Contents:

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
The Chorale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and "Ode to Joy" by  Friedrich Schiller
Robert Browning Looks at Renaissance Art and Architecture
Excerpt from "The Bishop Orders His Tomb"
Excerpt from "Fra Lippo Lippi"
A Final Note about Humanities

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) and Schiller

 In the 1800s, Germany's Goethe comes closest to being a "Renaissance Man."  Besides writing beautiful poetry, he also wrote novels and plays; he studied scientific matters (a theory of light) and developed comparative anatomy; as Milton was in Cromwellian England, Goethe was a government official.  His plays include Faust, Part I and Faust, Part II.

His novel, The Sorrows of Werther, made suicide quite the popular thing to do since his young protagonist commits suicide at the end.

Goethe can be called "Germany's Shakespeare" and, after Martin Luther, the first German writer embraced by the rest of Europe and the Western world.

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) wrote the poem about Wilhelm Tell, the hero of Switzerland who used his bow and arrow to shoot an apple off the head of his son.  Schiller also wrote "An die Freude"  ("Ode to Joy"), which Beethoven used in the "Ninth Symphony."

When Beethoven and Goethe met a minor German prince, Goethe (the politician) removed his had.  But Beethoven, the fiery Romantic, popped his hat on his head, saying (according to the version), "There are many princes, but only one Beethoven" or "There are many princes, but artists are rare."

"The Chorale" of Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony
and "Ode to Joy" by Friedrich Schiller

 (Baritone Solo Introduction)

(Baritone, Solo, Quartet, and Chorus)

(Tenor Solo and Chorus)

(The first stanza is repeated; then the chorus sings.)

Robert Browning Looks
at Renaissance Art & Architecture

The first piece below shows how some of the deadly sins worked their way into the heart of a churchman.  First, the Bishop had violated the Catholic Church's rules of celibacy by taking a mistress, no doubt swearing falsely to uphold a doctrine.  Second, he showed Envy when he measured his tomb against that of Old Gandolf.  Third, frequently he succumbs to Anger about his rival's success.  Fourth, he probably was experiencing Lust.

The Bishop Orders His Tomb
at Saint Praxed's Church
Rome, 15--.

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed:  Is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews--sons mine. . .ah God, I know not!  Well--
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And then ye may perceive the world's a dream.
Life, how and what is it?  As here I lie
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
"Do I live, and I dead?"  Peace, peace seems all.
Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this tomb of mine.  I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
-- Old Ganfold cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
Peach-blossom marble, all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.
-- Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
Put me where I may look at him!  True peach,
Rosy and flawless:  how I earned the prize!
Draw close:  that conflagration of my church
-- What then?  So much was saved if aught were missed!
My sons, ye would not be my death?  Go dig
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
Drop water gently till the surface sink,
And if ye find. . .Ah God, I know not, I! . . .
Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast. . .
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father's globe on both his hands
Ye worship in the Jesus Church so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Well, go!  I bless ye.  Fewer tapers there,
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
-- Aye, like departing altar-ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers --
Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!

Written in 1844; first published in 1845

KINDNESS OF STRANGERS:  Although the ancient world often "exposed" children to their fates (either death from wild animals or the cold) by simply leaving the babies at, say, a crossroads, people began dropping surplus children by the convents and monasteries of the Catholic church.  The Renaissance painter, Fra Lippo Lippi (or Brother Lippo Lippi), was abandoned by an aunt who could not support him.  Such children belonged to the church for life.  They would supposedly be on "pious paths," even though their own carnal desires might not have bought into the life of a friar.  In the selection below, the city's nightwatchmen have stopped a very intoxicated Fra Lippo Lippi.

