Summary of Year 2
The Arrival of Great Britain
Our second year of travels began just after the fall of the Roman Empire. The Empire was divided into two parts. The eastern half would endure for another 1,000 years or so, but the western half started breaking apart around 400 AD as barbarian tribes successfully attacked the Roman army. As a result, there was no single government over all of Western Europe, no single organization to protect people from invaders, provide structure and laws, or respond to emergencies like a plague.
But there was one organization that did survive even after the Roman empire fell apart—the church. The Christian Church in the West was a very important institution for people during this time, single-handedly inspiring and patronizing education, art, and music.
Our first insight into the end of antiquity was through the lens of one of Rome’s great critics: St. Augustine of Hippo. His 5th Century masterpiece presented his view of how to live in the City of Man while holding citizenship in the City of God. He defended Christianity against the claim that the fall of the Roman Empire lay at the hands of religious converts from paganism. The victory of these arguments throughout the former Roman Empire can hardly be under estimated. In fact, after Augustine’s death, Christianity became the dominant cultural and religious force in Europe, which covered most of the known world.
The Roman Empire reached as far north and west as Briton, but didn’t rule it for long. It was simply too far away from the beating heart of Rome to receive its nutrients. It was the venerable Bede, a Doctor of the Church in Jarrow, England, who traced the transition from Roman rule with Caesar’s invasion in 55 BC to contemporary English monasticism in the early 8th century AD with his 400-page The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731) in Latin. Along with tracing the missionary movement into Briton by Irish missionaries, he challenged the Palagianist theory that original sin did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without Divine aid. In doing so, he painted Jesus as more than a mere “good example of a moral life.”
As time went on, society in the Middle Ages gradually became more complex. Muhammad founded a new religion called Islam, which presented an alternative to Christianity throughout Europe and beyond. In Western Europe, Charlemagne (742–814) unified the Franks and became the greatest king of the Middle Ages. He prevented Islam from taking over Europe and established schools that fostered an interest in learning. He also established the hierarchy of ruling lords, which became the basis of the feudal system.
During the reign of Charlemagne, there was a time of peace in Europe, but it didn’t last long. His successors fought over how to divide his empire. And then, a new barbarian group came in from the north: Vikings! These fierce warriors came down from what is today Denmark, Sweden, Norway, northern Germany, and Russia. They often traveled in long ships, which they used to fight from rivers. Because the ships were so light, they could also be carried over land. This made defending a European village very difficult.
The Vikings attacked parts of England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Spain, and even Italy. It seemed that no place was safe from their surprise attacks. Because they were so successful during this period, the time from about 800 to 1100 AD is often called the “Viking Age.”
With all their energy spent defending themselves from Viking invaders, most Europeans spent their time just trying to survive. They didn’t have much time for writing stories, creating art, or composing music. This explains why so few Great Books come from this period. But two notable legends of Middle English survive.
Beowulf (1010) carried on the tradition of the adventurous epic poem from ancient times. Set in Scandinavia, Beowulf is one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature. After killing Grendel, who has been attacking the warriors in the great hall of the Danes, and Grendel’s mother with a magic sword, he eventually slays a dragon who mortally wounds him. With this book the epic oral poem tradition becomes a natural echo of Homer and Virgil as we compare and contrast the values of ancient Greece, Rome, and our English ancestors.
This Viking Age ended in 1066 AD when William the Conquerer from Normandy invaded England and established himself as a peaceful king. But this peace did not end the wars in Europe. There was continual fighting among villages and towns as feudal lords struggled with each other to get larger and larger areas of land. One war between France and England lasted over a hundred years and decimated both people groups.
A devastating plague called Black Death struck Europeans during this time, killing a third of the people and prompting the decline of the feudal system. But despite wars and plagues, there were some developments that led to greater prosperity.
