A timely coincidence

5th May 1821: On this day, the publication in Manchester of the first edition of The Manchester Guardian and, on Saint Helena, the death of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Today The Guardian celebrates its 200 year anniversary – no mean feat when one considers the fragile nature of media enterprises, not just in our own time, but the struggles for survival of newspapers and periodicals from their very beginnings.

The Manchester Guardian No. 1, May 5, 1821.

The Manchester Guardian (as it was called until 1959) was founded by John Edward Taylor in the aftermath of the closure of the Manchester Observer. This more radical publication had been charged with sedition for their role in agitating for parliamentary reform and promotion of meetings on St. Peter’s Field in Manchester, that culminated in a mass gathering on 16th August 1819 during which the cavalry charged into the crowd of thousands of mostly ordinary folk protesting against economic hardship and demanding the rights of greater suffrage and representation.

A coloured print of the Peterloo Massacre published by Richard Carlile

The massacre would become known as Peterloo, a portmanteau created from the location, St. Peter’s Field, and the Battle of Waterloo that had taken place four years earlier. That battle, which marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars, was also the beginning of trade restrictions and the infamous Corn Laws in Britain that benefitted the gentry and land owners but, by raising the price of food staples, brought hardship to the working classes. Some in attendance in Manchester that day would very well have been there on those Belgian fields and participated in one of Britains greatest military victories. Just is that not.

That on the very same day as the publication of the first edition of The Manchester Guardian, that same French emperor who had been defeated at Waterloo should die (and with his boots on) on a remote island in the middle of the South Atlantic, could hardly have been expected to be reported upon – long as it was before even rudimentary undersea telegraph cable – but the coincidence would surely have later been noticed and remarked upon. [And indeed it was, following a July 14 (just had to be didn’t it!) report from Paris, on July 28, and here it is from the The Guardian archives]

Napoleon on Saint Helena, watercolor by Franz Josef Sandmann, c. 1820

And so it is, two hundred years after his death, Napoleon’s shadow still looms large in the annals of history; he continues to fascinate, for better or worse, and France still struggles to come to terms with a legacy full of contradictions. And The Guardian is still around to tell us about it.

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A classic black out

An op-ed piece …oh! excuse me – a “guest essay”… in today’s NYT alerted me to the demise of the classics department at the renowned Howard University. Two senior academics from the university defend the decision to scrap the department against criticism from without and within; the crux of their argument falling along financial grounds but also with the assurance of Howard’s continued commitment to the humanistic tradition through other departments – English, philosophy and history – and interdisciplinary paths. And, pointedly, that a H.B.C.U. does not have the luxury of NOT having to constantly review their academic programs and their viability (read: Endowment!) This, a jab in direction of what they believe to be unreflected criticism from elite sectors and the “ivory tower”.

Founders Library, Howard University.

As Howard is the only H.B.C.U. to have a classics department, its pending loss is more than unfortunate; my flitting around (digitally speaking) in the last year or so led me to believe there to be a growing interest and presence amongst minorities and women. I recall thinking that the success of some of the books being published and movies being made, suggested a renewed attraction amongst young people to mythologies and the ancient world and the stories they had to tell, and how they may be interpreted for the contemporary world. (I guess, if not zealous college recruitment, then the spectre of student loan repayments might in the end convince that computer science or bio-tech subjects are more prudent options!) On the other hand, after four years of Trump and more than a year of Covid, it is clear that the humanities have suffered the most in attracting funding, and at Howard it may be classics that loses out but elsewhere I dare say some other program.

Related, I think, are the rising tensions and the potential for conflict in classics institutes and in academic scholarship; a lot of which has to do with politics (hijacking by the right), gender (feminist or non-gendered renderings) and race.

On the latter, this is a particularly enlightening piece by Rachel Poser in The New York Times Magazine earlier this year; ostensibly about the young Princeton academic, Dan-el Padilla Peralta, and his experience as a Black student and scholar in classics. (In this respect, his opinion on the Howard decision and the future of university classics departments in general would not be uninteresting.) But Poser’s piece, beyond the personal Padilla narrative, explores the place of classics at the foundation of Western Civilisation, and what that means for the institutionalisation of ideas of race and the supremacy of Western thought in universities. Padilla says that means inherent racism and a myopic world view. I hope that is not true. Regrettably, Howard could have had an interesting role to play in a process of renewal – in making the Classics fit not just for this century but also the next.

Woolf and Music

Following on from a previous post, and beyond The Waves, some (probably many!) others have been thinking and writing about the role played by music in Virginia Woolf’s work. And creating their own musical response.

In 2015, one of the guests on the Radio 3 program celebrating The Waves, the pianist Lana Bode, founded a collaborative concert project, Virginia Woolf & Music, with Dr Emma Sutton  from the University of St Andrews. A project that happily appears to continue. Video clips and notes from previous concerts are available on the website; for instance, embedded below a 2016 concert at the Clothworkers’ Centenary Hall at the University of Leeds.

In this post at The Conversation, the aforesaid Emma Sutton gives an interesting, plainly written appraisal of classical music being an essential element in both Woolf’s creative thought processes and the literary form of her composition. Such a worthy read, and The Conversation being so fair, that I have republished Sutton’s piece to a page on my site.

Words never fail

Sadly, many things failed Virginia Woolf, but what very rarely did, were words.

Reminded by hearing Gillian Anderson’s recitation of Virginia Woolf’s suicide note, and remembering that from Juliet Stevenson, I want to record here the only surviving recording of Woolf’s voice. Recorded on this day in 1937 for a BBC program entitled “Words Fail Me”, listening to the surviving segment through all the noise and crackle of years gone by, one can still discern the so-admired and oft commented upon sonorous quality of her voice.