 Fra Lippo Lippi

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
You need not clap your torches to my face.
Zooks, what's to blame?  you think you see a monk!
What 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds
And here you catch me at an alley's end
Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?
The Carmine's my cloister:  hunt it up,
Do, -- harry out, if you must show your zeal,
Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole,
And nip each softling of a wee white mouse,
Weke, weke, that's crept up to keep him company!
Aha, you know your betters!  Then you'll take
Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat,
And please to know me likewise.  Who am I?
Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend,
Three streets off -- he's a certain. . .how d'ye call?
Master -- a. . .Cosimo of the Medici,
In the house that caps the corner.  Boh! you were best!
Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged,
How you affected such a gullet's-gripe!
But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves
Pick up a manner nor discredit you:
Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets
And count fair prize what comes into their net?
He's Judas to a title, that man is!
Just such a face!  Why, sir, you make amends.
Lord, I'm not angry!  Bid your hangdogs go
Drink out this quarter-florin to the health
Of the munificent House that harbours me
(And many more beside, lads! more beside!)
And all's come square again.  I'd like his face --
His, elbowing on his comrade in the door
With the pike and lantern -- for the slaves that holds
John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair
With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say)
And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped!
It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk,
A wood-coal or the like?  or you should see!
Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so.
What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down,
You know them and they take you?  like enough!
I saw the proper twinkle in your eye --
"Tell you, I liked your looks at very first.
Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch.
Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands
To roam the town and sing out carnival,
And I've been here three weeks shut within my mew,
A-painting for the great man, saints and saints
And saints again.  I could not paint all night --
Ouf!  I leaned out of window for fresh air.
There came a hurry of feet and little feet,
A sweep of lute-springs, laughs, and whifts of song --
Flower o' the broom,
Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!
Flower o' quince,
I let Lisa go, and what good in life since?
Flower o' the thyme -- and so on.  Round they went.
Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter
Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight -- three slim shapes,
And a face that looked up. . .zooks, sir, flesh and blood,
That's all I'm made of!  Into shreds it went,
Curtain and counterpane and coverlet,
All the bed-furniture -- a dozen knots,
There was a ladder!  Down I let myself,
Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped
And after them.  I came up with the fun
Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met --
Flower o' the rose,
If I've been merry, what matter who knows?
And so as I was stealing back again
To get to bed and have a bit of sleep
Ere I rise up tomorrow and go work
On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast
With his great round stone to subdue the flesh,
You snap me of the sudden.  Ah, I see!
Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head --
Mine's shaved -- a monk, you say -- the sting's in that!
If Master Cosimo announced himself,
Mum's the word naturally; but a monk!
Come, what am I a beast for?  tell us, now!
I was a baby when my mother died
And father died and left me in the street.
I starved there, God knows how, a year or two
On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds, and shucks,
Refuse and rubbish.  One fine frosty day,
My stomach being empty as your hat,
The wind doubled me up and down I went.
Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand
(its fellow was a stinger as I knew)
And so along the wall, over the bridge,
By the straight cut to the convent.  Six words there,
While I stood munching my first bread that month:
"So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father
Wiping his own mouth, 'twas reflection-time --
"To quit this very miserable world?
Will you renounce --" "the mouthful of bread?" thought I;
By no means!  Brief, they made a monk of me;
I did renounce the world, its pride and greed,
Palace, farm, villa, shop and banking-house,
Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici
Have given their hearts to -- all at eight years old.
Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure,
'Twas not for nothing -- the good bellyful,
The warm serge and the rope that goes all around,
And day-long blessed idleness beside!
"Let's see what the urchin's fit for" -- that came next.
Not overmuch their way, I must confess.
Such a to-do!  They tried me with their books:
Lord, they'd have taught me Latin in pure waste!
Flower o' the clove,
All the Latin I construe is, "amo" I love!
But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets
Eight years together, as my fortune was,
Watching folk's faces to know who will fling
The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires,
And who will curse or kick him for his pains --
Which gentleman processional and fine,
Holding a candle to the Sacrament,
Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch
The droppings of the wax to sell again,
Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped --
How say I? -- nay, which dog bites, which lets drop
His bone from the heap of offal in the street --
Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike.
He learns the look of things, and nonetheless
For admonition from the hunger-pinch.
I had such a store of such remarks, be sure,
Which after I found leisure, turned to use.
I drew men's faces on my copy-books,
Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge,
Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes,
Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's,
And made a string of pictures of the world
Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun,
On the wall, the bench, the door.  The monks looked black.
"Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d'ye say?
In no wise.  Lose a crow and catch a lark.
What if at last we get our man of parts,
We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese
And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine
And put the front on it that ought to be!"
And hereupon he bade me daub away.
Thank you!  My head being crammed, the walls a blank,
Never was such prompt disemburdening.
First, every sort of monk, the black and the white,
I drew them, fat and lean; then, folk at church,
From good old gossips waiting to confess
Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends --
To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot,
Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there
With the little children round him in a row
Of admiration, half for his beard and half
For that white anger of his victim's son
Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm,
Signing himself with the other because of Christ
(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this
After the passion of a thousand years)
Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head
(Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve
On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf,
Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers
(The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone.
I painted all, then cried "'Tis ask and have;
Choose, for more's ready!" -- laid the ladder flat,
And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall.
The monks closed in a circle and praised loud
Till checked, taught what to see and not to see,
Being simple bodies -- "That's the very man!
Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog!
That woman's like the Prior's niece who comes
To care about his asthma:  it's the life!"
But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked;
Their betters took their turn to see and say:
The Prior and the learned pulled a face
And stopped all that in no time.  "How?  What's here?
Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all!
Faces, arms, legs and bodies like the true
As much as pea and pea!  It's devil's game!
Your business is not to catch men with show,
With homage to the perishable clay,
But lift them over it, ignore it all,
Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh.
Your business is to paint the souls of men --
Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke. . .no, it's not. . .
It's vapor done up like a new-born babe --
(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth)
It's. . .well, what matters talking, it's the soul!
Give us no more of body than shows soul!
Here's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God,
That sets us praising -- why not stop with him?
Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head
With wonder at lines, colors, and what not?
Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms!
Rub all out, try at it a second time.
Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts,
She's just my niece. . .Herodias, I would say --
Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off!
Have it all out!"  Now, is this sense, I ask?
A fine way to paint soul, by painting body
So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further
And can't fare worse!  Thus, yellow does for white
When what you put for yellow's simply black,
And any sort of meaning looks intense
When all beside itself means and looks naught.
Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn,
Left foot and right foot, go a double step,
Make his flesh liker and his soul more like,
Both in their order?  Take the prettiest face,
The Prior's niece. . .patron-saint -- is it so pretty
You can't discover if it means hope, fear,
Sorrow, or joy?  Won't beauty go with these?
Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue,
Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash,
And then add soul and heighten them threefold?
Or say there's beauty with no soul at all --
(I never saw it -- put the case the same --),
If you get simple beauty and nought else,
You get about the best thing God invents:
That's somewhat:  and you'll find the soul you have missed,
Within yourself, when you return Him thanks.
"Rub all out!"  Well, well, there's my life, in short,
And so the thing has gone on ever since.
You should not take a fellow eight years old
And make him swear to never kiss the girls.
I'm my own master, paint now as I please --
Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house!
Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in front --
Those great rings serve more purposes than just
To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse!
And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes
Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work,
The heads shake still -- "It's art's decline, my son!
You're not of the true painters, great and old;

Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find;
Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer:
Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!"
Flower o' the pine,
You keep your mistr. . .manners, and I'll stick to mine!
I'm not the third, then:  bless us, they must know!
Don't you think they're the likeliest to know,
They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage,
Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint
To please them -- sometimes do and sometimes don't;
For, doing most, they's pretty sure to come
A turn, some warm eye finds me at my saints --
A laugh, a cry, the business of the world --
(Flower o' the peach,
Death for us all, and his own life for each!). . .
 

A final note about humanities

Let's look forward 500 years, past the time of Star Trek's various incarnations, and let's ask ourselves what people will be doing then.  Yes, we will hope that there are still people to do anything.  Perhaps we and succeeding generations will mess up the planet so that millions and billions die out.  Perhaps the largest city will only have a population of 100,000. . .or (more pessimistically) only 25,000.

Okay, close your eyes and let your mind go into that town or city.  What are they doing?  They are working, perhaps at jobs they don't like.  They are raising kids or making them.  They probably are grumbling that the world is going to hell in a hand-cart and that, by golly, they need to get back to the way the people of the year 2000 lived.  They'll be playing some sports, but, culturally, they will also DEFINITELY be doing two things:

·        They will have sons and daughters and men and women who want to act, and they will want to see if they can perform at the highest level, so they will be putting on Romeo & Juliet (certainly) and Hamlet, too, and citizens will be going to see these performances.

·        Other creative individuals will be playing rock ‘n’ roll, country-western, or various types of jazz.  Some musicians will want to see if they can perform at their highest levels, so they will play the symphonies of Beethoven's symphonies, and the citizens will be enjoying the Chorale of “The Ninth Symphony.”

Go to Humanities Ren.-Rom. Densonary, Part 1.
Go to Humanities Ren.-Rom. Densonary, Part 2.
Go to Humanities Ren.-Rom. Densonary, Part 3.
Go to Humanities Ren.-Rom. Densonary, Part 4.

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