*For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction

So very much has been written about George Gordon, Lord Byron, and most of it in our modern age is nothing to do with his poetry. Women (usually it is women but maybe some men do it too) go on about how attractive he was, after all his reputation with the ladies was legendary. I could relay fact after fact on here, all copied from various sources, relating to his affairs, culminating of course in the rumours surrounding his affair with his half-sister Augusta Leigh.

It was because of these rumours that Byron suddenly found himself shunned in 'polite' society. He decided to go abroad and I could again cut and paste lots of info here, all interesting and fascinating stuff, but I'm not going to - I leave that to others. I want to talk about his poetry.

Now lots of people give an inward groan when they think of poetry. They read the words on the page and fail to see why some people find it wondrous. But these words are not just meant to be read silently as if they were a book; they are written to be read aloud, as people did in previous centuries and as some of us do still. Don't forget that at the time that poetry was at its greatest (in my opinion it has to be the Romantics),there were not the amusements we have today. A new volume of poetry by a great writer was as exciting as a new Harry Potter book today, - okay, some of you can shoot me down about that - but you get my point.

Byron was a master at writing words that sound marvellous when read aloud. He broke every known rule of rhyme, rhythm and pacing and his style is unique.

The stanza below is from his masterpiece Childe Harold and it is about the night before one of the major battles at Waterloo.; Wellington and his officers were at a ball, not expecting to see any action.

Don't just read it to yourself - say it aloud and with emphasis - it's wonderful:

Did ye not hear it?--No; 'twas but the wind,

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;

On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet

To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet--

But hark!--that heavy sound breaks in once more,

As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! Arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar!



I must look most odd these days because so much of the time this past month I've sat there, my poetry book in my hand, reading aloud but I never realised poetry could make me so happy - not just any poetry however - most modern poetry doesn't affect my mood. For me the best is undoubtedly Byron - and not because of his aura or image.

*the title is of course from Byron

Your starter for ten

How many of us when watching University Challenge (non Brits - it's a quiz knock-out show for university students) and hearing a question about famous German* philosophers or writers know that the answer is going to be either Wittgenstein, Kant or Goethe? Do any of us know anything about these people? Do most of us even care? ...

I've been learning quite a lot about Goethe over the last week or so and what I have learnt is making Lord Byron wobble a bit upon the pedestal on which I have placed him. Okay, Lord B (or George Gordon, to use his proper name) was dashing and exciting but Goethe had so much going for him it is no wonder that his name has a real aura of intellectual superiority around it.

Here is my Goethe for Dummies

In Weimar he was:

• president of the war commission
• director of roads and services
• a theatre director (his stagings for Mozart's operas are still used today)
  
• the discoverer 0f the intermaxillary bone in the human jaw (os intermaxillare)
• a writer of published papers in the field of optics, geology, archaelogy, engineering and economics.
  
• a collector of 18,000 stones at the institute of mineralogy
• a collector of art, numbering 26,500 works in his possession
• a botanist
• involved with Montgolfier's attempts at balloon flight
• involved with construction of the Panama Canal
• fluent in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, English, French, Spanish and Italian
• the writer of one of the most marvellous pieces I have ever read - namely, Faust.

There are many things that made this man totally incredible, not just for his time but forever. It is not historical hyperbole that I am reading here - I have a book of primary texts about him, written by those in the know at the time.

George Gordon, you've got Johann Wolfgang Goethe trying to displace you in my affections.

*Okay, I know Weimar was technically not part of Germany at the time - which was actually made up of around 400 separate states. It's nothing to do with present-day Germany.

Out of their heads most of the time

I very seldom quote directly from my OU course books because I want to make this blog my stuff but I couldn't help being a bit struck by this

....it made me laugh and tingle in every toe and finger tip. Davy has actually invented a new pleasure for which language has no name...I am going for more this evening; it makes one so strong and happy! And without any after-debility, but, instead of it, increased strength of mind and body

That was in a letter written by the Romantic poet Robert Southey and he was describing the effects of nitrous oxide, a substance we know better as laughing gas.

Yes, it was Humphrey Davy who developed this gas - it had already been identified and wrongly classed as being poisonous. By a series of having a right old time experiments, in which he inhaled various quantities of the gas of different degrees of purity until he could be sure it was safe, he was able to increase the well-being of people. Well, actually, not so much the well-being - it just gave them something to take that made them feel good and it was perfectly legal. There were nitrous oxide parties everywhere, most notably in the Lake District with all those Romantic poets absolutely out of their heads and writing poetry that didn't make much sense.

What a great time to have been alive.

the picture above is nothing to do with chemical experiments - it's my Valentine bouquet which was delivered earlier - two dozen red roses - a much better way to become euphoric.