Merchants greatly expanded trade during this time, and many ventured to distant lands for business. One of the most famous traders from this period was Marco Polo, who traveled with his father and uncle to China. He returned 24 years later with stories of Kublai Khan’s empire, riches from the East, and ideas about coal, paper money, and printing.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1350) built on Beowulf as a documented source of English religion, values, and mythological imagination. This Middle English romance told how Sir Gawain accepted a challenge from a mysterious warrior to receive a return blow after striking him with an axe, after which the Green Knight picked up his head and vowed to meet Gawain at the Green Chapel after a year and a day. His adversary’s disguise allows a true test of his character. His adventures with a hunter and his wife on the way to meet the Green Knight ultimately reveal the extent of his loyalty and chivalry.
During the late middle ages, peasants moved to towns, in search of a better life. And these towns grew into cities. This meant that merchants could find many customers in a single place. Craftsmen (including artists and musicians) formed professional organizations called guilds to protect and support each other.
The Renaissance (or re-birth) was named for the rediscovery of the ancient cultures of classical Greece and Rome. Greco-Roman ideas about beauty, art, architecture, and music became very influential. But these old ideas were not just repeated in this new time. Instead, they were integrated with new techniques such as perspective in art, and expanded using new inventions, like the printing press. It was an exciting time to be creative. In fact there was so much art created during this time that many people today associate the Renaissance with creativity itself.
One of the greatest cities of the Renaissance was Florence, Italy, the home of Machiavelli, one of the local political figures. The Prince (1513) was Machiavelli’s attempt to show what the ideal political leader would be like. He emphasizes his understanding of history, his pragmatism, and above all, his political skill to stay in power and serve the people, even if it meant a moral compromise here and there. We wondered together if Machiavelli was like any modern day Slick Willies in whose mind the end justifies the means.
But the city-state was no match for the nation-state, which soon grabbed up cities into larger and larger dominions. And none was larger than the empire of Great Britain. Shakespeare (1564–1616), one of English society’s greatest social critics, wrote poetry, comedy, and tragedy that endures and crosses many cultural boundaries. An amazing social critic, his notice seems to know no bounds. In Taming of the Shrew we saw how the battle of the sexes ended in victory for feminine submission and masculine loving leadership (was Shakespeare a complimentarian?). We also juxtaposed Shakespeare’s poetry with the lyric lines of John Donne (1572–1631), preacher and metaphysical poet. Many of his poems are rich and deep enough for daily devotional life today.
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) was the first work in which we fully experienced the effects of the Enlightenment. In this treatise, Descartes starts by boiling off anything that can be doubted and ends up with a powerful, flavorful reduction. Of this he can be sure—he knows he exists…because he thinks. He would go on to build upon this first principle to prove that God exists, that material things exist, and that the mind is distinct from the body. This sauce would come to flavor the main entree of Enlightenment and its most significant contribution to the Great Conversation: rationalism.
Just 25 years later John Bunyan would be in a jail cell writing Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), a spiritual autobiography that gives insight into the man behind the most influential religious book in English, Pilgrim’s Progress (1678).* It follows the then-popular form for conversion autobiographies: life before conversion, during conversion, and after conversion. This work echoes Augustine’s autobiography Confessions in how it so authentically chronicles the struggle against sin, the battle with guilt, and the eventual submission to saving grace.
The urbanization of English society brought with it social stratification. By 1700 it was saturated with social rules of marriage and money and manners. New Testament Pharisees had nothing on the characters in The Way of the World (1700) by Congreve. Here Mirabell must overcome the hatred of Lady Wishfort if he is to marry her niece with fortune intact. Disguise, blackmail, and manipulation all show the extent to which people will stoop to serve their own interests in English aristocracy and beyond.
Among the British, one of the most influential thinkers was Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711–1776). In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) he tells us how we know what we know. He argues that experiences precede ideas, and that we can’t understand what we don’t experience. In a counter-punch to Descartes, he attempts to exalt empiricism over reason as the most reliable means to truth. For Hume, actually tasting an orange is far superior to the idea of tasting it. This empirical epistemology was quite influential among those who created the Enlightenment.
