The Amy Winehouse exam

I mentioned in passing last week that Cambridge Classics students had been honing their language skills by translating Milan Kundera and Barack Obama into Latin and Greek

It didn’t create quite the surge of interest that the Cambridge English practical critical question has -- asking students to comparing Walter Ralegh and Amy Winehouse. Bob Dylan and Billie Holiday were in the question too, but no-one got so steamed up about them. Perhaps the “Dylan is the greatest poet since Shakespeare” campaign, by the eminent Christopher Ricks has made him fair game for an exam.

But it is all part of the same phenomenon – which pace the Daily Mail is nothing to do with dumbing down.

When you teach a load of very bright students at Cambridge, one thing you want them to do is to be able to make connections, to think – cliché coming up, folks –‘ out of the box’. That can sometimes mean encouraging them to use the critical rigour they have learned reading Tacitus, Shakespeare or whatever, in thinking about analogous, but unexpected phenomena of the here and now.

One of the most successful courses I ever ran was over fifteen years ago now. It was for third year classicists and historians in Cambridge, and was called “The Roman emperor: construction and deconstruction of an image”. This was about the time of the protracted break up of the marriage of  Charles and Diana, enlivened for the world by the Squidgy- and Camilla-gate-tapes. Remember?

The students read the tabloids, and the transcripts of the tapes, and the various biographies as they emerged. In at least one of the exams (the course ran for 3 years), a section of the paper was a gobbet test on part of the Camilla-gate tapes (all very carefully labelled “An extract from the alleged conversation between HRH The Prince of Wales and Mrs Andrew Parker-Bowles…”)

No-one from the Daily Mail complained (or noticed, I imagine). But some of the more staid members of the History Faculty were a bit dubious about getting their brightest and best to read Andrew Morton’s biography of Di, let alone having a pirated phone conversation reprinted in the exam paper.. The staid Classicists were more broad-minded I should say.

But the result was explosive. . .and enlightening.

There turned out to be all kinds of trade-offs in thinking about the tittle-tattle of ancient and modern monarchies. Why, we asked, was there such general interest in the eating (or non-eating) habits of the monarchs and royals? To what extent is that cross-cultural .. to what extent a narrowly particular western tradition? Could thinking harder about our own obsessions throw light on antiquity, or not?

Then again, what counts as the words of the monarch, and how do we judge them? If we eavesdrop on a king/emperor, do we expect him to sound like us – or different. What are conventions of royal speeh? When (the alleged) “Charles” used the word “calumny” almost next to the word ‘Tampax” (the only man in the history of the world ever to do so I imagine) what did that tell us about the rhetoric of autocrats? How did Tacitus decide to invent the speech of emperors?

And, more the point, could we explain how and why the internal goings on of a royal court actually mattered.

It wasn’t dumbing down. There were no good marks for those who just squealed about the Charles and Di. This was a course about putting together the ancient and modern. You needed to know your Tacitus and your Suetonius and your Scriptores Historiae Augustae backwards – and then to ask if there was any useful connection between them and the representation of the Windsors. One possible answer was “no”.

As for that question in the English Tripos. It looks like a tough one to me:

"The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'lyric' as 'Of or pertaining to the lyre; adapted to the lyre, meant to be sung'. It also quotes Ruskin's maxim 'lyric poetry is the expression by the poet of his own feelings'.
Compare poem (a) on the separate sheet [a lyric by Sir Walter Ralegh, written 1592] with one or two of the song-lyrics (b)-(d) with reference to these diverse senses of 'lyric'."

“b-d”  were lyrics by Winehouse (“Love is a Losing Game”), by Billie Holiday (“Fine and Mellow”) and Bob Dylan (“Boots of Spanish Leather”).

If anyone can imagine that this was a dumbed down question, they should think again.. Marks were not going to be given here for ranting on about AW and her troubles. This was about “lyric”, Ruskin, Ralegh... and whichever modern star you chose. The kind of question that weak students know to avoid.

And if anyone thinks that Ms Winehouse is the most disreputable of the lot, they should go and take a closer look at the life of Sir Walter.

Comments

[SW Foska]

N14 your lordship, not N22!
(and if that's not relevant I don't know what is...)