If at first, no wait, I mean 412th.

How many times would you attempt something to make sure it was perfect, as perfect as you really wanted it to be? Three times, perhaps four? I wouldn't try anything more than twice before giving up and either throwing it down the sink/ drain/in the bin/ out the window.Yet Josiah Wedgwood had 411 attempts, yes, it's so many I'm going to say it twice, 411 attempts at doing a glaze to produce his first batch of cream earthenware. It was on the 412th go he was able to record 'A good white glaze at last'. He was very scientific in his approach, itemising every single attempt into a notebook, outlining how many parts lead to flint to calcined copper to manganese.

The man was a trail-blazer, a pioneer in the art of ceramics and a particular hero of mine. I spent yesterday finding out quite a bit about him and the other members of the Lunar Society (so-called because they met on the Monday when the moon would be at its fullest). Belonging to this club were some really interesting people.

This OU science module is quite a mix of things really. In between the interesting bits about Wedgewood and his contemporaries, I've viewed (on an OU cd-rom) various chemistry experiments that took place during the Enlightenment-Romantic transition. I watched how a pneumatic trough worked; I followed a recreation of Lavoisier's oxygen experiment; I found out about the Voltaic pile and battery with its frictional electricity; I studied the synthesis of water according to Davy (yes, the lad of the lamp); then I went on to the principle of electrolysis developed by Anthony Carlisle in 1800; followed that with learning about the isolation of new elements and to top it all off, found out how Davy's afore-mentioned safety lamp actually worked.

Can I remember any of this today - don't be silly.

OU marked paper number three

Well who would have thought it? Remember the last OU essay that I sent in; the one on William Wilberforce and his form of Evangelicalism that he called 'real Christianity'. As you can probably guess from the image alongside, the tutor marked it at 81%. So that's 81%, 82% and 81% for the first three submissions.

This whole marking thing has got me thinking. How can my second essay be worth a whole one per cent more than the first and the third. How arbitrary is that?. That's the disadvantage of doing the Humanities -there is no real right or wrong answer, it's all down to how you structure your essay and prove your argument. It's also about answering the question. You might think that a trifle obvious, but my first essay of last year - one analysing a passage from Pride and Prejudice (it was my Literature course) - only got me a mark of 55%. I wrote what I thought was quite a good essay but it didn't really relate to the question and I got marked down for that. However, by the end of the course, I managed to get 90% for an essay on a comparison between Henry V and Benn's The Rover.

I'm now well into the current month's block of study - this time about the concept of the sublime. My essay for that block is a compare and contrast exercise between the representation of the sublime in the writings of Edmund Burke and a passage from a long poem of Wordsworth's called The Prelude. It all sounds quite hard going but next month I move on to the origins of the study of chemistry and scientific I am not. I've also begun revision for the exam in June (the 15th in Paris) - at least it won't all be so strange this time. Last year I got myself into a right old state.

Getting nervous about things is such a useless waste of energy when you stop to think about it. Worry will never change the outcome of a situation, in fact it is so debilitating that it is positively harmful. It takes a very well-disciplined mind to push the negative thoughts away however. Let's hope that the Venetian holiday helps me to eliminate the exam nerves.

Connections

Recently I have been reading some of the writings of the Marquis de Sade (that's him on the left) - all in the name of education you understand. Apart from the erotica for which he is famous (actually it's pornography* but the 'e' word makes it sound more classy), he wrote quite a lot of articles about Life, some of which have made it on to my current Open University course. That got me to thinking about sadism - as it would - and it was only a short step from that to begin thinking about masochism. So then of course I had to investigate from whence the word had sprung.

It comes from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch who, amongst many other things, made his mistress Fanny Pistor sign a contract making him her slave for the period of six months, with the stipulation that she wear furs as often as possible, especially when she was in a cruel mood. He actually wrote a short book Venus in Furs based on his love affair with her. Now if that book title sounds familiar to some of you it's probably because of this song, made famous of course by the Velvet Underground, (the band John Cale** used to be in and his is the best ever version of Lenny's song 'Hallelujah' that the whole world now seems to know due to Simon Cowell. I know lots of people prefer Buckley's version but Cale's is the best - fact).

Why is the picture of Marianne Faithfull at the top of this post? She was very lovely then, but that's not the reason. She is Baroness Sacher-Masoch, having inherited the title through the maternal line. I'd vaguely remembered that she had some connection with Hungo-Austrian nobility but of course didn't know that her line stemmed from good old kinky Leopold.

*Now that would make an interesting essay - Discuss the difference between erotica and pornography using examples from words and images of the last 250 years


**Lou Reed was the most famous of the band and Mr Warhol played a big part in their success. I suppose he was the cool version of Simon Cowell.

