Back to the beginning, in a way

Five years ago this month I arrived in York as an exchange student to spend a term at the University of York as part of my MA degree. I was very excited about this, both because by that time I was already deeply in love with York, but also because the road there had passed through a lengthy and detailed bureaucratic process in which there were enough uncertainties to make me think at some point whether it was all worth the trouble. Fortunately, the two administrative secretaries at the York Centre for Medieval Studies were very capable ladies and guided me through the process successfully.

This year I'm back in York as an exchange student, spending a term at the University of York as part of my PhD thesis. I have been looking forward to this for quite some time, especially since this possibility was partly why I decided to do my PhD at the Centre for Medieval Literature, which is a cooperative enterprise by the University of York and the University of Southern Denmark. I'm excited to be back, and although I've spent most of my time at the work space I've been allotted on campus, I've spent enough time walking about the town to see what has change and to appreciate what is pretty much as it was back when I first came to study.

With this short blogpost I'm going back to the beginning of things, in a way. I started this blog five years ago this month, and when I started my posts were mainly updates of what I was doing and things I had seen on my many wanderings in town or on short trips to various places, such as Whitby, Edinburgh and Durham. My emphasis back then was to share with my friends those things great or small which interested me, fascinated me or which simply were there, like some snowdrops in churchyards. I thought of this blog as a way to share things that were relevant to my time in England, and this is reflected both in the name, in the brief description of the blog and the quotations in the margins which I still have kept. The blog has come a long way since then, and so have I. To some extent, there is still a strong presence of the kind of everyday minutiae which draw my attention from time to time, but my emphasis now is on the academic side of things. Most of my blogposts now are concerned with my work, and I spend more time doing research for the things I post now than I did five years ago, although even back then I had embraced the importance of research.

In the present blogpost I return to the beginning of things since I now allow myself the kind of personal reflection which marked some of my earlier writings, and in a way it feels right to do so five years later. I do this kind of thing less now, in part because I think there are much more interesting things to talk about than myself, but also because I have gained a much wider audience in these five years, an audience which is here predominantly for the academic stuff.

I'm very happy to have this blog as an outlet for my many fascinations and my sundry experiences in research and in life outside it (if such a thing can exist for a medievalist). I try to maintain a balance between academic and accessible, and also between academic and non-academic material, such as poetry, music or nature, and this allows me to tie together elements in my spectrum of interests which lie relatively far apart. All this, of course, hopefully without becoming too careless about the question of audience.

I have changed a great deal in these past five years, and things have changed a great deal for me in many ways, and this blog, too, has undergone some changes although these changes have been primarily additions rather than alterations. It's nice to look back at those five years, thinking of what I've done, what I've achieved, what I have yet to achieve, and of course there are many things I wish I would have known back then which I know now. Many things have changed, but at the core this blog remains a mixture of personal and academic journalism, and although the balance between those two has shifted, I'm happy to think that the blog is only improved, not markedly altered since I first began writing it five years ago.

The Dichotomy of Travel

He looked like one who has undergone a journey,

his face bitten by hunger or by sorrow.

- The Epic of Gilgamesh

(...) that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.

- Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

In general I remain quite skeptical about dichotomies, believing firmly in the intricacy of things, but from time to time I do concede that there are conflicting states found within the same experience that allow for dichotomies to appear. An example of this is to undertake a journey.

When I decided to return to my friends in York and after having arranged a number of important things, I frequently felt in the consequtive days an overwhelming feeling of expectation and joy, the true happiness, to paraphrase Jane Austen, and I was so eager to see my friends again that I ignored the dreadful complexity of my itinerary. It was only later, as the day of departure drew inexorably nearer, that I realised how silly some of my solutions were, and that most of them stemmed from laziness and naïveté on my part. In sum the trip I had lined up on my schedule was far longer than what I was forced to endure on my trip to England back in January. The difference, however, was that this time the duration was not due to mechanical problems but choices of my own, and this made is acceptable as I had time to let the gravity of the prospect sink fully in before I had to embark on the journey itself.

Some people have expressed that to travel is to live, to arrive is to die, emphasising the joy of being on the move, the joy of the suspended consummation. I for my part do not share this sentiment. To me travel is a transition, a limbo of incompletion, a state of suspension in which I achieve nothing beyond moving closer to the goal I seek. This sensation of comatose time came very strongly to me during my hours in Aberdeen since I arrived shortly after six and came to the train station just as things were closing down and the area was left to the night and its passengers. 

  Aberdeen

 The Granite City

 Aberdeen Station

What further enhanced this sensation of transience was the city itself. Aberdeen is one of the most depressing places I've ever passed through and as the bus drove through much of it on the way to the railway station I noticed shut down houses, a school and even a church, all granite grey and surrounded by kindred structures, truly earning the city its nickname: the granite city. I understood very well why most of the advertisements throughout the city revolved around how to get far away. After a two-hour wait or so the train finally departed the station and brought me south across the stretch of mossland called, in a Medieval colloquialism, the Scottish Sea, the area between Clyde and Forth once a natural border between England and Scotland.

