Musing on Why Dante Matters

 

Over a cup and saucer of coffee (refilled a few times), I am reading the academic voiced book Why Dante Matters. Truthfully, I already know the answer, for Dante is a great master of delving into the human heart and reaction to love, placed within the cosmic backdrop of the seven heavens of Medieval cosmology, which is absolutely fascinating to me.

You say, "I discern clearly what I hear; but for me darkling still is why God should have chosen this means of our redemption." This decree, brother, lies buried from the eyes of each and ever one of those spirits less than adult in the flame of love."

- Paradiso VII. 55-60

Dante died 700 years ago (1321), and I find him to be more relevant and deeply engaging to the longings in our hearts than most any modern writer trying to sort out the meanings of love and the cosmos. He combines faith and science as they should be, co-mingled as colleagues and friends in the vast depth we study of God to try to understand just an ounce of God's love, which moves everything.

I think I am deeply moved by this concept, thanks to the Medieval aspects and beliefs. Though a geocentric cosmos was later proved to be false, the same ideas can all play out, with all the mystery included about how the plants move in circles around a centre and how they move in time with Love Himself, the Maker and the Intelligence behind it all.

To me, that knowledge and imaginative vision of the heavenly bodies and their organized system that allows us to live here on a planet with the perfect conditions gives me utmost assurance in God being who He says He is. No force could create and sustain a complex system of the cosmos other than a Creator, an intelligent mind. It is pretty darn clear to me, and to a lot of science today. There should be no bifurcation of science and faith - right there present in both is myriad beautiful examples of God.

Dante helps me see this all from his perspective from the 1300's where the world was a different place both in history and science. It is astounding how profound his knowledge of the cosmos and of God is, from his time in Italy (and exile) in the 1300's. That was all more than 700 years ago. Yet today there are still many arguments that try to provoke others to believe that there can be no God and all of this is a complete fluke, an accident, and we have no meaning or purpose.

How could anyone wake up and look at the dawn sky with multi-coloured glowing orbs of light emerging over the sleepy horizon as our planet turns, and not feel the awe and wonder of creation, and attribute that to a higher being/intelligence? Even as we sub-create, it is all pointing still toward the One Creator. We were made to sub-create. God gave us minds to wonder, learn, seek out knowledge, search for clues in the mystery, and aim to create as well. Since we are made in His image, perhaps that is why we have this hidden desire to sub-create and use our imaginations.

"O beloved of the first lover, O divine one," said I then "whose speech so floods and warms me such that I am ever more quickened, my affection for all its depth is scarce sufficient to render you grace for grace..."

- Paradiso IV.118-32

This book was published last year, the 700 year anniversary of Dante's death,  analyzing three major works of Dante, the Vita Nova, Convivio, and Commedia. With extensive quotes from each of these volumes and textual analysis, it is rather a studious text, like being in a Dante course in graduate school. I rather enjoyed the depth, knowing that still much is over my head, but I am always open to being out of my depth, for there is room to grow and learn. I am very eager to read Vita Nova and Convivio now, as those are two works I have not yet read. I think this book left open for me a door that I may now enter into with some better knowledge of what Dante is conveying in his works.

What, then, we need to understand is this, that, for the reason shown above, everything has its own proper love. Just as simple bodies have within them a natural love for their proper place, which is why earth is always drawn to its centre, and just as fire has a natural love for the sphere above us bordering that of the Moon, and so always rises towards it, so the primary compound bodies, the minerals, have a love for the place where they are created, and where they grow and whence they derive vigour and energy; thus we find that  a magnet always acquires its power from the place when it comes.

- Convivio III.iii

Taking Note of Smart Notes

Having a clear structure to work in is completely different from making plans about something.

- Sӧnke Ahrens

I would be remiss not to jot out my notes from this book on taking smart notes that I just finished. This book was not just for students and writers. There are many elements provided in these pages that I can incorporate into all aspects of my life, including work and writing. Do you takes notes? How to you organize? I am always up for learning, so here are my brief notes taken for myself to review again, after I turned the last page.

Keep things as simple as possible. 

Assemble notes and ideas as drafts in notebooks or on napkins (whatever works or is at hand). These are temporary resources for those flash ideas you want to get out onto an external memory bank. Writing is not the main work - reading, thinking, and understanding is. To fully understand, you need to translate what you read into your own words, as you write it out you are forced to think about it and weigh it against what you know already.

Instead of collecting ideas, your aim should be to develop ideas and arguments. Keeping a growth mindset, keen to look at changing for the better, which looks at inward development, rather than looking to receive praise as an outward reward. Know an essential part of learning is the feedback loop.

 Seek out feedback, don't avoid it. And note that multi-tasking drains your ability to shift, and it delays your good focus. At the same time, we need to be flexible in ways that keep us concentrating if something comes along that makes you depart from it.

Let your thoughts linger. Sometimes your brain will work it out in the downtime when it's out of focus. A break will allow you to learn better by letting your brain the chance to process and move information into the long-term memory so there is space for new information.

