect that Cerasi's death has on Obi-Wan.  Additionally, Cerasi's death starts a series of events that eventually brings Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon back together.  Nield blames Obi-Wan for Cerasi's death, claiming that as a Jedi, he ought to have been able to protect her.  Nield brands Obi-Wan as an outsider to those on Melida/Daan and strips away Obi-Wan's command and the Young's loyalty to him.  (This is illustrated even on the book cover, which shows Obi-Wan and Nield facing opposite directions.)  With no one left to turn to, Obi-Wan finally contacts the Jedi, and at the end of chapter 16, Qui-Gon arrives on Melida/Daan to help Obi-Wan sort through what happened.  Their storylines merge, and from this point on, the chapters are about both of them.

Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

A couple months ago, I happened to think of Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud."  I re-read it and noticed a couple small features, but I forgot to write about them until recently.

"Vales and hills" in the line "That floats on high o'er vales and hills" is a merism, a rhetorical device that gives a sense of a range by naming opposite ends.

At the beginning of the third stanza ("The waves beside them danced; but they / Out-did the sparkling waves in glee"), the clause "but they out-did the sparkling waves in glee" extends past the "boundaries" of a single line, so the daffodils' uncontainable exuberance is illustrated even in the poem's structure.

Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H. section 16

Lately, I've been (slowly) reading the essays in the back of my Norton Critical Edition of Tennyson's Poetry.  The one I'm slogging through now quotes nearly all of section 16 of In Memoriam A.H.H., and I realized a small thing about it.

Here's the whole section:

What words are these have fallen from me?
   Can calm despair and wild unrest
   Be tenants of a single breast,
Or Sorrow such a changeling be?

Or doth she only seem to take
   The touch of change in calm or storm,
   But knows no more of transient form
In her deep self, than some dead lake

That holds the shadow of a lark
   Hung in the shadow of a heaven?
   Or has the shock, so harshly given,
Confused me like the unhappy bark

That strikes by night a craggy shelf,
   And staggers blindly ere she sink?
   And stunn'd me from my power to think
And all my knowledge of myself;

And made me that delirious man
   Whose fancy fuses old and new,
   And flashes into false and true,
And mingles all without a plan?

It's particularly clear in the punctuation that there's something of a shift in the middle of this section.  "Or has the shock, so harshly given, / Confused me like the unhappy bark // That strikes by night a craggy shelf, / And staggers blindly ere she sink?" are four lines that are linkt as far as meaning (they form a single sentence), but the line break between the stanzas separates them into two halves.  This aspect of the structure illustrates the confusion that the narrator feels after his "shock."

The Song of Roland

My reading has been progressing at a glacial pace lately (hence the lack of any updates here), but a couple weeks ago I finished reading The Song of Roland for the first time.  I found two Biblical allusions that my edition failed to note, although it comes extremely close to citing one of them.

In laisse 179, Charlemagne prays "to make the sun stand still for him in heaven, / hold back the night, let the day linger on" (lines 2450-2451).  My edition has a footnote here referring the reader to a book that talks about "the story of Joshua as the model for this episode," yet it fails to identify "the model for this episode."  It's Joshua 10:12-13:  "At that time Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, 'Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.'  And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies."  In the Bible and in the poem, the sun stands still so that an army can continue its battle.

The other Biblical reference I found is in laisse 203.  The day after the battle for which the sun stood still, the French army prepares to return to Rencesvals.  "Then they mount up and ride with all their strength / on these long ways and on these great wide roads" (lines 2851-2852).  That first line bears some resemblance to Isaiah 40:31:  "They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."  These are English translations, but both have "mount up," although one refers to mounting a horse and the other seems to refer to flying.  Both also refer to strength.  Isaiah says that "they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength," and this is exactly what the French army does.  Despite the exhausting battle the previous day (after which the army didn't even set a watch when they went to sleep), they can now "ride with all their strength" because of their faith in God.

Anne Bradstreet's "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666"

In The Heath Anthology of American Literature I'm still reading selections from Anne Bradstreet's work.  Last week, I read "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666," and I was surprised that the anthology didn't provide footnotes for the Biblical references Bradstreet put in the poem.  While I don't really have anything very literary to write about the poem itself, I thought I could at least catalogue her Biblical references.