OU marked paper number two

You might remember that I am sharing with you my continuing attempt to get an Open University BA degree in Humanities? I mean I know you all have busy lives and now Christmas is looming to take up any slack that you may have had, but come on - let me talk about it here. I can't really discuss my marks on the OU students' forum; it's not the done thing to actually say what percentage your monthly marked assignments are receiving.

Last month I was quite pleased with my result and was not very optimistic about how I would do with the second assignment - the 'compare and contrast Napoleonic portrait' one and how his portraits helped legitimise his political regime. Well I just received my mark and I got 82% for it which, quite frankly, really surprised me. I didn't think it was very good but it just goes to prove that you can't really judge your own work.

One thing that happened after I blogged about my two previous essays - putting the questions in full here - was that I could see from my blog tracker how many people ended up on my blog by doing a search for the OU essay question. How disappointed they must (well, might anyway) have been to just find a fellow student and not an idea that might help them with their studies. Some of them even ended up here on the day the essay was due in - talk about last minute panic googling.

So, just to be a bit silly, - and also because some of you might be interested - I'm going to put the next assignment that I am currently working on - and which has to be submitted at the beginning of January:

What did William Wilberforce mean by 'real Christianity' and how did this affect his social and political thinking?

It's not the most exciting study block I've ever had and of course the thing that people always think about Wilberforce is his connection with the anti-slavery movement. It was a lovely surprise, however, to find out that he was also behind the RSPCA movement. So, altogether, a 'good egg' in my book.

Old Sam

Did you know that 'meh' has now made it into Collins English Dictionary. Meaning unimpressed, mediocre, or boring it has beaten other words such as Jargonaut, frenemy and huggles for inclusion into a 30th anniversary edition of the book, due to be published next year.

Whilst experts of classical antiquities fight amongst themselves about the first recorded ancient dictionary, it is Dr Johnson's Dictionary, produced in 1755, that most people think of as the first official one. Dr Johnson (1709 - 1784) lived in Grub Street, yes- the name that symbolises the hack writer was actually a proper street at one time (experts reckon the name 'grub' comes from 'grube, meaning a ditch or drain - Grub Street was just by a major drainage ditch - yuk).

He attended Oxford University for a year but was too poor to continue his studies and, in a state of depression, returned home. He pulled himself together though and when he was 25 fell in love with and married 46 year old Elizabeth (he called her Tetty) Porter. One good thing in a life filled with a lot of debt and depression is that in 1755 he received an honorary degree (an MA) from Oxford University.

Now Sam came up with some quotes that are legendary and here are just a few:

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel

When a man is tired of London he is tired of life

(on second marriages) The triumph of hope over experience

Imagine if you had been at a dinner party and Sam Johnson had been one of the guests - you'd never have got a word in. Meh.

One for Tuesday

Revolutionary fact number three - yes, there's plenty more

Another change to the French calendar in post-Revolutionary times was the renaming of the months. The autumn months were changed to Vendémiaire, Brumaire and Frimaire - harvest, mist and cold. The winter months were changed to Nivose, Pluviose and Ventose - snow, rain and wind.
The spring months became Germinal, Floréal and Prairial -seed time, flowering time and meadow. Finally, the three summer months became Messidor, Thermidor and Fructidor meaning summer harvest, summer heat and summer fruit.

Now the Brits thought this was all a load of bunkum (there's a surprise!) and some bright spark produced a satirical version of these new names, calling them:

Slippy, Nippy, Drippy; Freezy, Wheezy, Sneezy; Showery, Flowery, Bowery; Wheaty, Heaty, Sweety.

Everyone must have been very anxious not to be the one to make a mistake with the new system of hours in a day, days in a week and days in a month, new names for everything. It's hard enough sometimes to remember what day it is, let alone if everything has been completely changed.

However, as ' the secret of being a bore is to tell everything' (Voltaire 1737), I'm going to save the rest for next time.

Revolutionary fact number two

In France in October 1793 it was decided that there would now be a new way of marking the passing of time. A calendar based on a 10 hour day in a 10-day week was introduced, with every month made up of 30 days - the extra days being added on at the end of the year.

How confused everyone must have been and it's no wonder that in 1806 everyone decided they had had enough and reverted to what had been before.

Revolutionary fact number one

I've been reading about the French Revolution and one of the fascinating things I discovered is that the political terms left and right date back to that time, to 1792 to be precise. A fringe group of radicals chose to sit together on the left side of the National Assembly and everyone else crossed the floor to sit on the right. The rest is history.

If only she'd mentioned Chopin just once

My mother was a fascinating woman who left me a real mix of personal treasures. As a young adult she had spent a lot of time living in Paris and her war work had her based there doing things that she never talked about. However years later an American friend of hers told me that she had been involved with the Resistance, something my mother always refused to corroborate. There's nothing more alluring than mystery, don't you think?

