Stolen Time

            I wonder if the squirrels that travel along the power lines can smell whether the wire is live. I see them stop to sniff at certain connectors sometimes before going ahead. 

            I was very upset on Monday morning and even cried while thinking about the fact that my Introduction to British Literature professor would be posting a lecture video today. In my twelve years at U of T there has never been a class on Thanksgiving. That means that any Monday class is normally cancelled on Thanksgiving and it’s always been a day for relaxing and getting caught up. There is inevitably an essay due not long after Thanksgiving and so it is a day when I traditionally spend some time working on my paper. 

            Professor Teramura sent an email telling us that we can always watch the lecture later in the week, but that’s meaningless. The rest of the week is not a holiday and we have lectures and tutorials and essays to write. Taking the day off today and then crowding his lecture in sometime during the week is something I could do if it wasn’t Thanksgiving and it wouldn’t give me a holiday. It takes me more than two hours to listen to and take hand written notes on his lectures and then it takes even more time for me to type my notes. The professor has ruined my holiday and made the rest of my week much more difficult. 

            I cleaned the grungy area around the faucet of my bathroom sink. 

            At around 12:30 Professor Teramura posted the lecture videos. Before watching them I sent him an email containing the arguments I just made here, concluded by telling him that he had ruined my holiday and then closed by wishing him a “Happy Thanksgiving”. 

            I watched the first couple of videos while having lunch. Some of them I had to watch over again. 

            I took a siesta and when I got up I watched the rest. 

            The first video introduces that the lecture would cover the text of the York Crucifixion and Thomas More’s Utopia. The texts are a hundred years apart but during that gap is the dividing line between the Medieval era and the Renaissance. There is commentary on the role of labour and the use of playfulness on serious topics. Also of religion in text and history. 

            Video two returns to Canterbury Tales and its panoramic view of British culture. 

            The pilgrims share the same religion. Many of the pilgrims were employed by the church in various capacities. The Bath wife talked about theology and marriage; the Pardoner used the church for predatory reasons; the Friar was pleasure seeking; the Monk loved to hunt with dogs and horses and also was a clotheshorse. 

            Chaucer was very much against clerical corruption. He respected lay piety over clergy. The best of the pilgrims was not a member of the church. He was the ploughman who loved god and his neighbour. 

            Christianity influenced the populace. What is religion? It is social, cultural and political. In Britain Christianity was about social and professional identity. 

            He recounts the story of Jesus starting with Adam and Eve. Eve is tempted by nature and Adam is tempted by Eve. All humanity stained with original sin until Jesus comes along. Gets death penalty for claiming to be the messiah. His crucifixion redeems mankind and becomes the symbol for the extremity of forgiveness. 

            Elaborately illustrated Books of Hours depicted the story of Jesus. They were for private worship but mostly only the rich had access to them. Outside of these books the people’s equivalent were the depictions in stained glass in cathedrals such as in Canterbury. But there were also the Corpus Christi plays such as the one depicted in the York Crucifixion. 

            In video three we look closer at the York Crucifixion. It’s the first dramatic text we’ve had in the course. It was not meant for theatres or to be performed by professionals. It was not even really a play.

            The Corpus Christi plays were multiple pageants held annually between late May and late June. They were big undertakings put on mostly by the trade guilds which were also known as Mysteries and hence the term “Mystery Plays”. The pageants were divided into short vignettes portioned out to different trade guilds. The story of Noah and the flood for instance was split between the ship builders, the fishermen and the mariners. The tale of the marriage of Cana during which Jesus was said to have turned water to wine was put on by the vintners and the wine merchants. The bakers were in charge of the Last Supper. The pinners presided over the Crucifixion. There were about fifty plays divided up among the guilds. 

            The people would gather at various stations along route and the players would travel on mobile stages called pageant wagons to each station where they would repeat their particular scene. The craft guilds prepared the wagons and recruited the actors. 

            In the Miller’s Tale of Canterbury Tales Absalon is said to have played Herod in the Corpus Christi play about the massacre of the innocents.

            The plays would sometimes alter the Biblical stories for the sake of comedy or drama. In the vignette about Noah’s ark, Noah’s wife has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the ark. 

            The plays served as religious education; they were a social event; a collective effort of civil cooperation; they provided an opportunity for the trade guilds to express their identity and display their success with elaborate wagons. The also served as advertising and a way of showing off the town to tourists. 

            Most of the vignettes were about the Passion of Christ. 