The toughest part of the journey was no doubt the five-hour stay in Edinburgh for which I was not prepared beyond knowing that I was not prepared, and immediately upon arrival I started to walk about searching for somewhere to rest a couple of hours. However, despite the very bleak scenario I was actually very happy to see Edinburgh again, especially because the city's Victorian Medievalist architecture becomes all the more impressive and imposing in moonlight, but also because of the familiarity I felt when walking parts the royal mile again, recognising landmarks looming vaguely out of the darkness like something half-formed and ghostly. Fortunately I ended up at the Edinburgh backpacker hostel and was kindly allowed to loiter in their common room for four hours, a much needed rest that even allowed me half an hour sleep as I was assured by the kind lady in the reception that she would wake me at four, which she also did. 

  Edinburgh by night

So far I have pointed out the more miserable aspects of my journey, save the joy of seeing Edinburgh at night, but to keep in tune with the title I must note that despite the travail I was constantly alert to the fact that for each minute I was moving closer to York and the the long-awaited reunion with my friends there. This sensation became all the more pervasive as I finally departed from Edinburgh and was brought south into England.

From there on everything went rather swiftly and after having slept a little I beheld, through blurry eyes refusing to stay open, the sun rise above Northumbria in a bleak spectacle that was hauntingly beautiful. It was relatively unostentatious compared to the sunrises back in Norway, but its ghostly pallour seemed a fitting memento of past crimes and trespasses, in particular William's harrowing of the north. In not long I changed trains in Newcastle and was brought with utmost speed past the wonderful cathedral of Durham and the lovely parish church of Doncaster and into the well-known harbour of York Train Station.

Immediately I felt an immense delectation as I advanced through this well-known terrain, rejoicing in the fact that I had returned, that I had arrived, feeling that pleasure which allows one to forget the travails of travel and that makes all tribulations worthwhile. 

  The familiar Ouse

Epistles from Edinburgh - Defender of the North

Into the Castle of Edinburgh, standing in the midst of that city on the summit of an extraordinary rock, I was cast with several hundred fellow-sufferers, all privates like myself, and the more part of them, by an accident, very ignorant, plain fellows.

-St. Ives, Robert Louis Stevenson

That Castle was the strength of all that state

Vntill that state by strength was pulled downe,

And that same citie, so now ruinate,

Had bene the keye of all that kingdomes crowne

- The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser

After I had said goodbye to my hospitable friends I headed up the summit to have a look inside Edinburgh Castle, also called the Defender of the North. It is an impressive building complex whose stone walls and towers almost seems to emerge from or to have grown into the very rock it rests on. The castle is not, however, majestic, nor does it tower above the city, because it appears too much part of the mountain, but it is nonetheless a site well worth exploring both for its architectural features and its rich and long history. 

And it's cold on the tollgate
With the wagons creeping through

-What it is, Mark Knopfler

This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.

- The Tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare

This way, my lord; the castle's gently render'd:
The tyrant's people on both sides do fight;
The noble thanes do bravely in the war;

The day almost itself professes yours,

And little is to do.

- The Tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare

I had been then some days upon a piece of carving, - no less than the emblem of Scotland, the Lion Rampant.

- St. Ives, Robert Louis Stevenson

During Edward I of England's Scottish campaign, starting in 1296, the castle was besieged and eventually taken over by the English. Robert the Bruce, king of the Scots, managed to reclaim it in 1314 after 30 of his men had made a succesful assault by night, killing the guards and opening the gates to let the rest of the army enter. Robert the Bruce, however, realised he could not afford to keep the garrison properly manned and therefore burned down, according to my guide, almost the entire castle, save the 12th century chapel dedicated to St. Margaret of Scotland. Consequently the castle as it stands today is an eclectic mix of various ages improving what preceding generations had already constructed. The portcullis gate above, for instance, was built in the period 1574-77 following The Long Siege of 1571-73 and replaced the constable tower from earlier times. The top storey is a Victorian addition. 

Guided tours started a quarter past ten, included in the ticket, and people gathered nearby the cannons where stood a kilt-clad Scotsman with a fascination for Blackadder and a typically Scottish name I have now forgotten. As he pointed out this was not only a very fine day but also a very warm day according to Edinburgh standards. Personally I didn't think it was very warm despite the sun, and of course the sky's nice imitation of the Scottish flag, but considering he walked about in a kilt I'm happy he managed to see it that way. 

(...) he had a plan that was so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel.