[Lord Truth]

WARNING! COMMENT ENTERING BEARDSPACE .RELEVANT SECURITY CHECK OPERATONAL.ACCEPT REJECT.-PENDING:

I do hope others follow this comment,the thought that I might remain standing alone and naked at the top of this blog column with Beard striding around in lederhosen and bullwhip is distinctly unnerving..

Since most (except Eileen)seem to have decided to swim around in a kind of religious soup ignoring my clear statement that all religions and altruistic feelings etc simply stem from the increasing expansion of those physical parts of the brain that are connected with awareness of the tribe and the protection and increase of the tribe and that if you throw out its religious products ,it will still produce moral laws enforced by the tribe for its survival and increase-you should at least get your definitions right-even in a few lines of blogging
Someone talks of Judeo-Chritianity as both being connected with altuistic feelings.
In fact as Mr Francis admits,without God he has no feelings of altruism at all.
(This is startlingly Rabbinical!)How then did he become an undoubtedly valuable medical doctor? And here we are looking at a crucial aspect of Jewishness that totally separates it from Christianity
Mr Francis followed the essential Jewish precept that everyman should justify themselves to God by maximising their potential in any way possible.
This may -indeed has -produced great Jewish advances in medicine and elsewhere but is totally different from the Christian concept that we should all love(help) each other to the maximum NOT for ourselves alone-and irrespective of the consequences.
The Christian and the Jew trying to be doctors may seem to be going down the same path ,but one is acting for themselves -and God-if believers-the other is acting for humanity-and God.The good Muslim doctor is also acting to the maximum of his skill yet always accepting the ultimate overwhelming power of God.This is again different to the Christian who is ready to actually fight God/death with the complex weapons his multi-layered religion provides
Incidentaly (relevance coming up)this basic Jewish philosophy is responsible for Ms Winehouses success.There are ,I'm sure many girls in N 22 with similar abilities. Ms W has simplíy maximised her potential.It is why Jews are important members of society-they have pushed themselves upwards with a greater force than the Christian This is why they attract jealousy and anger,as, however beneficial the result of their success is to society ,it is always of much greater benefit to the individual Jew who has produced it.
They produce an unsettling sense of being worthy yet not committed.

How would Julius C have acted in Iraq?Like the Nazis-decimation and total terror -probably reducing its population by half.But even this would be considered altruistic as once pacified its people would be able to enjoy the benefits of being part of the Roman empire.Quite similar to US policy.
Its interesting that Mr Francis, an obviously highly intelligent ,successful and knowledgeable man can produce arguments that are simplistic and naive.Is this because of Jewish ideology that has never historically been regarded with great respect?

[Xjy]

Surely the third basic rule of rhetoric is not to let anyone else decide your arguments for you, or the way you choose to order them??

[klimt]

It is possible to be a 'drug-riddled' artist and have much of interest to say... After all, someone has to look over the edge while everyone else looks after their mortgages.

In our post-Christian modern Britain, it is certainly possible to be a rip-roaring gay and sincerely Pagan *and* still adhere to Christ's values (which are not one and the same as the prejudices invented out of them by Christianity's' more foaming-lipped bigots.)

The relevance drift in this quite heated thread was massive. Perhaps, Mary, it has an aptness of sorts, after all, when love fails and you want to hang on to the one you love, even the utterly irrelevant might have a certain pertinence were it to serve that porpoise!

[Michael Bulley]

Relevance. Relevance. OK.

futtilem Amata Taberna hodie reclamat amorem.
Gualterus autem optat non cecidisse caput.

(Tr. Amy Winehouse cries out today against the pointlessness of love. Walter's choice, though, is for his head not to have fallen off.)