            Video four continues to talk about the Corpus Christi plays. 

            The York Crucifixion explains to the audience how Christ’s pain served to save humanity. Most of the dialogue is not about theology but rather depicts the soldiers doing their assigned job of torturing and killing Jesus. How does one best perform the labour of crucifying someone? They are on a schedule and he must be dead by a certain time. The craft of punishing Jesus involves inflicting maximum pain. There is a work ethic applied to the labour of torture. There is a logic applied to the techniques of punishing crime. 

            All of this presents to the audience the irony of the belief that Jesus also died for the sins of the soldiers. There is also the irony of the soldiers complaining about how much this difficult labour of causing Jesus to suffer is causing them to suffer. The most violent event in Christianity is made slapstick by the scene of the soldiers struggling with the cross. 

            The audience is aligned with the crucifiers. The pinners are in charge of pinning Jesus and their nails become a featured product. In Christ’s speech he wants the soldiers forgiven but urges the people on the street to watch what is happening. After Christ’s final words the soldiers mock them, representing the listeners among the audience who don’t get it. Asking how attentive they are. In St Paul’s letter to the Hebrews he says that if people don’t listen or lapse in their belief they are crucifying Jesus all over again. In another irony a soldier orders another to drive the nail in his hand for Christ’s sake. This invites the audience to see that they are like the soldiers. 

            How does this interaction with suffering work and what is its effect? 

            Video five looks at the 140 year transition from the Medieval era of the York Crucifixion to the Renaissance period in which Utopia was written. 

            Few chronological labels are more contentious than that of the Renaissance. The Middle Ages became derogatory, representing blind faith and illusion, childishness and groupthink while the Renaissance symbolized a great leap to rebirth, reason, maturity, and individuality. The distinctions served the myth of progress. 

            But at the beginning of the 16th Century a new cultural environment arrived because of four factors: Printing, Humanism, Knowledge of America, and the Reformation. 

            The development of the printing press by Gutenberg in the 1430s caused it to spread throughout Europe. In 1476 Kaxton printed the first book in English and it was The Canterbury Tales. Manuscripts that had been privately owned by the wealthy were copied and mass produced. The ownership of books exploded. This was however not a uniform transition because hand made manuscripts were still considered to be important. 

            Humanism came out of the Italian Renaissance led by Dante, Plutarch and Boccaccio. It brought about an enthusiasm for Latin and Greek classics; rhetoric; human dignity; historical self consciousness; and a restoration of the Liberal Arts. Lost texts were tracked down and retrieved. Errors in texts were corrected. In 1491 Greek became part of the curriculum at Oxford and Plato was studied. Classical texts were printed on the continent and imported to England in large quantities. The early 16th Century saw a massive pedagogical reformation in major British schools. Curricula were reshaped around Humanism. Documents attributed to Constantine that gave the Pope political authority over a Rome were found to be forgeries. Precise knowledge of Latin allowed for close reading of texts and exposed fictions. This was a blow to the belief that the ancients knew everything. 

            The hunger for knowledge of America made printed maps a hot item. When Henry VII sent John Cabot to Newfoundland the English were ravenous for news whether it was true or not. 

            Video six talks about how Thomas More’s Utopia exemplifies the English Renaissance. It was the first book written in English by an author who imagined the work would be mass printed. He even took advantage of the rage for maps of that time and included a map of Utopia in the book. It became a best seller. 

            More was aware of how popular his new world would be but was also cognizant of the risks of mass publication and the danger of becoming vulnerable to the ignorant. 

            The character of Raphael is a Renaissance man. He travelled to the new world several times with Amerigo Vespucci. Utopia is responsive and responsible to the news of America. 

            Raphael is a Greek expert and he brings reading material to Utopia and teaches them about printing. The Utopians undergo a revolution. 

            But Utopia is made up. A character in the book named "Thomas More" learns about Utopia from a character named Raphael. It is better to say something that is not true than it is to lie. More says that he will be as truthful as possible and people are fooled into thinking that Utopia is a real place. The text is winking at the reader. The actual location of Utopia is not discussed. 

            “Utopia” in Greek means “No Place”. Raphael’s last name of “Hythloday” means “Nonsense Peddler”. 

            The text makes philosophical and political claims. There are references to Plato’s Republic which also describes a perfect society. The Republic has radical gender equality, no private property and it is ruled by philosophers. In some ways the two societies run parallel but should Utopia be read like the Republic? Raphael argues that private property causes poverty. 