- Our guide narrates about the assault of 1314

The garrison sleeps in the citadel
With the ghosts and the ancient stones

- What it is, Mark Knopfler

High up on the parapet
A Scottish piper stands alone
And high on the wind
The Highland drums begin to roll
And something from the past just comes
And stares into my soul

- What it is, Mark Knopfler

The first part of the tour was up the French Road, a cobbled, bending stretch of uphill road that can be seen closest to the castle wall in the picture below, and the name stems from the fact that it was made by prisoners taken captive in the Napoleonic Wars. The road was commissioned because the original cobblestones - closest to the camera in the picture below - were too slippery for horses to manage whenever there had been a rainfall, which of course was, and is, a frequent occurrence in Edinburgh. It is this band of prisoners Robert Louis Stevenson writes about in his novel St. Ives.

The more part, as I have said,were peasants, somewhat bettered perhaps by the drill-sergeant, but for all that ungainly, loutish fellows, with no more than a mere barrack-room smartness of address: indeed, you could have seen our army no more discreditably represented than in this Castle of Edinburgh.

- St. Ives, Robert Louis Stevenson

 

The chapel dedicated to St. Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045-1092), an Englishwoman married to king Malcolm III of Scotland.She exacted great piety in her lifetime and was canonised by Pope Innocent IV in 1250. This chapel was raised in the early 12th century by her son David I ( ruled 1124-53). Her husband Malcolm III is the Malcolm featuring in Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Facsimile of St. Margaret's gospel book.

Having a particular fascination for stone figures in architecture I was delighted to see this one. The sensation waned quickly when I had a closer look and discovered that this is a stiff and ugly modern rendition, quite possibly Victorian.

 In this building is an interesting array of tableaux depicting the history of the Scottish crown jewels, leading on to the chamber of the regalia themselves. It is prohibited to take pictures of the regalia, but I didn't think it was probably more than allowed to photograph the sceneries until it was to late. I apologise.

As you can see, the dragons are far more edged and roughly rendered than the smooth Medieval carvings I'm used to.

The War Memorial, containing a list of every Scottish soldier killed in warfare from World War I and onwards.

Make all our trumpets speak: give them all breath,
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.

-The Tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare

The Fore Well, the main water supply of the castle up to the 19th century.

 The dog cemetery.

Mons Meg, a 15th century siege gun crafted in modern-day Belgium. It was given to James II in 1457. It has not been fired since its barrel burst in 1681.

Your burgh of beggeris is ane nest,
To schout thai swentyouris will not rest.
All honest folk they do molest,
Sa piteuslie thai cry and rame.

- To the Merchants of Edinburgh, William Dunbar

 The French Road.

 The One O'Clock Gun. The cannonfire was used as a time signal for sailors on the Port of Leith.

Calton Hill.

Edinburgh and beyond.

Epistles from Edinburgh - Christ among roses

As I mentioned in the previous blogpost, one of my most treasured encounters in the National Gallery was Botticelli's The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child (from about 1490). Botticelli is one of my favourite painters, possibly due to the way his smooth and sinuous brushstrokes enhances the piety of the objects and the way he manages to fasten emotion to matter, rendering it fixed and eternal in contrast to its fleeting nature. It was therefore a great pleasure to unexpectedly come upon this painting while meandering the rooms of the gallery.

Botticelli's art resonates very strongly in me, both as an aesthete but perhaps chiefly as a Christian. The soft postures of his figures, their tender gestures and the mild colours of his compositions are key aspects of his works, and this is partly why I count him among the greatest painters ever to have lived.

The motif of the Virgin and Child is frequently found in Botticelli's works, a fact that is unsurprising if we consider that this was a favourite motif of contemporary patrons, be they noblemen or guildmen. However, the reason of this recurrence is not solely the motif's popularity in contemporary taste, but also due to Botticelli's eminent talent for emotion and composition. The mixture of realist techniques mixed with certain stylised renderings of objects create an almost vague realism where objects are not always rendered the way they are, but always rendered in a manner that conforms to expectation and spawns immediate recognition.

What struck me about this particular painting was first of all its beautiful imagery. Christ sleeping among roses is to me the perfect allegory of His life and passion, the roses adumbrating what will ensue in times to come, an adumbration enhanced by the Virgin's sad posture of parental concern, vaguely presaging what fate awaits the sleeping child. The painting stayed in my mind long after we had left the gallery and I decided to compose a poem. It is not an ekphrasis, since this is a painting that does not invite such an approach, but rather it is a reflection of how I understood the painting and my emotional response.

Image taken from the homepage of the Scottish National Gallery.

Christ among roses

After Botticelli's Virgin adoring the sleeping child

Child, do the rose-thorns sting you

In their quiet adumbration?
Weep, then; weep for this world's woe
For it is yours, child-god, crafter of angels.

Weep, child, and let each rose

Be a looking-glass into futurity

Of blood mingled with tears.

Gold, of the earth, makes crowns for kings,

Puppets of the mundane lord,

But roses, facing Heaven,

Makes a perfect diadem for God.

Hush, child, sleep; sleep among roses,

Sleep where no gold is found, for kings,

Aspiring wealth, seek the earthen jewel, not the rose.

- Edinburgh, March 20-21 2011