We stayed with Hume for his History of England (1754), a completely different work in which he unpacks the events leading up to the English Civil War (1642–1651), his chief interest. This historical analysis produced many lessons on leadership that still apply. Among them:
- the mistake of adopting a policy you once criticized in your opponent,
- the complexities of mixing religion and politics, and
- the failure of high-stakes leaders who lose touch with constituents and compromise their principles.
Hume was not the only great author to expose the hypocrisy of his fellow man. In School for Scandal (1777) Sheridan takes on the fickle love of some marriages, the lust for money, and the tendency to lie if one can get away with it. In the lives of Joseph and Charles Surface, we learn that noble character can be misjudged, but true character is revealed in the actions taken when no one is looking. Together with Sir Gawain this play yields a view of living where only a double-blind test can prove a moral hypothesis, an idea perhaps borrowed from the empirical science of the Enlightenment itself.
We concluded the year with a scientist, inventor, and statesman—our first American author, Benjamin Franklin (1791). It is fitting that after spending so much time in England, we end the year with the birth of her greatest bastard child, the United States. In Franklin’s life, we see how many of the religious, political, and philosophical conflicts of the English Enlightenment were imported to the colonies. Heavily weighted on his early years, the autobiography recounts his career path as a printer, his attempt to master the 13 virtues, and his later successes with such American icons as Poor Richard’s Almanac, the Franklin Stove, and the first public library. This work contrasts sharply with that of John Bunyan in that Franklin portrays a self-made man whose accomplishments are attributable to his discipline, ingenuity, and clever pursuit of the truth.
Year 3 Begins
What lies before us is in many ways the opposite of the previous year. Instead of few books in many years, we will encounter many books covering just 100 years. We start with poetry of John Keats. Then we pick up the first of four novels (a book club first), with Pride and Prejudice (1797) by Jane Austen, one of the most beloved Victorian realists. America’s great critic Alexis de Tocqueville focuses our lens as we watch America grow from a fledgling collection of disconnected colonies into a united and powerful force on the world stage in Democracy in America (1835 and 1840). After discussing Charlotte Brontë’s view of morality as portrayed in Jane Eyre (1847), we’ll relax at Walden Pond with Henry David Thoreau (Walden, 1854) and stroll through Leaves of Grass (1855) with his fellow American transcendentalist Walt Whitman.
These poems will undoubtedly contrast with those of William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), from Ireland, whose symbolic realism serves as a prelude to the epic War and Peace (1869), by Tolstoy, our first writer in hundreds of years from the East. This will give insight into the Napoleonic invasion of Russia, the impact of this era on Tsarist society as seen through the lives of five Russian aristocratic families. His realism is a foreshadowing of 20th century writers. But we won’t get to them until discussing The Idea of a University (1852 and 1899) by Newman, in which we learn about the history of academia and the effect of removing Christianity from colonial higher learning.
This theoretical work is followed by the more domestic A Doll’s House (1879), a drama in which Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen combines naturalism and feminism with a dash of romanticism to challenge traditional gender roles in marriage. And we end the spring with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) where Mark Twain will welcome us (and our racism) to summer like the antebellum South welcomes a raft coming down the Mississippi River. A comfortable, gentle ride until we go spilling our stereotypes into the Gulf of Mexico.
For the last two years we’ve called this book club our entry into the Great Conversation, a dialogue begun by the singer-poets and writers whose catalytic contribution is chiseled into the pages of time. The value is in the books. The conversation is our attempt to unlock that value, to realize it. And in that realization we hope to get another vantage point for gazing into the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. May He guide our reading, our thinking, and our discussing in this next year of Great Books Club. Soli Deo gloria.
* “For two hundred years or more no other English book was so generally known and read.” James Baldwin in his foreword, James Baldwin, John Bunyan’s Dream Story.