            In Moscow there used to be an obelisk carved with the names of the great Socialist philosophers. At the top was Marx, Engels and Thomas More. In 1918 Utopia was taken seriously by the Communists. 

            What was More’s intention? 

            Thomas More was born the son of a lawyer in London. As a child he would jump onto the stage while watching plays and begin to interact with the characters. Also in childhood he was a servant of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was schooled at Oxford and became a lawyer and politician. He was drawn to religious learning and scholarship in Humanism. He was friends with Erasmus, who revolutionized Christianity with Greek learning. In the service of Henry VIII he went on a diplomatic mission to Bruges, which became the setting for Book One of Utopia in which More makes himself a character in the Antwerp meeting with Raphael.

            More makes Raphael the speaker of the radical viewpoints. The introduction of the book gives a Chaucerian warning that the opinions are not his own. Raphael is critical of the English system in which idle aristocrats cause poverty by persecuting the poor. Justice in England is only a type of show business. The state is in bad shape with an incoherent sense of justice. Raphael wonders why the people do not revolt. Raphael states that it is impossible to council a comfortable king. If kings wanted to learn there is plenty of reading material but they don’t because they are infected with wrong ideas. Kings need to become philosophers. 

            The character of More argues for jumping into the play and adjusting the action in order to advise the king. Don’t abandon the ship of state in a storm just because the wind is out of control. He advises against the imposition of strange notions and encourages the use of indirect covert suggestions. He takes a more patient approach. Is writing Utopia More’s indirect approach? He makes it seem silly in order to convey an intelligent message. 

            There is a relationship between the critique of England and the description of Utopia. Both states are islands. Is an England without private property a possible Utopia? In Utopia everything is uniform. The cities are all the same size, with the same language, customs and laws. Power cannot protect its own interests but there is no privacy. The opportunities for all citizens are maximized and the culture is devoted to happiness through the development of the mind. There is religious tolerance but no gender equality. It is a patriarchal society with slaves that are drawn from criminals, prisoners of war and people that are condemned to die in other countries. Utopia benefits from the injustices of other nations. They also practice forced colonization of neighbouring lands and claim a natural right to violent displacement for land cultivation. From our modern standpoint Utopia is in this regard a distopia. 

            The Utopians believe that people are born to happiness, that the soul is immortal and bound for an eternal reward. When Raphael and his friends told them about Jesus they liked what they heard. Christ approved of the communal way of life that most Christian communities practised. Christianity was adapted to human behaviour. Are Utopians natural Christians free of the dogma of Christianity? Utopians encourage unproductive citizens to do the world a favour and commit suicide. They also allow for divorce which puts them at odds with orthodox Christian thought of the time. There is religious tolerance and Utopians are free to convert to Christianity but anyone that proselytizes is banished. Utopia is an indirect rebuke to Christian readers. 

            Thomas More as a character disagrees with the eradication of property and money because it would eliminate the splendour of nobility's trappings. More is being politically safe. Are the most exquisite forms of art derived from wealth and power? Does art seduce to injustice? 

            Utopia does not end. More and Raphael go for supper with a plan to talk more about Utopia later. The book looks to the future. It is our turn to decide. 

            Video seven looks at grievances. 

            The Pardoner in Canterbury Tales sold Indulgences. The Indulgence market exploded in 1454 with printing. Indulgences were printed with blank spaces so that people could buy then and just fill in their own names. The rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome was being funded by an Indulgence when Martin Luther spoke up to declare that Indulgences undermine penance. His “On the Power of Indulgences" created the most significant cataclysm in the history of the Christian church. 

            Luther used printing to oppose and critique the church. He said that salvation comer from faith alone and not the pope. He pointed out that the Bible says nothing about any such place as Purgatory.

            Luther’s Reformation took Europe by storm. Henry VIII defended the seven sacraments against Luther. 

            In 1526 William Tynsdale completed the first English translation of the Bible. It was feared that it may be biased towards Protestantism and so it was banned. Thomas More was against the Reformation and against Protestant translations of the Bible. He spoke out against devilish heresies. Tyndale answered and More responded. More says that lay people cannot interpret scriptures alone.

            Utopians believe in religious tolerance but as Lord Chancellor of England More had three Protestant heretics executed. 

