And then the demons attacked...

One said: "You're wasting your time. It is going to take too long to work through this text. It is foolhardy to embark on a translation when somebody else might be doing it."

Another said: "Whatever you do with this text, it will not be relevant enough. It is certainly not worth spending so much time on. You are not asking a big question, just doing a study of a single text that nobody read(s). Studying this work is not like an analysis of Chaucer. The text is not a part of our larger culture, just an oddity or example."

Another said: "Somebody else could do it better. Saiani already has, it’s just in Italian. You probably can't even do it, your Latin isn't good enough to deal with John's technical vocabulary, never mind his poetry."

The first one said: "You will never finish. There's no way you are going to make any headway on this project working only two hours a day every other day. Somebody else is certain to finish this before you do."

And so the battle begins.

Comments

  1. Ray GirvanFebruary 15, 2011 at 8:03 AM

    That's all horribly familiar. I'm maybe two-thirds though a biography of Maxwell Gray, and I'm regularly despondent about the schedule (having to fit it in between paying work) - and I'm also regularly panicking that someone else is working on it (someone with better research facilities and/or luck who's been able to find some vast cache of the so-far-very-thin primary material).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fencing BearFebruary 15, 2011 at 9:49 AM

    Courage! I don't understand entirely why these demons attack, but I do know that they're liars. It is interesting how strong they are still, as if they just keep getting stronger the more one writes. I used to have a sign up in my office by my desk that said something to the effect of "The demons are only as strong as they are because you are."

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my blog post. I look forward to hearing what you think!

F.B.

Popular posts from this blog

Draco Layer Four: The Anagogic or Mystical Sense

Image
Here be dragons. And doves. Human beings long for transcendence. Such longing is, for the world, always out of fashion because, of course, it is not a longing for the world, and the world knows it. We know what the world wants. The world—by which we mean Satan, the Lord of the World—wants above all our obedience, a jewel so precious that he will do anything to get it: lie, steal, murder, bear false witness, pretend to social standing, pretend to insider knowledge to get us to consent to his influence.  “God lied to you. You will not die.” And suddenly we are anxious about having other people dislike us, about losing prestige in our social circles, about other people being more popular or influential or successful, about other people having secret knowledge, about our own influence and fame. “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And with that temptation, our first parents fell. The irony is cosmic. There they were in the Garden, privy to conversation with God face-to-face, and
Keep reading

Talking Points: Three Cheers for White Men

Image
1. When white women (see Marie de France and Eleanor of Aquitaine) invented chivalry and courtly love , white men agreed that it was better for knights to spend their time protecting women rather than raping them, and even agreed to write songs for them rather than expecting them to want to have sex with them without being forced. 2. When white men who were celibate (see the canon lawyers and theologians of the twelfth century and thereafter) argued that marriage was a sacrament valid only if both the man and the woman consented , white men exerted themselves to become good husbands rather than expecting women to live as their slaves. 3. When white women (see Christine de Pizan, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the suffragettes) invented feminism , white men supported them (see John Stuart Mill) and even went so far as to vote (because only men could vote at the time) to let them vote, not to mention hiring them as workers and supporting their education. And before you start telling me a
Keep reading

Draco Layer Three: The Moral or Tropological Sense

Image
Learn to discern. We all know what sin is, right? Right?!  Once upon a time in the desert , the hermit Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399) set out to make a list of the most deadly ones, albeit he called them “deadly thoughts,” not “sins.” You probably know the list, even if you don’t think you do: gluttony, impurity (a.k.a. lust), avarice (a.k.a. greed), sadness (a.k.a. feeling sorry for oneself), anger or wrath, acedia  or sloth, vainglory, and pride (two different things).  Not quite the list you were expecting? That is because some centuries later—we’re talking ancient times here, when centuries passed like decades do now (or vice versa)—Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) revised the list, somewhat accidentally, in his commentary on Job.  Gregory had been expounding Job according to its multiple layers—yes, that’s right! Job, like Shrek, has layers! —and he happened somewhere in book XXXI to mention the “seven principle vices” to which Pride,  the “Queen of Sins” gives rise: Vainglory, Envy,
Keep reading

How to Signal You Are Not a White Supremacist

Image
Professor Kim READ FIRST:  Why Dorothy Kim Hates Me , The Color of the House of the Lord It’s back to class for those of us who teach in medieval studies, and my medievalist colleague Dorothy Kim , Assistant Professor of English at Vassar College ( pictured in 2014 ), wants to make sure you understand the stakes . The medieval western European Christian past is being weaponized by white supremacist/white nationalist/KKK/nazi extremist groups who also frequently happen to be college students.  That does sound bad. But, wait, it gets worse! Don’t think western European medieval studies is exceptional.... ISIS/ISIL also weaponizes the idea of the pure medieval Islamic past in their recruiting rhetoric for young male Muslims. If the medieval past (globally) is being weaponized for the aims of extreme, violent supremacist groups, what are you doing, medievalists, in your classrooms? Because you are the authorities teaching medieval subjects in the classroom, you are, in fact, ide
Keep reading

The Lord's Prayer, Thanks Be to Dogs

I've never really liked the Lord's Prayer very much. It seems, I don't know, so spare, not really a prayer at all. Not like the collects that we read in church, nothing like Anselm of Canterbury's far more moving and affective prayers. Prayer should be more meditative, right? Not just a blank asking for bread and forgiveness. And yet, I know that to learn to pray, I need to learn the Lord's Prayer. It is the prayer that Our Lord taught us, after all. There must be something in it. My scholarly inclination at the moment is to start looking for commentaries. Maybe Luther's, but that's in my office on campus and I'm at home now. There's the Catechism of the Catholic Church right behind me on the cabinet that I'm using here at home as my "desk", purportedly for keeping handy the things that I most want or need to read next (like that book I'm supposed to review, you know). But then I still wouldn't be thinking about what
Keep reading