Now this picture below is not my mum. She was far prettier than this lady here who is actually someone that most French people - and quite a few others as well - have heard of. It is a picture of Aurore Dupin who was better known as Georges Sand (1804 - 1876). There is so much written about her that I won't tell you very much here. I'll just tell you a few salient facts.

She was a writer and a feminist; if there had been paparazzi around in her time they would have been stationary outside her house snapping the rich and famous that clustered around her. She would sometimes dress as a man and had a string of lovers, both male and female. However, the love of her life was the composer Chopin. Trust me, if you stopped a French person in the street and asked them who George Sand was, they would know.

Now, you ask yourselves, what has this to do with my mother? Well, one of the things she left me (how glad am I that I don't have brothers and sisters) is a letter written by Georges Sand. As I grew up it was always in a frame in the corner of our living room and I took no interest in it. In fact it was only when I went through all my mother's possessions - about 13 years ago now - that I truly looked at this letter. Since I've been in France and have found out a lot more about French culture, and have also started studying times gone by, I now have an idea of just how famous George Sand is. So, I thought, I can sell this letter for vast sums and make a collector happy.

Well, wouldn't you know it. It turns out that this lady-about-town spent a vast amount of her time writing letters. Unless it is written to, or mentions, Chopin or somebody equally famous then the letter just has interest but no monetary value. There are hundreds of these letters out there. My letter, which is on monogrammed notepaper, is just chit-chat about a holiday, although her writing is hard to read.

Oh well. It will be in my box of treasures for someone else to sort out one day.

Madonna's David

Never mind all the trillions of articles that are no doubt being prepared even as you read this, about who is having what. All I want to know is who is going to keep Jacques Louis David's portrait of Napoleon?

This is an example of the great man's work (no, I don't mean Mr Ritchie)


I've been thinking about what you would do if you were lucky enough to own a famous painting. Would you get a copy to keep on display in your home and keep the real thing in a vault somewhere? Would you just decide to put the David in one of your many rooms and hope that word did not get around that there was a valuable painting in your home? Would you ever look at it, really study it, apart from the first few minutes after the dealer delivered it, whilst you decided where it woud be hung?

I suppose that with all the things that this fancy couple own a painting from the time of the Enlightenment would be one of the last things on the agenda for disposal. A painting from the hand of the 'official painter' of the French Revolution, a portrait of Napoleon no less. Oh, I wish it were mine.

I'm a student again

Well, it's that time of the year - the books have taken over the dining room table again. My first marked essay is a choice between an analysis of a piece by Rousseau or dissecting part of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni and discussing how it depicts disguise and deceit through use of the music.

It's been good having a couple of study-free months but it does make it hard to get that old discipline going again. I daren't be in the same room as my little laptop or I'll be forever browsing and not studying.

My next university course

My Open University humanities degree continues in September and I'll be returning to the multi-disciplinary style that I did two years ago. The next course covers the period of history from 1780 - 1830; this is the era known as the Enlightenment and goes through to the Romantic period (nothing to do with romance by the way, it's just a way that historians have of designating certain times with certain names).

I'll be covering people such as Delacroix, William Wilberforce, Mozart, Napoleon, Goethe, Byron, Sir John Soane and events such as the commercialisation of the Lake District and the building of towns such as New Lanark. I've had a look at a previous exam paper and it seems quite doable, so roll on the end of August when I receive my huge sack of books from the UK.

Back to studying

I've just begun an OU course - Introduction to the Humanities - and it's quite good to actually begin to stretch one's brain again. There was an introductory essay we had to do in order that our tutor could gauge our brain power I guess and the subject was on Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

There were three paragraphs whose language we had to analyse and I found it much harder than I expected. I was a bit lazy really and, even though we could write up to 500 words, I submitted just over 250. It was an unmarked project but my tutor told me that if she had been marking it I would only have received a *C*, so I'd better try a bit harder.

There don't seem to be any OU progs on BBC2 these days; you receive a set of DVD's and CD's instead. I've watched two things so far - one on Jackson Pollock's Summertime and the other on the formation of the sonnet. Both very interesting and I didn't know that Pollock used to be known as Jack the Dripper. I'm not really a fan of his style, but seeing the painting analysed did make me start to see the merit it contained.

One thing I've noticed is that in the three and a half years we've lived in France I've begun to lose my grip on English grammar and spelling. French words seem to come to my mind much more often these days. I really ought to develop my French grammar as well. We picked up the rudiments through courses and books and now just coast along with what we know, with much room for improvement.

I hope I report back that my next essay will merit at least a *B* and that I do almost the maximum amount of words. We'll see.