            But Henry VIII changed his mind. He wanted a male heir and so he asked for a marriage annulment which the Pope refused. Henry started looking for arguments that would allow him to marry Ann Bolyn. In the 1530s Henry broke with Rome and in 1534 he had the Acts of Supremacy passed making the English monarch the head of the Church of England. The same year the Treasons Act was passed making it punishable by death to oppose the king as the head of the church. 

            Thomas More ironically opposed the Reformation at a time when Britain was becoming Protestant. He refused to swear to succession and so he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and executed in 1535. 

            The Reformation was gradual, messy and violent. There was a 16th Century Catholic uprising. The Reformation pushed for a return to scripture and individual spirituality. Spiritual practices that had once dominated society were abolished, such as pilgrimages and revering saints as holy. The shrine to Becket in Canterbury was dismantled, between 1536-41 the monasteries were dissolved and in 1569 the Corpus Christi plays were banned. Libraries were pillaged and books were sold off. Old manuscripts were used for paper and material. In 1644 John Shaw questioned a local man about religious and the man only had a vague idea that Christ was somebody he might have once seen in a Corpus Christi play.

            That’s the end of the lecture but I didn’t actually finish transcribing my notes that night. There were still a few pages left when it was time to make dinner. When I went online to post my blog there was a response to my email from Professor Teramura: 

            “I sympathize with your frustration that the asynchronous nature of the course entails some problems regarding timing. The decision to make lecture videos for this week was a tough call, and I decided to opt for providing week five videos rather than providing double videos for the final week of the course where the “Make up Monday” on Thursday December 10 is usually the replacement class for the lecture time missed on Thanksgiving, since the extra stress of final projects and exams would have made it even more of an inconvenience. Please consider this week’s lecture videos as optional viewing. There is no mini-quiz, and there is no final exam in this course, so you will not be penalized for not viewing them, and I will be informing the TAs to expect that not everyone will have had the time to watch the videos before Wednesday tutorial.” 

            My response was: 

            “Thank you for your response. I can see that it came while I was taking notes on your lecture, which I worked on transcribing until bedtime and finished this morning. If your lecture video was optional viewing you should have made that clear before posting it. There being no mini-quiz is a miniscule compensation since it takes four minutes to complete. The fact remains that you created an unprecedented time deficit for all of your students in this course. It would be appropriate to compensate us for this by offering a surplus somewhere else. I would suggest that you do this by extending the essay deadline.” 

            I grilled two steaks and had the larger one with two small potatoes and gravy while watching an episode of Interpol Calling that was coincidentally entitled “Long Weekend”. 

            In this story Duval is just leaving work to begin a holiday when Inspector Moray stops him and tells him he’s not going anywhere. Duval insists he is, but Moray begins to tell him about merchant seaman named John Talbot who was found washed up on the south coast of England with a mauser bullet in his head. Seven days before Talbot was reported lost overboard from his ship. Duval still doesn’t care and is about to walk out the door when Moray tells him that Talbot went overboard in the Mediterranean. Duval takes off his coat and hat. The consult an oceanographer who tells them that if a body fell in the Mediterranean it would have washed up in the Mediterranean and if it washed up in south England it would have had to have entered the ocean no more than sixteen kilometres from shore. They discover that Talbot was a convicted criminal and the ship he’d been on was a Sapphire, which was suspected of smuggling. Later Duval hears there was a suicide note in Talbot’s pocket and so Duval thinks he can now take his holiday because Duval must have jumped, got picked up by a ship, got off at Dover and shot himself. But on the way out Duval learns that Talbot had been a police informer planted on the Sapphire and so he returns to the case. They find that the only ship that travelled from the Mediterranean to the English channel in the last 24 hours was the North Star. They also find that the North Star crossed paths with the Sapphire in the Mediterranean at the same time Talbot went overboard. Then they are told that when Talbot was found he’d only been dead twelve hours. The next morning Duval learns that Captain Galarre of the Sapphire owns a mauser. Since the Sapphire is being held at Marseilles, Galarre comes to Duval to get the case over with. Duval tells Galarre that he knows the Sapphire transfers its smuggling contraband to the North Star. The North Star also carries frozen meat. Talbot was killed, transferred, frozen and later dumped. Galarre tries to fight his way out of the room but Duval subdues him with some fake looking karate chops. 

            There are sometimes women working at gathering information at Interpol on this show. Until this show none have been credited. Marie was played by French actor Balbina Gutierrez, who was in a few movies but later became a noted painter in England. She was married to William Russell, who starred in The Adventures of Sir Lancelot.