Virginia Woolf, segment from Words Fail Me, BBC, April 29, 1937

The radio essay was adapted to the written form as “Craftsmanship”; collected by Leonard in the posthumous volume The Death of the Moth and other Essays (1942). There, I notice that her essay is dated as 20th April, 1937, so perhaps she wrote it up cleanly the week before, or her dating (or Leonard’s) went awry. One can presume the BBC is correct.

This and other anomalies surrounding this and other recordings and transcripts are written about here by S.N. Clarke from the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain.

Riding the Waves

Much has been said and written about Virginia Woolf’s 1931 novel The Waves, and as the 90th anniversary of its publication approaches, BBC Radio 3 featured on Sunday (& perhaps only available for a limited time) a programme focusing on the musical, lyrical attributes of this, perhaps her moodiest, most experimental work.

To begin with, I was intrigued by Woolf’s novel having been the inspiration behind Steve Harley’s “Riding the Waves” from 1978. That was a long time ago, and listening to it now there is a familiarity; whether because of a recognisable turn of phrase or the rhythms of Cockney Rebel I am not sure – a definite Woolf connection I remember absolutely not.

Riding the Waves, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel

As Harley readily admits, he takes the words out of Woolf’s mouth, or rather from the pages of her novel, but it is a warm tribute to a long dead female writer who quite obviously touched the soul of a young vagabond minstrel in the wayward 70s.

Different is Max Richter’s composition XVI. The Waves: Tuesday (from Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works, Deutsche Grammophon, 2015) that brought to an end Wayne McGregor’s 2015 ballet “Woolf Works” for The Royal Ballet. A beautiful contemporary piece that fuses elements from the classical with electronic acoustics to capture the essence of the novel – and Virginia Woolf’s life. Listen well; imagine the ebb and flow of tides, the waters lapping and seeping through sand and upon rocks, clouds scuttling across the sky above. Just like the characters in her novel as they traverse time, waves are forever in motion – rising and falling, drawing near and receding into the distance. Becoming but a memory of their former self … only to reassemble and reemerge again. A haunting reminder of time past and the promise of rebirth. Richter’s musical meditation re-imagines the rhythm of nature and life.

XVI. The Waves: Tuesday

And the prologue? Tuesday. Written in her famous hand on the upper right hand corner of that final note; known to touch even the most hardened amongst us. Beautifully spoken by Gillian Anderson, perhaps capturing the sonorous quality of Woolf’s voice that also has its place in legend.

Alice again

To Alice Neel’s retrospective at The Met I must return, and with another startling video that the museum has pulled from their vaults. Made by two young women in 1978 (a recent interview of sorts with the film makers is at the bottom of the page and should not be missed); it is only twenty minutes long, and is a wonderful insight not only into the working life of an artist – in general and of this remarkable painter in particular – but also of a woman with a particular way of seeing and reproducing that insight in her paintings, and without prejudice. To appropriate Neel’s own opinion of herself: A rare “collector of souls” she is indeed!

Alice Neel: They Are Their Own Gifts (1978) – Margaret Murphy & Lucille Rhodes

The Book Review (2) – The Podcast

As The Book Review looks back over a 125 year history, an accompanying podcast does so of its own modest 15 years, and with fifteen favourites. The Review editor and podcast host, Pamela Paul, admits the difficulty in culling down her selection to an acceptable level, and provides some brief and succinct notes of recommendation.

For me; some that are mentioned were caught in a timely way and some missed, some naturally interest more than others; but certainly there is something to be learnt from all. Given that, as I write, I am in the midst of Caste and fairly recently read The Warmth of Other Suns, I especially appreciate Isabel Wilkerson speaking in 2018 on her own work and Michelle Obama’s memoir and the Great Migration – one of those missed, and which is now very relevant to some of my reading projects.

More from the Met

In celebration of the 151st anniversary of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a delightful Google Doodle to wake up to this morning!

Google Doodle April 13, 2021, 151st Anniversary of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And here is a direct link to an overview of the art objects featured.

Self-portrait, Samuel J. Brown, Jr., ca. 1941 (Open Access)

One of these that I would particularly like to mention is the above self portrait by Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr. , a Black artist that The Met states to have “gained international acclaim”, which may very well be so, but I do wonder why that doesn’t run to having a Wikipedia entry, and biographical information elsewhere in the internet seems to be scant – there is this 1982 speech at Howard by an admirer and this at the University of Kentucky library and obituary pieces in the Philadelphia Inquirer archive that I can’t access. I should say, my interest was sparked by Brown being of the same generation as Alice Neel (see previous post), both having received their art education in Philadelphia and both involved in the Public Works of Art Project and WPA, and it seems to me at approximately the same time. The possibility of paths crossing always interest me. [Postscript May 2, 2021: Have I read about Black under-representation in Wikipedia? The J. Clay Smith, Jr. who wrote the above mentioned Howard speech on Brown warranted this Washington Post obituary, for obvious reasons, and is also absent from Wiki! ]

During these times dominated by the corona pandemic and all the restrictions that implies, I have been wondering about the viewing possibilities in the greater worlds’ museums and galleries, so it is heartening to know that The Met’s doors are at least ajar, allowing for limited access. And irrespective, for those (very many) of us who probably wouldn’t be able to get there anyway, the online offerings at least allow us a glimpse behind even closed doors – and to dream on!