ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
An interview with the Christian philosopher, theologian, and apologist.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
SHAKESPEARE AND LATIN
TWELFTH NIGHT PROMO
Imagine our Western tradition as a road with 2000 mile-markers along the way from our present day to the time of Christ. If you know Latin and Shakespeare, all 2000 years of that Christian, linguistic tradition lie before you in one continuous, unbroken path. Take away Shakespeare, your road is 500 miles shorter. Take away Latin, 1500 miles shorter still. Take away both, and your linguistic journey ends 1900 miles short of Christ. That is one reason we study Shakespeare.
Yesterday, the Christian Language Center performed Twelfth Night before a nearly packed house at Damascus Road Church in Marysville, WA. Isaac Hull, our Captain Antonio, delivered his line, "Sebastian, how have you made division of yourself?"to a big laugh (our Sebastian and Viola, while wearing identical outfits, could not, in reality, have looked more different!) He wondered what was so funny about his line and realized, for the first time, that he was not asking Sebastian what he had been doing all the time they had been separated (i.e. what 'diversions' he had been pursuing), but rather how he had made a copy (a 'division') of himself. By performing Shakespeare, what happened with Isaac happened hundreds of other times throughout our semester of practices.
Our students internalized the language of Shakespeare, really understood it, made it a part of themselves, and began to reproduce its vocabulary and rhythms outside of class. A traditional, analytical classroom reading of Shakespeare does not make him a friend in that same what that performing him does. When you listen to Shakespeare, you know that you are in another literary world. When you read Milton or Chaucer or Defoe, you see that their world is the same. They lived in a world permeated by the patterns of Latin language, vocabulary and grammar. That is one reason why their language, although English, seems so foreign to us.
It was my own knowledge of Latin and of Shakespeare (fully developed through performances like this) that finally made texts like Chaucer, Milton, and Shakespeare himself as accessible as J.R.R. Tolkien or Lemony Snicket. If you have worked those complex grammatical patterns of Latin and Shakespeare into the deeper synapses of your brain, when you hear "Sebastian, how have you made division of yourself?" you instantly translate this, with no effort or pain, into "how did you make a copy of yourself." In short, the world of Shakespeare and the literature that precedes our own century no longer offers obstacles and roadblocks, but opens before you and welcomes you on its path. The King James Bible is as accessible and comfortable as as the NIV, and the road to 2000 years of Christian literature stretches out before you. -Joe Klomparens
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL TWELFTH NIGHT PERFORMANCE
Imagine our Western tradition as a road with 2000 mile-markers along the way from our present day to the time of Christ. If you know Latin and Shakespeare, all 2000 years of that Christian, linguistic tradition lie before you in one continuous, unbroken path. Take away Shakespeare, your road is 500 miles shorter. Take away Latin, 1500 miles shorter still. Take away both, and your linguistic journey ends 1900 miles short of Christ. That is one reason we study Shakespeare.
Yesterday, the Christian Language Center performed Twelfth Night before a nearly packed house at Damascus Road Church in Marysville, WA. Isaac Hull, our Captain Antonio, delivered his line, "Sebastian, how have you made division of yourself?"to a big laugh (our Sebastian and Viola, while wearing identical outfits, could not, in reality, have looked more different!) He wondered what was so funny about his line and realized, for the first time, that he was not asking Sebastian what he had been doing all the time they had been separated (i.e. what 'diversions' he had been pursuing), but rather how he had made a copy (a 'division') of himself. By performing Shakespeare, what happened with Isaac happened hundreds of other times throughout our semester of practices.
Our students internalized the language of Shakespeare, really understood it, made it a part of themselves, and began to reproduce its vocabulary and rhythms outside of class. A traditional, analytical classroom reading of Shakespeare does not make him a friend in that same what that performing him does. When you listen to Shakespeare, you know that you are in another literary world. When you read Milton or Chaucer or Defoe, you see that their world is the same. They lived in a world permeated by the patterns of Latin language, vocabulary and grammar. That is one reason why their language, although English, seems so foreign to us.
It was my own knowledge of Latin and of Shakespeare (fully developed through performances like this) that finally made texts like Chaucer, Milton, and Shakespeare himself as accessible as J.R.R. Tolkien or Lemony Snicket. If you have worked those complex grammatical patterns of Latin and Shakespeare into the deeper synapses of your brain, when you hear "Sebastian, how have you made division of yourself?" you instantly translate this, with no effort or pain, into "how did you make a copy of yourself." In short, the world of Shakespeare and the literature that precedes our own century no longer offers obstacles and roadblocks, but opens before you and welcomes you on its path. The King James Bible is as accessible and comfortable as as the NIV, and the road to 2000 years of Christian literature stretches out before you. -Joe Klomparens
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL TWELFTH NIGHT PERFORMANCE
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