[Richard]

Well, since Mary has posted a second relevance warning, I'm exercising huge effort to withhold my next point of disagreement with Tony F. Now you'll never know.
Only one way out: a new topic.
R

[Mary]

come on guys..relevance...!! (and yes, it's a transferable skill Mr Foska)

[Eileen]

Tony, I agree with you that civil law should conform to natural moral law, but I see no reason to make Aquinas' version of “natural law” the lynchpin of everything… in other words, god has got nothing to do with it. I’ll go with Lord Truth on this one, that it is a basic biological impulse that propels human altruism

[Michael Bulley]

Wow! Are there many people who might help others if there is a God, but not if there isn't? I hope not. It reminds me of a ferryman who plied his trade in the little boats, holding up to six people, that go between the Greek island of Poros and the mainland. Late one night, I and some friends thought we were stuck on the island and wouldn't be able to get back to our hotel on the mainland, but then one of the ferrymen saw our plight and offered to work overtime. Halfway across, we thanked him for being so kind as to make this exceptional trip for us, but he replied that he was doing it so that God would look more kindly on him. All at once, an act I thought had sprung from kindness became despicable to me.

[Tony Francis]

Daar Lucy: my statement about Christianity was made in terms of Europe. Christianity has been the major force which has shaped European thought for 2000 years. It is a legitimate question to ask: now that Europe is atheist, why does it seek to pursue the broad social goals of Christianity?
Concerning dearest Foska: You are correct that many groups can develop a moral standard. In Catholic theology, it is said that all humans are created in God's image, therefore are good. The early Church fathers stated that all humans seek to do good, because they have natural moral law imprinted in their souls. The problem is not seeking to do good, but rather the definition of good. We could debate that forever. But why do atheist societies want to be ersatz Christians?
We could ask: How would J. Caesar, or any other pre-Christian Roman general have fought in Vietnam or in Iraq?

[PL]

Tony-- Didn't that eminent Judaeo-Christian, St Paul, say something about pagans doing the right thing because they have "the "law written in their hearts"? See Romans 2:14f.

[Lucy]

Dear Tony:

I think maybe what we're trying to suggest is that your claim that 'It is only Christianity (or more correctly, Judeo-Christianity) which tells us we should care about other unfortunates, and try to do something about it.' is deeply suspect, not to say plain wrong. Your personal knowledge of various Jews, Christians, Muslims or atheists, extensive though it may be, can hardly prove such a generalisation.

I'm surprised that you think that being 'imbued' with Christianity makes someone a bad atheist: surely a familiarity with the context in which you believe (or disbelieve) will only make you more understanding of your own preconceptions and the way in which you structure your own thought? It is surely (and I am not saying this just to try and evade a charge of irrelevancy) exactly the same sort of comparative understanding that is promoted by including Amy W. in Prac. Crit, or Camillagate in discussions of Roman image-making?

[PL]

I'm glad our blog-mistress has, for once, given a mild but firm tug on the reins. Something needed to be called to order-- but was it really our excessive divagation? I suspect it was really the excessive raunchiness in the preceding post.

[Tony Francis]

Dear Eileen: No reason to be offended. Every practicing Muslim I have known would ascribe to Aquinas' direction that all civil law should conform to natural moral law. As for Judaism, I am familiar with that. My mother's family came from the Hebrew section of Philadelphia.
Dear Michael Bulley: I have considered your direction. Unfortunately, in the absence of any God, I can't see any logical reason to live for anyone but myself. Helping others will be limited only to helping myself. Caring for others at any personal expense to myself is the worst kind of vain-glorius activity. After all, as Amy Winehouse has informed us: "Love is a losing game."

[SW Foska]

"Irrelevance will be punished"??? Well, at least that means our scripts are actually going to be marked, I've been waiting two years for that. Pull your finger out Mary! We'd also like to find out about appeal procedures, and what transferable and employment skills we are learning.
As for moral codes, every group has them. It's easy but quite false to imagine (as Tony does) that Christianity was the sole source of moral coercion and authority in the traditional West; or that the modern ecumene cannot derive any moral authority from anywhere else. I'm sorry he believes that, as otherwise he wrote some interesting things here.

[Michael Bulley]

No, Tony: I didn't ask you to consider giving my order the force of law. That would have made it an order to everyone, but it was not: it was an order only to you, and I am sure you are capable, without referring to the precepts of any religion, of deciding whether you should carry it out.