Read with a pen in hand. If you know me, this is a given. Have a dialogue with the book in the margins. Take notes by hand. There is research that shows how the act of writing out notes by hand actually helps you learn and understand more. Since the hand can't write as fast as your typing, you are forced to think about what you are encountering, and to write the main points. Of course, this takes work, but as it is said, the one who does the work does the learning.

A wise person is one who can make sense of things by drawing from many resources of interpretation. Some tips include:

1. Pay attention to what you want to remember.

2. Properly encode info you want to keep, with cues that can help you remember.

3. Practice recall.

Ultimately, if you want to follow the book, you would start a organizational system with the notes on index cards and writing in your own words to build future projects. 

Index, A Bookish Review of the

 

...the index presents a perfectly sized nook for the deployment of discreet snark.

Index, A History of the
By Dennis Duncan

I finished reading Index, A History of the last night and it was delightful. I always find bookish history interesting but this one added some friendly intrigue to the tales, with some added doses of snark from history. History does have some funny tales to be told. 

I am not sure that indexes are used as much today except by scholars, or thought about in much depth (being that there was no history of the index, Dennis Duncan had to fill that gap and write this book), but it does actually influence us every single day because chances are you Google something most everyday, and what you access when you type in your inquiry into the Google search bar is Google's index. Fascinating that the tech giant of all information out there in the web world uses a system invented in the 1230s. I love that. I love learning how ancient and/or medieval systems or tools are still being used today. That the physical book and its included search engines (the indexes - and yes the plural is indexes, not indices. Indices are for mathematics, and indexes are found at the back of books. You can blame Shakespeare for this usage if you want to argue.) are relevant and still used now, perhaps in varying capacities, but still using the original invention.

The index, I learned, was a place where occasionally in history an editor would insert some objection or snarky comment about the contents of the book, by writing entries for subjects with an added personal commentary attached (such as adding an Index to Tears into a poorly written highly sentimental short novel, whereby listing all the 50-60 times a character would suddenly burst into tears). 

The index works best when created with a human mind, rather than a computer. A subject index is what people would use an index for, such as to look up forgiveness or mercy in relation to finding the story of the Prodigal Son in Scripture. A word for word index (or concordance) that a computer would create would have no connection between the concepts of forgiveness and mercy (words not actually used in the Biblical narrative) and someone would be out of luck in searching for it. But if a human creates a subject index, they would know to include the story of the Prodigal Son under the subjects of forgiveness and mercy in anticipation of someone possibly wanting to look that up where those examples might be.

I loved learning about medieval broken links. As the copied manuscripts ranged in different sized paper and books from their originals, the pagination changed and the index often would point to the wrong page if not updated to correct the references. And how astounding that in this modern day of Kindle and electronic books, we could have a similar issue as the pages can be enlarged/expanded beyond the borders, or fonts could be changed, thereby possibly causing a post modern broken link.

Fiction is usually not indexed (as we all probably know, usually it's non-fiction books that have indexes at the back), except in a few instances - my favourite of which is of course Lewis Carroll. Leave it to him to add whimsy to the humble, mundane index. I can't help but laugh and smile at the logic and fun he provokes in me by creating such index entries as  --

General, Things in, 25

Ideas upon ink, 73

In General, Things, 25

Ink, Ideas upon, 73

Milk, Musings on, 61

Musings on Milk, 61

On Milk Musings, 61

Things in general, 25

There are many more entries in the index, but I just pulled out a few of the favourites. The wit is pure delight. What fun it is to play with words. One huge reason why I love Lewis Carroll so much.

So, get to know your bookish history, friends, and get ready to enjoy every step of that journey.

2021 Bookish Notes

 

Wrapping up the year 2021 means a bit of reflection time. It has been an amazing year of reading this year, and I loved putting together this little listing of some "best of" books just for fun. I didn't even get all the books in the photo. the tower would be much higher. I am very much looking forward to more wonderful reading in 2022!

What books offered fodder for thinking deeply?

The Divine Comedy: Hell, by Dante  

Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius 

The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers  (1899 - 1936) 

Lifting the Veil, by Malcolm Guite 

What books were so good they should be read again?

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë

The Feast, by Margaret Kennedy

What books were fascinating studies of nature?

Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake 

Underland, by Robert McFarlane 

Best books of total escapes into another imagined world?

Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

A Winter's Promise, by Christelle Dabos  

Best book of essays?

A Vertical Art: Oxford Lectures, by Simon Armitage 

 

Best books that made me laugh?

Very Good, Jeeves!, by P.G. Wodehouse 

The Man Who Knew Too Much, by G.K. Chesterton 

Best mystery books?

Peril at End House, by Agatha Christie 

Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy L. Sayers 

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton 

Best epic book (that I would love to re-read)?

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke 

Best theology book?

Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs, by Søren Kierkegaard 

Best poetry books?

David's Crown, by Malcolm Guite

The Owl and the Nightingale, newly translated by Simon Armitage