Bradstreet's "I blest His name that gave and took" (line 14) echoes Job's "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21).  Despite their losses, both Job and Bradstreet bless God.

"Adieu, Adieu, all's vanity" (line 36) is a quote from Ecclesiastes.  "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities!  All is vanity" (Ecclesiastes 1:2).  The next verse in Ecclesiastes reflects on the transience of life:  "What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?"  From this, Bradstreet shifts her focus to Heaven, which she calls "an house on high erect, / Framed by that mighty Architect" (lines 43-44).  She asks herself, "And did thy wealth on earth abide? / Didst fix thy hope on mold'ring dust?" (lines 37-38)  Her self-examination seems to be spurred by Matthew 6:19-21:  "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  Along with the similarity in these views, there's some resemblance between Bradstreet's "mold'ring dust" and the Biblical "moth and rust destroy" (initial M and D, and the -ust of dust and rust).  At the end of the poem, she expresses the same view presented in Matthew: "The world no longer let me love, / My hope and treasure lies above" (lines 53-54).

Anne Bradstreet's "In Reference to Her Children, 23 June 1659"

As part of my Anthology Odyssey project, I've been reading some Anne Bradstreet poems in The Heath Anthology of American Literature.  I recently read and noticed something about "In Reference to Her Children, 23 June 1659."

In the poem, Bradstreet portrays herself as a mother bird worried about her young.  She writes:

If birds could weep, then would my tears
Let others know what are my fears
Lest this my brood some harm should catch,
And be surpris'd for want of watch,
Whilst pecking corn, and void of care
They fall un'wares in fowler's snare (lines 41-46)

This anthology includes a footnote for "fowler," explaining only that "fowler is a term for bird-catcher."  When I saw the superscript number that indicated a footnote, a mere definition of the term was not what I expected to find because I think this specific image in Bradstreet's metaphor is a Biblical allusion.

I've been reading the Bible since July 2014 (and plan to continue to cycle through it, just re-starting when I've finished), and earlier this year, I found this same image of the fowler's snare twice in the Psalms:  "For he [God] will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.  He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler" (Psalm 91:3-4) and "Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth!  We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped!" (Psalm 124: 6-7).  The bird imagery in Psalm 91's "he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge" is also echoed in Bradstreet's "Long did I keep you soft and warm, / And with my wings kept off all harm" (lines 57-58).

Some of the other Bradstreet poems in this anthology, like "Contemplations" and "The Flesh and the Spirit" have very obvious Biblical references that evidence Bradstreet's familiarity with the Bible so it seems very likely that she would also have been familiar with the fowler image in the Psalms and used it in "In Reference to Her Children."

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Enoch Arden"

This post contains spoilers.

Last week I finished reading Tennyson's "Enoch Arden."  I noticed an extremely small thing about a line in this part:

But Enoch yearn'd to see her [Annie's] face again:
"If I might look on her sweet face again,
And know that she is happy."  So the thought
Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth,
At evening when the dull November day
Was growing duller twilight, to the hill.  (lines 713-718)

What I noticed is the alliteration in line 716:  "Haunted and harass'd him."  The alliteration between the two verbs further emphasizes their meaning.  The beginning H is present in both just like the thought that haunts and harasses Enoch is constantly before him.

But that H sound is also present in "him."  The haunting and harassing thought has infected him, and this thought gives Enoch life.  When he does see Annie (who's now married to Philip) and his children, their happiness moves him to keep his distance.  He thinks that his return will be "a blast of doom" that "would shatter all the happiness of the hearth" (lines 765, 766).  He prays to God, "Help me not to break in upon her peace" (line 783).  He works for himself, "Yet since he did but labor for himself, / Work without hope, there was not life in it [and]... a languor came / Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually / Weakening the man, till he could do no more" (lines 815-816, 819-821).  The thought of seeing Annie again keeps him alive throughout his years at sea and his being shipwrecked, but once he resolves himself against seeing her so that he can preserve her happiness, he has nothing left to live for and slowly fades into death.

All of this is illustrated in the infecting alliteration in those few words:  "the thought / Haunted and harass'd him."