[Lord Truth]

Humans are monkeys who live in tribes and make things (though I must qualify that by saying I'm sure granny and Audrey are sitting in the garden of The Old Rectory happily enjoying the sunshine of a permanent twenties summers day)
Looking at a group of Chimps in a large cage there is a a situation almost identical to any British council estate on a saturday night.The youngsters are teasing the old man who tries to clout them but is too fat to run after them.
The older ones are permanently on the prowl for sex that results in frequent scuffles and injury.
There is clearly something in the monkey brain that defines them as a group but it is limited.If monkey baby falls in the river there is nothing they can do but stand on the bank waving their arms and making lots of noise
Give them a bigger capacity brain however and they will be able to swim out to save baby and they will naturally develope rules to express their brain centered tribal solidarity and reinforce it
From this original biological fact all religions -and all altruism has developed.
Mr Francis is trying to say Your moral beliefs come from a belief in god and if you are an atheist you have no moral structure to live by.
That is wrong since religions are only part of the development of brain functions hard wired in the tribal brain of the human monkey.
In fact it is probably true that it actually requires considerable continuous effort to keep brotherly love and altruism down. In Roman times slaves were continually being humiliated just as blacks were always stupid couldnt drive cars etc,and servants in England were continuously talked about disparagingly as sniffing adenoidal cretins etc.
The human race needs to find new ways to tap into this built in tribal brain function and release the magic of human togetherness expressed so brilliantly in Sassoons WW1 poem:

'Suddenly every one burst out singing
And I was filled with such delight as prisoned birds must find in freedom
winging over white orchards and dark green fields ,on on,and out of sight.
Suddenly every voice was lifted and beauty came like the setting sun..
Oh ,the song is ended,
The singing will never be done....

[PL]

I had thought irrelevance was exactly what was relevant on this topic?

[Tony Francis]

Dear Michael Bulley: I shall countenance your order to care for others. I will give it all the force of law and moral authority it deserves. The problem with all of you is: you are too imbued with Christianity to make very good atheists.

[Eileen]

I'd be extremely offended, Tony...
charity towards the less fortunate is one of the 5 pillars of Islam; and in Judaism there is the concept of tzedakah which my even my non-jewish son learned when he was 4 years old.

[Mary]

Hi everyone...I have been v tolerant on all this. But to quote the old cambridge exam rubric:

irrelevance will be penalised

[Michael Bulley]

I like to render incorrect what Tony Francis wrote on May 31 at 15:14. He said it was only Judeo-Christianity that told him to care about unfortunate people. I am now telling him to.

[Lord Truth]

Just a thought -since we are now going off message into other realms so to speak...
If its accepted ,legal ,respectable and indeed fashionable for men to marry men surely it should be equally possible for a man -or woman to marry their dog/bitch.
Surely its unfair for a man who has had a wonderful loving relationship with his/her dog including ecstatic sex, not to have their love officially recognised?
If this seems a little -er -unpleasant I would refer you to a favoutite author of mine the beautiful upper class golden boy of the thirties Christofer Isherwood whose diaries -containing details of his lengthy love for Don Bachardi(?) are detailed in his American diaries
'Last night was wonderful' he writes
'Don f----- me and I f----- Don.
It was such a good f--- that I let the shit dry on my cock and didnt wash it off till morning .'
Happy days.....

[Tony Francis]

Dear Lucy: I you were a Muslim, you would be offended. Quite.

Dear Richard: What is the objection to incest if the partners agree to abort any products of conception? None, I would think. It was said by Marcia Colish that Christianity was a religion without need of a philosophical basis, but was given one by the Stoics and the Neo-Platonists. Anyway, why mess around with stem cells? Just grow babies for their organs. What difference does it make? We abort 1.6 million a year in the US, for purposes of birth control. No one really keeps count, because no one really wants to know. All those fine organs are just flushed down the drain. If there is no soul there, and it isn't human, and it isn't protected by law, then it is nothing but squemishmess that keeps us from doing it, not logic. If we are going to be atheists, let's be athiests, and quit hanging on to medieval notions.
Concerning infanticide: no government ever attempted to interfere with this practice until Christianity came along. So if people want to kill their kids, what business is it of yours? What business is it of the state? If we are going to be atheists, let's be athiests and quite hanging on to primitive notions of Christian morality.

[Richard]

... and if the idea of congruence of civil laws with moral laws is traceable from Aquinas to Isidorus to the Stoics to the Persians, it cannot be that such congruence is dependent on Christianity. Nor is there anything necessarily (or even distinctively) Christian about prohibitions against incest...

All best,
R